Winter Steelhead Fishing

The captain and I had a chance to take the Dirty oar for a float down the Salmon River last weekend and the fishing was spectacular! We were fortunate to catch a perfect weather day, 40 degrees, light winds and scattered clouds. With the weather forecasted to be near perfect for February in Upstate New York, we decided to wait until about 10:30 to launch, letting the hordes of guides and other weekend warriors make their way down river before we got there. When we arrived at the launch we were greeted with a fair number of fishermen on the river, nothing like October salmon season, but crowded none the less. After dropping the boat in we floated a short way down stream from Altmar and dropped anchor along a nice looking pocket of water still well above the Schoolhouse Pool.

To say we made a great choice to start would be an understatement. On his second cast the Captain hooked his first fish, a smallish steelhead which put up a nice fight. Then a couple of casts later he hooked and lost another nice fish. While he was regrouping from losing his fish, I hooked into a nice 7-8 pound Steelhead that put up a great fight and was brought to net after a 5-10 minute fight. We had identified the pocket water we chose to fish during the Fall salmon run, a nice stretch of deep water along the bank that offered some shelter and nice current. Steelhead, unlike salmon, tend to like faster pocket water to hide in, often ambushing baits in places many fishermen overlook. We were pretty sure that the fishermen who had traveled down the river before us had overlooked this spot and we were rewarded with fish that were active and hungry! It's worth noting that you don't necessarily have to fish the deep pools to catch Steelhead as they are opportunists looking for any place to have a sheltered break from the current, often choosing to hide behind an overturned rock or along trees and other bank structures. We believe if water looks fishy give it a couple of drifts. So many times in the past and during last weekend we were rewarded for fishing water that is often considered outside of fishable by many anglers.

In terms of tackle, we were using the float fishing method. We used slip bobbers on a 10 pound floating mainline, with 6 pound fluorocarbon leader tipped with either a hard plastic bead or a spawn sack. I was successful with the blue egg sackon a #6 octopus hook that is ubiquitous to the Salmon River, and the Captain had his fish on a faded orange hard plastic bead above a #10 octopus hook. I used a 13' St. Croix Avid series drift rod with a Pflueger spinning reel, with the Captain had a 10'6" Lamiglas with the same reel. The winter pattern is locked in right now, as the water is in the 32 degree range, which makes covering as much water as possible a necessity because these fish, while not wildly active, are still actively feeding and willing to bite!

That's all for now, look for more blog posts in the near future, and should you have any questions related to catching fish along Lake Ontario please reach out to us and we'll be more than happy to help out. Also, if you see us on the river, the boat now has "The Dirty Oar" on both sides, say hello! We look forward to meeting new fishermen and will be happy to provide insights and tips to help you catch more fish!

Tight lines!

David