One can't explain the craziness that I experience during the annual fall Lake Ontario salmon run. I don't know if its the acrobatic aerial displays that the fish put on or the screaming of my fly reel. It could possibly be the fight, oh the biggest fight felt from any game fish in the WNY area. This year has been no different. The salmon started entering the Lake Ontario tributaries in the beginning of September and have really started coming upstream now that the evening temperatures have started to drop. We have been seriously filling our sickness, I mean addiction to these beautiful fish for two weeks now. Lots of hook ups, lots of broken lines and leaders, and one straightened hook have paid off a couple of times when team GTO has had the pleasure of not only landing the salmon, but and early run beautiful brown trout. While we have mostly fished locally, 18 mile creek or oak orchard, this coming week we will be traveling to the world class east coast fishery known as the Salmon River in Pulaski NY. Reports coming in say we will be hitting the Salmon and the Oswego rivers in the peak of the season. Lots of Chinook, Browns, and Steelhead are being reported throughout the river. Telling this to a salmon addict is like dangling smack in front of a crackhead. Everything I do I cannot focus on, all I think about is throbbing in my forearms as my fly reel screams with line tearing off into the backing. The long drawn out fight and finally if I'm lucky grabbing that huge trophy from the net, twenty pounds plus of muscle that just fulfilled my salmon addiction.
I'll try to get serious about this blog and post regularly again. My partner in GTO, Josh, has also agreed to contribute to the blogosphere. Stay tuned for more stories as we get into our busy season hunting, fishing, and grilling the outdoors. Until then here's a couple picks of some nice fish we've gotten this week in the WNYarea.
Thanks,
Billy
