Salmon River, North Sandy Creek Steelhead and Browns at 1800 CFS and 375 CFS

Mark Applegit with his first fish of the week, which hit a spinner early in the game on Sunday. Mark Applegit photo.

Brush with Death

Mark Licht’s emergency stent surgery kept him in the hospital from Wednesday the 12th into Friday the 14th. On Sunday the 16th, he fished—as planned—New York’s Salmon River along with his friend Mark Applegit and yours truly. I had felt his quick recovery surprising, but what do I know about medicine? In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, his blood pressure was 198/118. He had felt tightness in his chest and numbness in his left arm on the way to work, and when he got there, he called 911.

Mark Applegit and Mark Licht have been coming up here mid-November for years. I’m the newcomer. It’s been a decade since I’ve fished the Pulaski region. Applegit runs the Facebook Salmon River Fishing Reports and Mark Licht does things like buying a drift boat with a friend, which wasn’t in order soon enough for this trip. Yours truly blogs.

I never noticed the wind when I began fishing Sunday afternoon, except for the chill on my hands. At about 35 degrees F, intermittent snow falling, the cold that wind carried had me toting along a pair of gloves. I didn’t fish very long before dusk came on. Mark Applegit had got there hours before Mark L. and me, and he had caught the steelhead on a spinner. Mark Licht put in a better effort before dark than I did, but got not a single hit.

This is the Salmon River at Pulaski, just above Town Pool. It’s how I found it Sunday afternoon. Since Trout Brook and Orwell Brook empty into the river upstream—they had swollen from heavy rain—the amount of flow measured in cubic feet per second (CFS) bore down towards Lake Ontario considerably higher than at the dam of Lighthouse Hill Reservoir, where the release remained at 1800 CFS through all four days of our fishing. Even on Sunday at Pulaski, the water’s brown tint belied how clear it really was, however.

Getting Ready

For dinner that first night, we drove into Pulaski from Eddie’s Lodge and Port Ontario, eating at LD’s on the River, a diner where I ate with my son, my brother Rick, my nephew, and family friend Dennis while wearing waders more than a decade ago. No Korkers or cleats!

Early the next morning, we awakened, dressed, fixed breakfast.

Downstairs, I put my camera in my car near where I found Mark Licht fiddling with stuff in his SUV. “Bruce,” he said, “you can can use this rod if you want.”

“Thanks, I might need that.” I had a look at a spinning rod about seven-and-a-half-feet long.

I had felt urges when I packed to bring my noodle rod, but it’s 11 feet long and whippy. The rod mark gave me would handle a plug, and, I would learn, prove to be good for bottom bouncing. My plan had been to fly fish, but I brought my five-and-a-half-foot St. Croix as if I might encounter need of throwing a plug. I had little idea such high water would confront us.

Back upstairs, Mark told me, “We put on our waders here.”

“Not a bad idea given how cold it is,” I said.

We had kept them overnight downstairs in the vestibule, where we put them on. Eddie’s Lodge even provides wader warmers.

Big Sandy, Altmar, and Down Below

Each of us took our own vehicle. We tried Big Sandy Creek for about a half hour, the water very much off color, Mark Applegit throwing the Blue Fox spinner with the quasi-Colorado blade—certainly enough to produce strong vibrations—by which he scored the day before. I had begun by throwing a Bomber Long A, when I realized I didn’t have a prayer using that Garcia Cardinal reel with the low capacity spool. Mark’s rod and reel loaded with 12 pound test is all I needed. Since the mono on that reel is high visibility orange, once we got away from the dingy water of Sandy Creek, I simply tied in a 12-pound-test fluorocarbon leader, nearly invisible.

“Steelhead don’t bite in muddy water,” Mark Applegit said. We headed for Altmar.

On the way to Altmar from Big Sandy Creek north of Port Ontario, we drove into snow and roads sanded and salted. Snow came and went all morning, accumulating to about an inch-and-a-half.

Altmar gets a lot of pressure. Even drift boats launched on the other side of the bridge anchor and fish the tailout of the pool.

There we found high but clear water. I’ve fished Altmar numerous times in the past, and I’m used to seeing a pool to the right of the photo above, with a distinct V-pattern tailout. On Monday, so much water flowed out of the Lighthouse Reservoir upstream that it just ran over the whole pool and tailout formation.

I felt a little put off at how crowded the bridge area, and followed Mark A. and Mark L. about a quarter mile downstream. I threw the Bomber, when I realized I had left my fishing license in my car. On my vest, which I didn’t wear. So I went back, got it, and decided to fish the bridge pool after all.

That’s where I slowly absorbed an education. I had bought salmon egg flies at Fat Nancy’s when I had got off Interstate 81 Sunday. My plan was to fish salmon egg patterns on my seven-weight St. Croix Avid fly rod, but by listening to what a fellow steelheader told me, I realized fly rodding isn’t practicable in water high like this, though bottom bouncing beads, egg sacks…egg flies…with a spinning rod works. Fly rodders are limited by law to an eighth of an ounce for weight—the way my son and I had caught steelhead 10 years ago when the river flowed at a normal level—when what’s needed is 3/8ths and more to bump bottom in such heavy current.

Trying Old Spots

Feeling confident in the possibility of hooking something, I drove downstream to the Trestle Pool, to Pineville, and wound up at the Black Hole just downstream of Pulaski, where my son, Matt, and I caught salmon in 2010. I felt similarly as I had when fishing the Paulinskill River recently, driving from spot to spot. And just below the Black Hole, I had waded into the Douglaston Salmon Run with Matt and our guide, Nate Adam, in November 2015. We had arranged for our passes and I generously tipped Nate for an unforgettable day. On that quest, Matt caught the only steelhead the river walker reported that morning, on an estaz fly and eight-weight fly rod, a fish of five or six pounds.

I got the news from Mark Licht that he had lost one, and Mark Applegit caught one on a bead. The fishing was tough for everyone else we ran into, also, but not impossible.

Mark Applegit left the crowd on Monday to tempt a steelhead to hit a floated bead. Mark Applegit photo.

Finding Our Way Into the Next Day

That night we ate at an unforgettable restaurant, Tatter Town. Mark Applegit ate a Philly cheesesteak served inside an immense potato. And when I say Mark Licht and I got turkey dinners, I mean big turkey dinners. Served on huge potatoes.

The next day would be the most interesting for me, though in the morning, it didn’t seem like it would be. Mark A. and Mark L. left ahead of me for a drift boat float with Let-It-Fly. In the meantime, I didn’t get right out of bed. I’ve been reading Christine Woodside’s Going Over the Mountain, involved in the book like I haven’t been involved in a book since I can remember. A book about hiking from Georgia to Maine, though not entirely about the Appalachian Trail, which makes it even more interesting. Nearly a decade of having time to read books only on breaks while working at a supermarket will certainly cut anyone short, but I’m patient. Now that I hold no job, I’ll get involved in more books yet.

I felt like taking my time as I fixed coffee, and that time carried a slow pace. I felt deeply pessimistic about the high water. Still at 1800 CFS at the dam, obviously the rain had filled the reservoir with water the officials needed to get rid of.

Mark A. had spoken of using anise scent on his beads. So, on the way to the river, I stopped at All Seasons Sports. I got Pautzke Fire Gel, anise scent.

Pineville

Dabbing my fly with the gel and finding it will stay on a fly, I fished at Pineville, where I became conscious of the fact that the heavy current just rips through at a uniform pace. Where are the steelhead going to be in all that open space of water? All the way across the river along the island a seam exists near the bank, and my casts reached it, though nothing happened. Nothing, including that I didn’t get snagged, surprisingly. The split shots clipped rocks on bottom, too, so I bottom bounced that edge.

Immediately below the island, a slick of slow water interested me, complete with seamy edges. I realized I had to choose. I would either walk around and over the bridge and go down there and wade out to were I could cast those edges—or go back to Altmar where I’d enjoy the company congregated at the bridge pool. I further understood that Mark Licht had fished those seamy edges thoroughly on Sunday for nothing.

I went to Altmar.

The Bridge Pool

I hadn’t thought of the possibility consciously, but having company wouldn’t just be comforting against the formidable challenge this day posed; learning from them would make the difference that day made. I went there ready to begin fishing the way I had learned the day before, but something else would seal the deal.

A number of salmon had been hooked and lost, and I witnessed two gain the main current and break off. I went after someone else’s fish hooked on light tackle, a steelhead I could see weighed maybe three-and-a-half pounds as it headed downstream. We followed. Him with his rod, me with my huge salmon net. I parted brush and tried successfully not to trip on rocks. I had two pairs of Korkers in my trunk—where they offered me no help now! I kept my net out in front of me, and on several occasions put it into the river, only to witness the steelhead gain many yards. Finally, the fish tailed in the current, the head kind of bunching under and then over at the surface, and I lunged forward with my net. We had a catch!

Casting and drifting, casting and drifting—a catch clearly possible. I had gone from deep doubt at Pineville to being in the flow of experience, and my upper back didn’t pain me at all. I felt, at one point, that the hours wafted by as freely as the clouds parted to allow in some sunlight, and I remembered the peace and freedom of fishing Bahia Honda with my son in 2012. I had never felt more free during the decades I held a job than when fishing snappers and groupers there.

I got a cast near a far bridge pillar, when the guy next to me said, “That’s where the steelhead are,” and I took him at his word. That would make the day for me. I kept putting my fly right on “the spot” when I felt a jarring strike at the end of a drift. Could that have been a rock? I didn’t think so.

I don’t know how much longer it took, but this time when the fish hit, it was immediately on and ploughing upstream, a big fish that had its own way with my tackle. I wasn’t leading it, but since it went upstream, not down into that awful current leading into an intense sluiceway and around the bend for hundreds of yards, I felt confident I could muscle the fish over to the net where I stood.

Fat chance.

Ten years ago, I caught a 24-inch steelhead from the V of the pool’s tailout, when the flow was normal, and yet even then that sluiceway still presented the danger of losing the fish. I hooked it on either four- or six-pound-test tippet, the fly rod a six-weight, and I managed to muscle that fish to the net. Whatever I hooked on Tuesday—possibly a brown—was a much bigger fish. I used 12-pound-test and a spinning rod with backbone.

The drag screeched as the fish powered against my resistance, powered on upstream under the bridge, and then it turned and headed for the fast water. I either couldn’t or didn’t turn it, and I began following around the brush to my right, but its speed increased. Finally, it gained that awful sluiceway of current with waves leaping three feet high from the current’s pressure, and I knew it was all over. In the next moment, the 12-pound test broke.

Afterwards, I thought repeatedly of the 20 1/2-inch, 3.85-pound rainbow I caught recently in the South Branch Raritan, which put up a tussle on an ultralight and four-pound-test line, though it never ran with the indefatigable strength that carried the steelhead ever forward…never to come back.

On Tuesday from the drift boat, Mark Applegit caught two steelhead, the other one very small. Mark Applegit photo.

North Sandy

Mark L. And Mark A. fished all day Tuesday from the Let-It-Fly drift boat, Mark A. catching a couple steelhead on beads, and Mark L. losing one on a plug. The next morning, they were out the door early to fish Big Sandy Creek. I drove back to Altmar, but decided I might as well get back home to Bedminster early, rather than attempt to fish that current with a fly rod and an eighth-ounce split shot. I would need at least three times that weight to bounce bottom. I had left Mark’s spinning rod behind. Now that I’m home and writing this post, I’ve been informed that the limitation to an eighth-ounce split shot applies only in the fly fishing section upstream of the Altmar bridge. Before I visit the Salmon River again next year, I will do more studying of the rules and regulations yet.

Big Sandy had fallen from 500 CFS to 350 CFS, from what I had heard Tuesday night. Mark L. told me Wednesday that the water had cleared, but they got a tip from someone to try North Sandy, which was 375 CFS and clear. These are smaller streams than the Salmon River, so they flowed on the high side but had come down, whereas the Lighthouse Dam continued to release at 1800 CFS.

Mark Licht with his North Sandy steelhead, the first he’s caught on his centerpin outfit. Mark Licht photo.

That lowering of stream level and clarity made all the difference, as both Mark L. and Mark A. caught fish. They put in a solid day of exploration, bushwhacking where no trails led them, and they found fish. On this day, it was Mark’s turn to catch a couple little steelhead besides his respectable fish. Mark caught a nice steelhead and a nice brown trout.

Mark Applegit’s North Sandy Creek steelhead. Mark Applegit photo.

Mark Applegit’s North Sandy Creek brown trout. Nice fish to finish a series of the photos on. Mark Applegit photo.

The biggest thrill of the day came to Mark L., when he hooked and fought a big brown trout in the creek. He got a good look at the fish, which had a deeply yellow belly, and he knew it must weigh over 10 pounds. He stood on a high bank over the water, and before he could figure out how to get that fish to net, the line broke.

“It was the biggest brown I’ve hooked in my life,” he told me.