12-10-2004, 08:15 PM
It looks as if there is no end in sight to the 1600+cfs the power company has been running, with runoff at pineville it's at 2000cfs. It continues to rain and/or snow adding to the flow of the run off. The river is fishable but just barely. Your best bets are the upper river before all the side feeders adding to the flow. Also some of the smaller tribs, on the upper ends are probably as ideal as you'll get- bows' and browns should be at peek spawn right now.
A few weeks ago we were complaining about beating down the river, hitting every rock- the low water sucks -bla, bla, bla. Careful what you wish for.... now we have more water than we needed. I rather the water be like it is now- we have more options- where to fish and methods- like plugging, high water really improves lure action and make fish less spooky = more aggressive.
Over all fishing on the Salmon River has been on the slow side. Although some days have been great, only to be followed by several slow ones. Even on slower days we manage to catch a few and we usually lose a few more. The steelhead have been running large this year with more fish over 10 pounds then under. A few smaller browns have been taken in the 4-7 pound class. Some of the western creeks are producing well for late season browns, rainbows and steelheads- water flows are perfect out there.
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A few weeks ago we were complaining about beating down the river, hitting every rock- the low water sucks -bla, bla, bla. Careful what you wish for.... now we have more water than we needed. I rather the water be like it is now- we have more options- where to fish and methods- like plugging, high water really improves lure action and make fish less spooky = more aggressive.
Over all fishing on the Salmon River has been on the slow side. Although some days have been great, only to be followed by several slow ones. Even on slower days we manage to catch a few and we usually lose a few more. The steelhead have been running large this year with more fish over 10 pounds then under. A few smaller browns have been taken in the 4-7 pound class. Some of the western creeks are producing well for late season browns, rainbows and steelheads- water flows are perfect out there.
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