10/5 Report

We went down below pineville pool>between Ace.. Nobody was there and had water to ourselves.. Problem , fish were just moving through and way uninterested in anything at all. Didn't find any trout to play either there.. Stuck it out until about 10am then up river we went..

Can you say ZOO from Pineville up, OMG, LFZ was a complete circus.. Farther Up we go.. Parking along Paradise was a good 25+ vehicles.. Keep going !
Pulled into the real UFZ lot and unbelievable there were 4 cars.. Walked down to water and as pa said there was lots of room to play if one wanted but I'm sure things will change..
Fished around there, my friend had 1 salmon on and I was doing my best not to.. I had 2 steelhead & 1 brown on in the FAST water, zippp , see ya ! I was a fool for even thinking I could land fish in that water.. Friend ended up taking a dip while playing with the king so we bailed from there.. Back down river to the Bridge to look for WaDerboy or pa at noon.. Nobody home..

The water below was just filled both sides with salmon so we grabbed the rods and against my better judgment joined the circus.. And circus it was.. That's putting it mildly..
After about an hr I couldn't take any more and sat in the Bar for a few drinks.. Funny, nobody there and it was relaxing..
I get my courage up to walk back to the show but spent my time standing on the bridge with rod in hand being asked why I wasn't fishing..

Hours past and the lfz started clearing out, down I go.. Met a real nice guy who is local to me so we got along great.. I "Hooked" 4 salmon in there, yes lined,lifted,snagged or what ever but they sure didn't strike.. There were so many fish in there I'd say 99.9% were lined by everybody hooking fish..

Had enough and walked under the bridge to see how my friend was doing, NOTHING doing.. He tried everything under the sun to "catch" one and could not even line a fish .
Some guy below him was putting on a clinic, yea a clothesline clinic.. Now It's almost dark and he's ready to leave with his 3 fish.. My friend explains he has been trying to "catch" one all day to bring a filet home to his dad .. Guy was very nice , gave him a salmon..
Friend asks what's the secret ? Answer: LONG (spey) rod, light tipped for a better ,longer sweep..
Good advice huh ? Makes you just want to go buy one..

So that was a Rap..

Lots of fish around and people too..


It's FULL blown Salmon season and WaDer said it best something like: Should ended the season sept 18 th..
Yes better days ahead but not for another 2 weeks or so..

Keep workin Fichy, You aint missin a thing !! Think of your 80 something adventure.. Today was mine..

straight up & honest report HT

made me visualize your utter horror and frustration for fishing during the height of the "SUCKER SEASON".

at least you got a few drinks to soothe your pain.

Tuna I was pretty shocked myself when I heard you were going up.... I assume you went mostly for your friend.... sooner than later the zoo will be gone...

Yea RT, it was a non fishing experience for sure.

db, yup went with friend trying to "fish" and harvest a fish without going to dsr. As I have said many times here I only salmon fished in dsr.. Now I remember why and won't make the same mistake again.. It will be there or no where.. Right now I can deal with one or 2 trips there per SS but if they increase the price again my salmon days are DONE !! Hint to DSR, keep it well, reasonable ..

PA, We fished unmolested fish in UFZ, I mean nobody around us.. The salmon were not on redds where we were and not striking with any means of consistency , lining them would have been easy as no one was spooking them.. Folks we did see up there were in frog water or bowling and were cloths lining them pretty easily.. They were having the time of their lives and heard one guy say "it't don't get any better then this" ..
My Friend found 1 out of 100 players.. I was drifting an egg pattern over the salmon (high sticking until over them) then drop behind them to find willing trout until they got stung & wised up.. Was using 8 & 10# tippet for them.. Got hits on both until again stung fish turned to lock jaw.

WB:
we rolled into Pineville lot at 6:30 with about 10 cars: Left at 10am with about 30 ? there..
Most were fishing the first bend below pville (shallow shoal) or upstream of the lot.. We were at an in between area below the first bend and Ace.. Seemed no one else liked that spot.. I did but fish were just swimming through not holding at all, very few pockets ..

Drake, yup honest report as I have not been up river during sucker season in about 25 years..

Bottom line ?
I guess it was fun but kind of crazy and left me wondering what the hell I was thinkin..
Don't like crowds at all and walking to avoid them up there was not going to happen..
At least dsr has a limit on crowd control..
The Church pool (lfz) was very crowded to me so we just kept going past..
Trying to give advise to others fishing free water during a time like this would be pretty useless as my experience in that area is minimal at best.. I guess I'll leave that to folks with better knowledge from now on..

Lastly:
db, I think it will be later then sooner with the salmon taking their time coming in.. Sure there are lots of fish already but until it gets much colder and or lots of rain to raise the water, the bears will take their time hibernating too.. We'll see, I'm going to be fishing the entire week of Oct 24th..

ORIGINAL: retired guy

Tuna-
Was a little surprised at my experiences in the Zones recently. As a 'new' fly guy trying to get over my affliction with flossing Kings all the time I got a little surprised that the Zones were a King flossers hangout far too often.
Always knew that was what the deal was in LFZ- heck did it myself there for years- but thought the upper was different- it aint.
No stone throwin here - just thought it was different.
Have yet to bite the fiscal bullet and go to DSR but agree that its the place to be.

BTW- We really have no complaint whatsoever here- they created the fishery in most part as an economic stimulus for the region. This is it.

agree on all RT, no complaints except well, dsr is pricing many folks out, myself included but thats here nor there .. No sense complaining, that really is what it is..

In all honesty, 2 years ago I gave up guiding salmon for somewhat the above reason.. Economic down turn limited my clients and affording the season pass along with trip expense just was not affordable any longer..
I'm TRUE-BLUE trout fisher so it does not matter how the business end works out I'll still go Steel-Trout fishing on the tribs..

I owe you all a response to my If Steel were Salmon ..

Wow- so are you done now, again? Hehehe

ORIGINAL: waDerboy

Yes!

Me too !!
I guess the words Freedom Isn't really Free ..
Brookies BEWARE !!!!

Do you know where the big oak tree is that over hangs on the south shore along the steep bank halfway between pville bend and Ace ? I was fishing North shore and Nobody even remotly near the time we spent there 6:30 am >9:45am .. There was a trout as always is under the oak but not willing as never is.. Salmon were moving through that water the entire time we were there but unless they are backed & stacked nothing really to hold them.. The few pockets below and above still did not stop them.. We waited in hopes of the sun hitting the water would hold them up but that section takes a good amount of time for sun to clear the trees.. I'd say latter (sun) is better..

good luck if you go..

P.S.
Drift boat was fishing upstream bend (shoal) from shore.. 2 man Pontoon boat came and fished just below the shoal (from boat) casting to south shore but well above us..

HT- only 8 days left to chase Brookies.

And there's that myth about establishment of the fishery as an economic booster. I known it seems like DEC stands for Department of Environmental Commerce a lot of the time, but the fishery was establsihed for alewife control, with the thought of also creating/recreating the offshore Lake fishery. If it had not been for the contaminants, ditch fishing may have been verbotin, and the returning salmon would have ended up in catfood cans. I know this is ancient history (I was in college when a lot of it happened, and I'm approaching retirement (the same way a horse approaches a carrot on a stick!)), but that was the original plan. Too many old folks back then were eating catfood so there was a risk from the contaminants (retirees can't afford catfood anymore!), so the cannery idea was scrapped.

L13

ORIGINAL: waDerboy

Well not the good canned cat food, but I'm loading up on the dry stuff.

whatever you do makez surez you vacuum pack the catnip

2011 report on a weds...
Make sence ?