well tues wasn't

 Very doubtful  your next report will wear stripes.  In a way, I'm glad I can't make  it out  for another week and change, this transition time  might not be very productive for me either.  How was the traffic on the river?
 
Charlie

I like open spaces.. A skunk every now and then ain't such a bad thing either..

I really don't like taking all those tomato juice baths.  It was not a lack of fish either, I saw 6 steelheads in the course of the afternoon, including one that jumped 7 times as if hooked, then disapperaed when I got down to where it was frolicking to try a few casts to her.  Maybe it was the dropping temperatures on Tuesday, or what I'm thinking is that there are still so many kings around that there is little space for a trout to hold without getting attacked by male salmon, so they don't drop into spots to hold and start feeding.  One big male rainbow that was headed downstream had a chinook mouth size chunk out of his back.   And mid October has always been a crap shoot for chrome, but when you hit the jackpot, the payoff is the most active jumpy fish of the season.  At least I got the stripes off the season last Saturday with a beautiful hen on a streamer in the Genesee, and as I'm only 10 minutes away from there, I'll get down for a couple of hours any day that I can, even when responsibilities keep me from traveling to the clear water up on the east endf of the lake.
Enjoy the remaining warmth, November is right around the corner.
 
L13   

so where and why do you think steelhead moving thru the dsr decide to stop going upriver in oct.
i get that they will be packed tighter in the dsr at this time but can't think of what would stop them from moving further up.

Bobslee, when i say lower river i dont necessarily mean dsr only. I typically refer to the lower river as through town and above to around the clam shed... as foor steelhead staying low??? Surprisingly enough, most years i always witness a fair amount of natural repro in the lower stretches..this year was quite abundant... i would assume that a steelheads mindset is not programmed to just run the river entirely so early as they do not have spawn on their mind yet and at the same time there is plenty of egg, goo, and flesh in the lower end that they feel no reason to seek other lies... also, salmon are dominent and the trout naturally stay back from them... i guess theres many different reasons why they may do this. I often wonder if the steelbows ever go back and forth from the river to lake as it has been recorded that coastal rainbows in kamchatka waters do this... all in all, its just a great fishery...bottom line... we can try our best to figure out how and why but it seems to always vary slightly and never be the same...tight lines and hopefully your next outting will have a little more action

I dont recall ever saying that there were NO trout mid/upper river... did i ??? I do recall saying that MORE trout seem to be MORE abundant in the lower river (not just dsr) in the month of october.

you did say this didn't you.

dimebrite 
in my experience through the years, steelhead was always a lower river game for the most part in october...as it is so far this year

so no, you never used those exact words.

Dime-
 
While they may bite more actively, I've always found that the runs and jumps are more aggressive whent he water is in the 50's.  I still fish through the winter some years, but I find that the fish are more  logy than these early chromers (when you can  get attached!).  I always looked at the lower river as from Jefferson Street down, and there is just the stairs and the long run and the black hole and tail in there.  We looked at some of that on Tuesday but it was still more crowded than where we ended up.  If I can get away next weekend I'll drop you a PM, I'm chained at work all week for the next three, and I have to put new shoes on the truck, as the slow leak I developed up in the Moose River Plains back in September is starting to speed up.
 
L13

HT-
 
Enjoy the time, and good luck!  WIsh I was there!
 
L13

P.s.
Forgot to add.
I broke my first ever rod yesterday , it was large and very metal.
I'm heading back out for revenge now

Had bout 4 trips up since my last report-fished mainly upper and upper mid river.  As has been described by others it was slow- Think Bear said it best a coupla weeks ago ' what a difference a week makes".
 Seem that as soon a the big King runs stopped things slowed considerably. Frankly was very surprised at the Ho and Steel numbers up top. Just didnt seem to be what they have been in the past few years at this time.
 That said Steel down low are reported to be excellent --would rather get one or two fishing alone up top as opposed to the shoulder to shoulder fiasco.
    Am VERY disappointed to see so many liners and lifters in  lower choke points targeting Steel.
  Soon they will all go home and we can FISH. Leaf hatch will be over and that helps a lot too.
 Have seen very few Hos up above- some steel and even some fresh Kings here and there- just not as many as in the past- --gotta wonder bout those low down choke points and what affect they are having.

This is a cut and paste so I take no credit  as of 10/18/12
 
 
ELOSTA had its monthly meeting at the hatchery last evening and some of the guys from the DEC joined us for a little Q and A on the current state of the hatchery situation. Here are some of the numbers and they are current as of 830pm last night. I would like to thank Andy Groulik (hatchery manager) for the numbers.

2.5 million Chinook eggs have been taken so far. Target is between 3.5 and 4 million They have spawed 2800 chinoooks to get to that number. The stocking projection is 1.75 million so they have enough they just would like to collect there buffer.

1.25 million Coho salmon eggs have been taken. They will have no problem getting the coho eggs. 3200 cohos have been spawed to get to that number.

The Chinook egg situation is a little funny. One would think with all the fish this year it would be no problem getting eggs but Andy told us that the fish are really only trickling into the hatchery on a daily basis. There are more then enough males showing up but they are lacking the females. They think that that because of the low water fisherman have been able to target the larger females more easily. They do think they will hit there target of eggs it may just take a little more effort then a weeks time. They have opened the fish ladder in Dexter and are currently looking to take eggs from the Black river fish. They got about 208,000 eggs out of the black river just yesterday. Also a little side note Canada is having zero issues getting there salmon eggs also the river to there Chinook hatchery is totally closed to fishing.

After all is said and done they will have about 76,000 cohos to release. That is what is left after all the issues last fall with eye up. As far as the current BT stocking predictions they cant nail that down yet as we will have to wait and see in the spring but stocking will be down significantly. The Rome die off really made things worse. The regional fishery managers will meet to discuss where those BTs will get stocked. My OWN OPINION does eastern lake Erie really need BTs, do you guys really target them? Just asking dont shoot the messanger.

ON a positive note the have extra steelhead about a few 100,000 that they will be able to stock.

As far as the water flow issue they feel like they did a better job this year holding the base flow at 185 till they needed the water vs 2007 were they had it as low as a 100. I agree seemed they learned from there mistake. As far as the natural spawn they are attributing this years great run of naturals to not having river flows over 2000cfs during those year class years.

That was a real quick over view of what I wrote down last evening if you guys have anymore questions please chime in and I will see if I have the answer if not I can send out an email and get it for you. They are going to let me know when the process is complete and I can pass that along.
 

Thanks, alot of info there.

Great Post Clint, thanks for keying us in!
 
L13