Salmon River, Oswego County, NY, 8/21/26

[jifigz]

Hear me out here, fellas, and maybe I'm just sensitive, but.... When I look at vids of the Salmon River and I see all those people crowded around the holes harassing the fish, I feel pretty damn bad for the fish. It's just not..... sporting. Hell, it's borderline animal abuse I feel. They're just trying to spawn, and people are chucking **** at em constantly and from all directions.

 

[C3Addict]

You are correct jifigz, the salmon run is a zoo, the steelhead run is much more subdued and plenty of room to find fishing spots.

About 15 years ago you could use weighted treble hooks and snag them. The river was full of drunken idiots slinging many oz’s of weight from bank to bank, many people hit, many fights . The State finally outlawed snagging now it’s called flossing.😂

Not to mention the 80lb test break offs all over the river…..that’s stuff will trip you up faster than anything.

 

[rustbeltwilds]

Its a modern day sodom and gomorrah up there during salmon season...the farthest thing from sport fishing

 

[TimMurphy]

Hear me out here, fellas, and maybe I'm just sensitive, but.... When I look at vids of the Salmon River and I see all those people crowded around the holes harassing the fish, I feel pretty damn bad for the fish. It's just not..... sporting. Hell, it's borderline animal abuse I feel. They're just trying to spawn, and people are chucking **** at em constantly and from all directions.

Dear jifigz,

A long time ago in the late 1980's my brother and me along with some buddies from Philly would go steelhead fishing on the Salmon 4- or 5-times a season. We were young and it was fun. Leave Philly at 3:00 AM and get to Pulaski, stop at Tony's and book a room then maybe go fish. I say maybe because more than once we left Philly and it was 30 to 40 degrees at 3:00 AM and we got to Pulaski at 8:30 AM to find it was 10 below 0 and the river looked like a Slurpee. But we got some fishing in one way or another and caught some fish too.

I moved to upstate NY, and the Salmon River was only a 2 1/2 hour drive. I went a time or two, but solo fishing was boring and by 1993 the river was getting crowded and drift boats were way too common. You could be in a run with anglers nearby but not crowding you fishing from both banks. Then a drift boat would anchor at the head of the run, catch all the fish on hotshots, and pull anchor to drift down and do the same thing to next group of wading anglers.

I've never had any interest ever in returning to the Salmon River. I did go fish some of the brookie streams in Oswego County in the late Spring and early Summer. That could be fun but in good water years the mosquitoes and blackflies were UNGODLY BAD! I still have nightmares about pulling a ball cap glued to my skull with dried blood off my head and having to drink a 12-pack of Gennies just to squash the pounding headache they gave me!

Regards,

Tim Murphy 🙂

 

[rustbeltwilds]

Dear jifigz,

A long time ago in the late 1980's my brother and me along with some buddies from Philly would go steelhead fishing on the Salmon 4- or 5-times a season. We were young and it was fun. Leave Philly at 3:00 AM and get to Pulaski, stop at Tony's and book a room then maybe go fish. I say maybe because more than once we left Philly and it was 30 to 40 degrees at 3:00 AM and we got to Pulaski at 8:30 AM to find it was 10 below 0 and the river looked like a Slurpee. But we got some fishing in one way or another and caught some fish too.

I moved to upstate NY, and the Salmon River was only a 2 1/2 hour drive. I went a time or two, but solo fishing was boring and by 1993 the river was getting crowded and drift boats were way too common. You could be in a run with anglers nearby but not crowding you fishing from both banks. Then a drift boat would anchor at the head of the run, catch all the fish on hotshots, and pull anchor to drift down and do the same thing to next group of wading anglers.

I've never had any interest ever in returning to the Salmon River. I did go fish some of the brookie streams in Oswego County in the late Spring and early Summer. That could be fun but in good water years the mosquitoes and blackflies were UNGODLY BAD! I still have nightmares about pulling a ball cap glued to my skull with dried blood off my head and having to drink a 12-pack of Gennies just to squash the pounding headache they gave me!

Regards,

Tim Murphy 🙂

YEah i was young too then and tonys salmon country store was thee place to go then and we didnt see alot of people or drift boats then either and we fished blue goo egg sacs and sparkle eggs and purple or blue estaz eggs on the noodle rods with slinkys we made from parachute cord n lead shot lol this was of course after the salmon were finished and littered the stream bottoms and with them the crowds were gone....they used to say now the real fish and fisherman are out lol