Finding My Swing on the Salmon River By Anthony Lombardo

It has been close to a decade now since I made my first trip to the Salmon River in Pulaski, New York, but I can still remember how different the place felt when we first pulled into town.

At the time, Douglas Rods hosted a salmon camp every September and October for their dealers on the Douglaston Salmon Run, better known simply as the DSR. Our shop crew was considerably smaller back then. It was just me, Scott, Sarah, and Bri, and somebody obviously had to stay home and keep the place running. Scott approached me and asked if I wanted to head north and see what the salmon camp was all about.

We had also been invited to stay at the newly opened Tailwater Lodge in Altmar. Since I was going by myself, Scott offered to send my wife and son along and put the three of us up at the Tailwater. A weekend in upstate New York, a beautiful new lodge, my family along for the ride, and a chance to chase 20- and 30-pound salmon with a fly rod? It wasn't a particularly difficult decision. We loaded the truck and started north.

The drive from Massachusetts takes roughly five hours, and once you get into upstate New York, the scenery starts changing. Apple orchards, farms, rolling hills and little towns replace the increasingly familiar landscape behind you. Eventually you drop into Pulaski, and during salmon season it feels like you've entered a town operating on an entirely different calendar. Everything revolves around the river.

A Fishery That Was Built

That obsession didn't happen accidentally.

Lake Ontario once supported tremendous populations of native Atlantic salmon and lake trout, but by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, overharvest, dams, habitat loss and other changes had devastated those fisheries. Meanwhile, invasive alewives and rainbow smelt exploded in abundance without enough large predators to keep them in check.

Beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s, fisheries managers introduced Pacific salmon—most notably Chinook and coho—to Lake Ontario. The idea was partly ecological and partly recreational: put large predators back into the system to take advantage of the enormous forage base while creating a world-class sport fishery. It worked better than almost anyone could have imagined.

Today, Chinook and coho spend most of their lives feeding in Lake Ontario before returning to tributaries such as the Salmon River as mature adults. The Salmon River Hatchery in Altmar became a cornerstone of that program, and natural reproduction also contributes substantially to the fishery. Every fall, those returning fish transform Pulaski.

You see it before you ever touch the river. Driving through town, you pass names that have become part of Salmon River culture: Whitaker's, Fat Nancy's and one tackle shop after another. They're stocked with practically every conceivable piece of equipment for catching salmon, steelhead and brown trout.

Then there are the fishermen. Campgrounds fill up. Parking lots resemble little tent cities. Guys sleep in trucks, vans and campers. Waders hang from tailgates. Coolers are everywhere. People walk around carrying salmon toward cleaning stations. It's part fishing town, part hunting camp and part music festival. It is difficult to adequately explain Pulaski in October to someone who has never been there. You really just have to see it.

We continued through town toward Altmar and eventually arrived at the Tailwater Lodge. At the time, the lodge was brand new, and compared with much of the traditional salmon-season lodging we'd just driven past, it seemed almost surreal.

The building had originally been a school before being converted into a hotel, and the renovation was beautiful. There was a bar, pool, hot tubs and even a surprisingly well-stocked little fly shop. Most interesting to me, however, was the river behind the property and its access to what everyone called the Schoolhouse Pool.

I'd come prepared. Maybe too prepared.

Visions of Chrome

For a couple of years before that trip, I'd become increasingly obsessed with two-handed casting.

This was before I owned a boat, so much of my striped bass fishing took place from shore. Cape Cod estuaries became my practice grounds. Places like Scorton Creek were perfect for it. Incoming or outgoing tide gave you steady current moving left to right or right to left, and I spent countless hours learning to move line with a Skagit setup.

Tom Larimer and Steve Spurgeon had gotten me set up with what was then a new G. Loomis IMX-PRO 8-weight switch rod, and I became comfortable with the Snap-T, Circle Spey and a few other casts. More importantly, I'd learned how satisfying it was to swing flies.

There's a rhythm to it. Make the cast. Set the swing. Follow the fly. Step. Repeat. Eventually you stop thinking about casting altogether. You're simply fishing.

So naturally, before my first Salmon River trip, I'd created a fairly romantic picture in my head. Fresh chrome kings charging out of Lake Ontario. Long casts across beautiful runs. Big flies swinging under tension. A violent grab followed by a screaming reel. Then I walked down to the Schoolhouse Pool. Reality arrived rather quickly.

There were several drift boats anchored in the pool and fishermen lined along the river. Most were conventional anglers, with a handful of fly fishermen mixed in. It looked remarkably similar to those stereotypical photographs of Pulaski where everyone seems to be standing within arm's reach of everyone else.

And the more I watched, the more I understood what was happening. There are legitimate ways to catch Salmon River kings on flies, eggs and conventional tackle. But over the years, anglers have also become extraordinarily creative at developing techniques that come awfully close to snagging without quite looking like snagging.

Fish were being hooked. Lots of them. One guy would hook a salmon and immediately run across five other lines. Everyone would lift rods, duck underneath each other, shout instructions and try to untangle themselves while a 20-pound king tore downstream. Sometimes the fish got landed. Sometimes it didn't. It was a beautiful disaster.

The fish themselves were also different from what I'd pictured. By the time some Chinook reach the upper portions of the river, they're nearing the end of their lives. Pacific salmon return to freshwater to spawn and die afterward. Their bodies change dramatically as they mature.

Occasionally you'd be standing in the river and feel something bump your leg, only to look down and see what appeared to be a salmon zombie slowly drifting or swimming downstream.

I tried fishing anyway. Eventually I hooked something that I'm reasonably certain was attached somewhere around the pectoral fin. It took off. I broke it off almost immediately. That wasn't exactly the experience I'd driven five hours looking for.

We packed up and went into town. And honestly, I loved it.

Pulaski is a fantastic place to people-watch during salmon season. Guys walk around with a fish in each hand. Cleaning stations stay busy. Everyone seems to have a theory about where the fish are, what they're doing and exactly what you should use to catch them.

We found a little Italian restaurant called Stefano’s that became our home base for the trip and ordered a Sicilian pizza. After warming up and eating far too much of it, we headed back to the Tailwater. My wife and son enjoyed the pool while I settled in, had a drink and started thinking about the following morning. I still wanted the experience I'd imagined. I just hadn't found it yet.

Into the DSR

The next morning we met at Douglas's base camp on the Douglaston Salmon Run before sunrise.

A collection of shop owners and dealers had come from around the country. Some were experienced salmon and steelhead fishermen. Others had come from Colorado, Montana and elsewhere out West and had spent most of their lives fishing for trout. For some of them, a mature Chinook salmon was going to be a fairly significant change of pace.

Everyone got sorted out with rods, reels and waders, and eventually we piled into ATVs and headed into the DSR. That ride changed my impression of the Salmon River almost immediately.

The DSR encompasses the lowest portion of the Salmon River before it reaches Lake Ontario. Once you're back in there, Pulaski seems to disappear. If someone had blindfolded me, driven me into the property and dropped me beside the run we were fishing, I don't know that I could have told you whether I was in upstate New York, somewhere in Canada or Alaska. It felt wild.

And more importantly, these were some of the first stretches of river the salmon encountered after leaving Lake Ontario. The difference in the fish was immediately apparent. Instead of the deteriorated kings I'd seen farther upstream, several fish being fought when we arrived still carried that dark silver, almost gunmetal appearance of salmon that hadn't been in the river very long. This was much closer to what I'd pictured.

Then they handed me my rig.

There were three or four heavy split shot above a relatively short leader ending in an egg fly. We lined up along a shallow chute downstream from a bend. Fish would round the corner through deeper water and then move into a section that ranged from ankle to knee deep.

The instructions were basically simple. Flop the rig out there. Let it come around. Repeat.

People started hooking fish. I hooked a nice brown trout myself, except it was attached somewhere around its pectoral fin. And after watching the whole thing for a while, I began understanding why.

The heavy split shot traveled close to the bottom while the leader swept through a shallow corridor full of salmon. If that leader encountered a fish, there were a lot of places the hook could eventually end up. Call it flossing. Call it lining. Call it whatever you'd like. It wasn't what I wanted to do.

Then I looked downstream. There was an open piece of water that was quite a bit deeper—maybe waist deep—with enough current to properly swing a fly.

I asked the guide if I could fish it.

"You sure you want to do that?"

Absolutely.

The Grab

I'd brought a handful of Dave Skok's Soft Hackle Streamers with me.

They weren't even salmon flies. Dave had tied them as saltwater patterns. Some were essentially cinderworm colors—bright fluorescent pinks, pink and purple combinations—simple flies built from marabou and soft hackle on stout stainless hooks. But they looked alive. And I trusted them.

The guide handed me a sink tip. I tried one, changed it, and the second one seemed about right. It got the fly down without constantly hanging bottom. I tied on a pink-and-purple Soft Hackle Streamer. Then I started fishing.

Snap-T. Swing. Step. Circle Spey. Swing. Step.

Soon I wasn't thinking about Pulaski anymore. I wasn't thinking about the fishermen upstream or split shot or egg patterns or whether these salmon technically "feed" after entering freshwater. I wasn't really thinking about anything.

That's what I've always loved about swinging flies. There is enough repetition to occupy your hands but not enough to occupy your mind. Eventually everything becomes automatic and you start noticing the river again—the current pushing against your legs, the trees, the sound of water and the line tightening downstream.

Cast. Swing. Step. Then—bang.

There was absolutely no question about what had happened. A king salmon had annihilated the fly.

This wasn't a hook sliding down a fish's body. It wasn't a leader catching a fin. I was swinging an unweighted streamer through deeper water where that salmon had every opportunity in the world to move away from it. Instead, it attacked.

The fish took off. It was exactly what I'd driven to New York hoping to find.

And it was gorgeous. Fresh from Lake Ontario, the king was still silver rather than the dark, deteriorating fish I'd seen farther upstream. It ran hard and used the current, but I had spent enough time fighting striped bass on similar tackle that I wasn't intimidated by it.

I'll probably disappoint some fishermen with the next part. It didn't take 45 minutes to land. It didn't take half an hour. It probably took five minutes.

Five minutes is a long time to fight a fish properly. Maybe someone less accustomed to putting pressure on big fish could stretch it to ten. But we've all heard enough stories about freshwater fish supposedly requiring the better part of an afternoon to land. We can stop doing that. The truth was plenty impressive.

Eventually the king came to hand. Someone snapped a photograph, and I released it back into the river. That fish made the trip.

Simple Flies, Big Fish

I stepped back into the run and started swinging again.

My son was having his own adventure nearby and managed to hook a couple of salmon on the egg-and-split-shot setup. Watching him experience fish of that size was worth the trip by itself.

I hooked several more fish that day and landed another on one of Dave's Soft Hackle Streamers. The effectiveness of that fly stuck with me.

There was no complicated salmon-fly construction involved. No secret materials. No elaborate theory. Marabou. Soft hackle. A strong hook. Movement and color. Sometimes fly fishing really is that simple.

Afterward, Douglas put out a huge dinner for everyone at camp—prime rib, mashed potatoes, beer and wine. We sat around eating, drinking and replaying the day, which is usually when a good fishing trip becomes an even better one.

The next morning I fished behind the Tailwater for a while before we started home. We made one important stop first.

Where the Next Run Begins

The Salmon River Fish Hatchery in Altmar gives you an entirely different perspective on the fishery.

Returning Chinook, coho and steelhead make their way into the hatchery system, where New York State fisheries staff collect eggs and milt from mature fish. Those eggs eventually become part of the next generation stocked into Lake Ontario and its tributaries.

Standing there makes you realize how deliberately this fishery has been built and maintained. The spectacle downstream—the fishermen, tackle shops, drift boats, campgrounds, cleaning stations, lodges and an entire town that seems to change personality every September—is connected to what happens inside that hatchery.

And while salmon season in Pulaski can certainly look chaotic from the outside, there's much more happening there than the circus people sometimes portray. It's an extraordinary fishery.

We toured the hatchery, took a hike to see one of the area's waterfalls and eventually pointed the truck toward home. I was already thinking about coming back.

Coming Back to the Swing

For the next four or five years, whenever I was offered the opportunity to return to Douglas's salmon camp, I jumped at it.

What kept bringing me back wasn't simply the possibility of catching a giant salmon. It was that run. I became addicted to swinging flies through it.

One year in particular, there was an enormous push of coho. Cohos have a well-earned reputation for aggression, and whatever argument someone wants to make about whether migrating salmon "eat" in freshwater became fairly irrelevant that week. Those fish absolutely crushed swung flies.

And that pink-and-purple Soft Hackle Streamer outproduced practically everything else we tried. Not the heavily weighted egg rigs. Not the usual Salmon River setups. A simple swung streamer. Those cohos would hammer it.

Josh Lane joined us one year, and eventually he started swinging flies too. We'd take turns working through runs, one angler stepping down behind another, fishing the water the way I'd originally imagined fishing it years earlier.

That became my Salmon River. Not shoulder-to-shoulder fishing. Not watching an indicator. Not trying to drag something through a pod of salmon. Just a two-handed rod, a Skagit-style head, a few sink tips and a pocket full of simple streamers.

Cast. Swing. Step. Wait for the grab.

Pulaski in the Fall

Nearly a decade after that first trip, I think that's what stays with me most about the Salmon River. It's a strange and wonderful place.

You can catch a 25-pound Chinook and, on the next swing, hook a coho, an early steelhead or a brown trout that would be the fish of a lifetime almost anywhere else. The river can be chaotic in one place and feel almost completely wild a short distance away.

And the DSR, in particular, showed me a completely different side of Pulaski. Because it's at the bottom of the river, you're meeting those salmon shortly after they've left Lake Ontario. They're stronger. They're fresher. Some still carry that incredible silver coloration that seems almost out of place once you've seen what a king can look like after spending weeks upstream.

Most importantly, there is water where you can actually swing a fly.

You don't need much. A switch rod or shorter Spey rod is perfect. Put together a simple Skagit system with a running line, head and a handful of sink tips. Carry some strong leaders and a small box of streamers. And if it were me, there would be plenty of pink and purple Soft Hackles in that box.

Then find a piece of moving water, wade in and forget about everything else. Make your cast. Let the fly come under tension. Follow it across the river. Take a step. Do it again.

Eventually, if you're fortunate, that quiet repetition will be interrupted by something violent. Your line will come tight. The rod will bend. And somewhere downstream, a fresh king salmon will decide that the little pink-and-purple fly swinging through its world needs to die.

Almost ten years later, I can still feel that first one grab.