Salmon question for ya

[pikefinder12]

Hey larry and everyone else!! While since i've bloged but got a Q??? Im goin camping for a couple of days and excited to fish like crazy. There are trophy trout at this river but there are also salmon, atlantic salmon. They stick it every year with in between 800 to 1400 fish. Are they hitting this time of year or not? If so can you suggest some bait or lurers? I have a variety of lurers but not sure witch ones to bring. Hope all has been well larry even though the moved the time and day that your show comes on so now it's hard to catch. Versus needs to run your show more.

Thanks for your time
Pikefinder

[dahlberg]

Hi P
Salmon are most aggressive when they first enter the streams, but can be caught at any time.
You can use everything from aggressive, rapid retrieves with spoons and spinners (either quarter and swing or cast up stream and jig down current) to dead drifting insect imitations or skimming flies across the surface. It all depends on the type of spot you are fishing.
They are also suckers for nightcrawlers!
Hope you hook into one, they are one of the greatest game fish on earth. Like atomic powered steelheads!
best
L

[pikefinder12]

Thanks larry I appriciate your time. You were right you never fail me the salmon loved the nightcrawlers and I did a little fly fishing with a bead head and cought a couple trout. Like I said the salmon loved the worms but I could'ent catch any that I could brag about. Hope all is well larry and im still upset that they moved hfbf to a different time and day I think it's b.s. I'll talk to you on the next brain teaser.

Thank you Larry
Pike

[steelneal]

Awesome! Larry said " Like atomic powered steelheads!" what a great analogy!
Larry is the coolest dude on the planet for having this forum!
Steel

[pikefinder12]

Hi lar, im back at the salmon but a different spot now below a dam. They recently stocked an agoining river with 500 salmon and my buddy cought a 17 pounder. Yea it was awsome the fish had a double hook jaw. Heres my Q, i was told that these salmon wont hit your lure or bait only if the get aggervated by it? Is this true? Any suggestions?

Thanks for your time
PIkefinder12

[dahlberg]

Hi PF
It's been known, or I should say believed, for decades that neither salmon or steelhead "eat" per se when they are on their spawning run. I once did a bunch of research on steelheads and uncovered a stomach contents study. As I recall, the study examined the contents of 100+ fish and found nothing in any except for one fish which had a Water Oozle, a type of small bird, in it's belly!
It's my belief that all fish are samplers, and get hard wired to instinctively bite certain things that have the visual, audio, or sometimes olfactory cues they've sampled successfully thousands of times.
In the case of salmon and steelheads it's usually a dead drifted immature insect, or egg(s).
When they first enter the spawning stream they can actually be quite aggressive, even sometimes taking waking flies off the surface, or hitting spoons and spinners. The one thing they seem to have in common is that they usually don't move very far to get it. It's gotta be pretty close to their face.
Sometimes males can be quite aggressive toward larger lures, I assume as an instinctual spawning territory thing.
In any case, good luck!
best
L