Salmon River Steelheads

[HenryH]

Our family recently acquired a rental cabin in Altmar NY so we decided to spend Christmas up there and chase after some steelheads.  There was a warm up the days leading up to our trip that melted a lot of snow that pushed the river flow from 500 CFS to 3,000 CFS.  Luckily, it was down to about 750 CFS by the time we got there which is pretty ideal.  We had some success earlier this year with salmon but this is our first time fishing for steelhead and we had my brother's kids with us so our expectations weren't super high.  It turned out to be an incredible 5 days and it was great to see all the kids hooked-up on fish.  We fished for 5 days and probably tied into 100 fish between the 7 of us and landed about 15 fish while never having to drive more than 5 minutes from the cabin.  My brother's youngest hooked many fish on his fly rod but didn't land one until 30 minutes before we left on the last day.  He stayed with his fly rod while some of his siblings went for the spin gear so it was nice to see his persistence pay off.  I don't think the temperature got about 20 degrees the whole time we were there.  Needless to say, we had a blast and we are already planning our next trip back!