Syracuse.com - Fishing buddies have great day of fishing on the Salmon River (see video)

HuntingNY-News · January 7, 2013

The catch of the day was a monster, 19-pound steelhead.

Submitted photo Fishing buddies Mike Cusano and Burnie Haney had a great day Saturday (Jan. 5) on the Salmon River near Pineville. The catch of the day was a monster 19-pound steelhead landed by Cusano, who lives in Clay.

Haney's report follows:

Today the weather channel called for 12-15 degree air temps in the early morning with warming trend in the afternoon so I decided to hit the River around noon. I had a decent day on a 335 CFS flow and today it was supposed to be 750 so I was looking forward to a good trip and I called Mike Cusano… aka CUS, to see if he wanted to go to.

Turns out we had 32 degrees so they got it wrong… again… but it was to our advantage so this time it worked out for us.

We met up at Fat Nancy’s in Pulaski at 1115; I picked up some hooks, swivels and a few power worms, while CUS grabbed a bag of worms and a few flies.

As I’m checking out the clerk announces the water flow was shut down this morning so instead of the 750 we wanted we learned we’d be fishing in a 285 flow. We put the waders on, loaded the truck, and headed up to the Pineville area. I brought two spinning rods and two bait casters, the camera and a light thermos of hot chocolate in case we wanted to knock the chill off.

Our rigging was pretty straight forward, Bass Pro Shop Excel 8 lb. mainline, 6 lb. BPS XPS Fluorocarbon and 8mm Orange Trout Beads, bounced along the bottom with a 4 BB slinky on a snap swivel. It’s nothing fancy and strictly utility style fishing, basic bump and grind along in the lower water, but it gets the job done and that’s what counts. CUS was running the Trout Bead and I opted for the Power Worm in Hot Pink on the same set up.

We were about 30 minutes into our trip, I had a fish bump me and then I proceeded to hang up and retie three times. Meanwhile CUS worked the trout bead as we discussed the drift, casting angles and where the strikes ought to occur.

Sure enough as I re-rig CUS sets the hook with a fish–on and the fight begins. I saw the fish’s head break the surface on the hook set, so I knew it was a good fish and I estimated it about 10-12 lbs. … man was I wrong.

I think this fish would hit 19 without too much trouble I have an 18.10 hen on the wall and this fish was much bigger.

So much so it took 18 minutes and 40 seconds to land it.

View the full article on The Syracuse Outdoors Blog