Lout Heaven on the Salmon River

    You don’t have to die - though your casting arm will feel like it did - to go to “Lout Heaven” on the Salmon River in Pulaski, NY. Unlike recent other Lout trips afield which have produced prodigious e-banter but nary a Trout Lout site post, allow me to provide appropriate fish-porn and commentary in hopes of promoting a second yearly Lout venture in future Octobers.

    Glen Kamp had already staked out the Salmon River for five days when I arrived. The fact that the gin bottle was untouched, yet the Alleve bottle nearly empty and spools of medical tape littered the hotel room floor was the first give-away: This was gonna be fun (Editorial note: The gin, and in my case vodka, oversight was quickly remedied with nightly generous celebratory Lout cocktails before ravenous consumption of various meat products after long days on the river).

     Glen has generously dubbed me ‘Steelhead King” in honor of ten steelies in one day in the Douglaston Salmon Reserve, along with another dozen or so during the rest of our five days on the no kill fly stretch of the Salmon River in Altmar. Despite five or six monster Kings (which were first-ever’s for me) I humbly report that Glen has apparently dedicated his retirement years to becoming one-with-the-salmonoids. That man can hook (and land!) salmon: Kings & Cohos alike. In between we managed to do our fair share of damage to monster browns as well. (and, ahem, one creek chub keeping the Lout tradition of honoring the bottom-feeder alive). The attached photos are just a few of the fish we brought to justice. Fair to say the average day saw us each with 25-30 hookups and maybe a dozen landed. The fall weather was truly remarkable and watching the behemoth salmon jump, smash and rise again all day was a sight and sound which will haunt my dreams (hopefully replacing the existing recurring screaming, sweating nightmare of watching DeBie deposit my new $600 rod combo overboard some years back… but I digress).

    Here’s the new Lout Heaven formula: Sleep in till 830, grab breakfast, stuff pockets with apples, bananas, candy bars and the like and drive to the river. Hike in, set up, unsheathe your 7-10 wt., tie on one of those pansy mini-swivels at the end of your leader, add 47 7/8″ of 10# fluorocarbon tippet and the trout/salmon candy of your choice and start the party! (For those keeping score, flies of choice were SMALL: dark stone-fly, golden stone-fly, single salmon eggs, anything glittery and pink, beaded hair’s ears with a touch of green, and then anything small and black that was still in your box at the end of the day. Figure on losing 30 flies a day, easy. I’ll also admit to using a rather large pink-salmon-egg-sucking white leech (in honor of Joe Schmidt’s “Goat Dick” lure story) in the midst of a ferocious autumn-leaf blitz that left the water saturated with multicolored yellow/red leaves … I’ll admit to it ‘cuz you’ll see it hanging off my rod next to the photo of the monster male king which whacked the shit out of it, thereby making me look brilliant.

    Deep riffs and fast water were generally the key, though slow pools and some sight fishing also prevailed at times. While Doc honed into one of six or seven favorite spots and figured out every possible sang in each, Glen “I should run for office” Kamp wandered the entire river, met and personally interviewed every angler, and fished every square inch of water … usually to return to “the glen” just before the hatchery where he personally discovered and decimated a holding pod of browns nearly every day. (Note to Brian “Float King” Cowden: The man didn’t teach English back in the day as an accident, he can TALK).

    What say you Louts? Anyone up for a return next fall?

You must be logged in to post a comment.