Short Striking Salmon

I headed to Magog only a couple of days after the trout opener with Mike, Phil & Peter today in pursuit of some salmon action. The weather was great yesterday with the air temps reaching the mid 80’s, but we weren’t going to be that lucky on this outing. Although we did manage to dodge the rain and even had some sunshine, the north winds of 10 to 20 knots made the air temps feel like 40 at best. I knew I would have to find warmer water if we were going to get into anything and left the 39.5 degree surface in pursuit of better temps. I found an area that was showing signs of 44 degrees and decided to start there hoping for some action. Once the 4 fly rods were set out we didn’t waste much time before the reel screamed and our first of many drive byes occurred. I think there were 2 or 3 of them before we managed to get one of the salmon to the net but it wasn’t looking good. I was sure it wouldn’t make the cut and didn’t even bother measuring it. At best, it might have gone 14 inches. We trolled all over this area and hooked a few more with the first one being a slight hair longer than the 15 inch limit and that was good enough for us. The next fish of 16 inches came from over 100 feet of water and just crushed the fly! The 4 or 5 hours we spent in there produced 4 fish and only 2 of them were long enough to be legal. We also had about 6 or 7 drive byes with one of them a real screamer. It must have taken out 20 or more feet of line on the initial hit and then, gone. A combination of tiny minnow baits and tandem streamers accounted for all of the action today, but not fast & furious. We did spend the last hour or so trying a couple of other spots just looking for an aggressive bite, but it wasn’t going to happen. Although we were marking enormous balls of baitfish and many hooks around them, it was difficult to trigger them into eating our offerings. We decided to call it quits around 4:30 p.m. and headed back to the ramp somewhat satisfied with the first attempt at Magog salmon. I spoke to a couple of guys back at the ramp and they hadn’t done a thing all day. Oh well, that’s fishing I guess! Although a tough day, still one with some action!