Orefield’s Day leads anglers to trophy-sized steelhead

Parkland High School graduate Josh Day spends most of the year running trips for Lehigh Valley fishermen on New York’s Salmon River.

“I grew up fishing here (on the Salmon River),” said Day, owner of Wack’em Guide Service in upstate New York. “I started coming up here with my mom and dad when I about 6 or 7 years old. My little brother and I came up salmon fishing and as we grew older, we started steelhead fishing more and more until finally one day I made the move and came up here about 12 years ago.”

The Salmon River is in Oswego County, about 45 minutes north of Syracuse. It is a Lake Ontario tributary that starts in the Tug Hill region and flows west before entering the lake at Port Ontario. Each fall, the 17-mile stretch from the river’s mouth upstream to Lighthouse Hill Reservoir near Altmar has runs of Chinook and Coho salmon, followed by the sleek, hard-fighting steelhead which enter the river to spawn. The river is famous for its world-class steelheads, 4- to 8-pound fish are common, with some in the 10- to 15-pound range.

“Your height of the steelhead season is going to be late October and November, all the way through about December 20th,” says Day, who averages 200 days a year on the water. “The bite turns on again in March and April. Some of the best steelhead fishing you can see is the months of March, April and early May.”

Day splits his time between his homes in Orefield and Oswego County. He said the steelhead fishing has been spectacular the last two years.

“We had a couple tough years a few years ago, but that has rebounded tenfold,” said Day, who offers six-hour float trips on the river in a 17-foot FishCraft drift boat. “We’re seeing a very large size steelhead and some great quality. It’s some of the best fishing in the country for steelhead.”

Day said if more traditional steelhead angling methods, such as drifting egg sacks and beads, aren’t working, he’ll often switch to backtrolling — using plugs but rowing backward while drifting down the river.

To build his tackle box, Day spends hundreds of hours annually searching for the lures the river’s steelhead seem to prefer. Their favorite, he says, is metallics that don’t rattle.

“Those plugs were discontinued years ago, so you spend a lot of time talking with different people and buying your arsenal and collecting them,” he said. “You’re not going to have one lure forever; a fish is going to steal it and it’s gone.”

In addition to Salmon River fishing, Day offers guided walleye trips on the Oswego and Black rivers in spring, as well as Lake Oneida in June. He specializes in nighttime trolling trips for salmon in September at the mouth of the Salmon River.

For more information on fishing the Salmon River and Lake Ontario with Wack’em Guide Service, visit www.wackemguideservice.com or contact Josh Day at 484-239-9399 or wackemguide@hotmail.com.