Pinks and Kings
Here is a story by Bill Gass about fishing at Sault Ste Marie.
PINKS and KINGS
By Bill Gass
We set out for Sault Ste Marie under blue bird conditions but by the time we had arrived the clouds had closed in and rain threatened. We planned to stay at Bells Point Campground at the outskirts of town, there was no one at the gate when we arrived so we just went in and picked out a tent site before darkness fell. I knew that it wouldn’t be a problem as I had stayed there before, and knew how friendly and relaxed the management was. No sooner did the tent go up then the rain poured down followed by thunder and lightning, we even had to retreat to the truck when it got really bad for safety sake.
The next morning dawned clear and cool you could tell that fall was not far off. We hurried off to try the ST. Mary’s River Rapids in the middle of town. Upon arriving there we found few other anglers and had the place almost to ourselves for a while. My friend Rob headed down along the berm and found some pink salmon jumping and rolling in the Canadian Hole. The “berm” as it is known is a cement wall about three and a half feet high designed to keep water flowing over the prime spawning beds even when the water levels are low in the summer and fall. Every fifty feet or so a big notch is cut out of it to allow water to flow through. We thought we had hit pay dirt, but after an hour and a half of casting none of them had been tempted by our flies. Only a few hits and that was it. Other fishermen joined us there but to no avail, I only saw one fish caught that morning by a fisherman wading the far side of the pool. Rob had been talking to a guy who was sitting on the berm and I joined them for a late morning rest from the cold water. He told us of fishing the Garden River and seeing what he described as at least 25000 pinks the day before. Well I was skeptical to say the least but I had heard of the Garden River before and knew that there was a run of pink salmon that came in around Labour Day. We figured we’d give it a shot, even if he had exaggerated a bit. But the guy for whatever reason couldn’t give us directions to get there. A little bit of selective memory loss I think.
Next stop was Western Automotive as I had heard that the owner there was very good at helping new anglers to the area and could give you directions, sell you a map, and the proper flies or tackle for when you get there. Unfortunately he was gone out for lunch when we arrived, but a helpful employee did photocopy a hand drawn map of how to get to the Garden River. So with that and my new Algoma district fishing map in hand we set out. We stopped to ask directions from a couple of locals who were pulled over along the side of the road just to make sure that we hadn’t missed our turn off. At first they didn’t seem to know of the road but then they figured out which road the map was referring to. What would you want to go in there for they asked? After telling them of the stories that we had heard of the massive run of pink salmon they scoffed at the idea of fishing for pinks. What would you want to catch them for, when you could fish for chinook or coho. They sounded just like the lock operator that I had talked to once he said, “ we just kick the pinks out of the way to get to the kings and cohos”. Well growing up in NB fishing for brookies that rarely exceeded a foot in length they sounded pretty good to me. With that we were on our way the two locals stopped in front of the road that we were looking for to make sure we found it. It was a narrow but obviously well traveled woods road. I pulled over to let the first vehicle we met get by and he stopped to talk, so I took full advantage of it and asked lots of questions. He and his wife had been in at the base of the falls taking pictures and video of salmon trying to jump the falls, so I got detailed directions from him.
It wasn’t hard to tell when we neared the river there were a lot of vehicles parked along the side of the road. We parked and hurried down to the river. What I saw astounded me, never had I seen so many fish stacked up in a river, they were everywhere. I stood on the rocks just down stream from the falls and as my eyes adjusted to the light they came into view, pinks the river was black with them. After I regained my composure I managed to get a fly tied on. Rob had cheated and still had a fly on his rod from the morning. He had two fish landed before I even had my line in the water, but that was OK because there was plenty of fish for everyone. I positioned myself on a rock in the pool just downstream from the falls where I proceeded to land several fish. The far side of the pool had a sand bottom that was just barely visible because the pink salmon were so thick there. They were everywhere it was common to see one leisurely swim by your boot. As you can imagine we stayed there the rest of the afternoon hooking and releasing fish. With five on a nearby tree branch for eating ofcourse. I found myself just staring at the falls watching the salmon jump sometimes landing on the rocks beside them and then flopping back into the water. This was not Alaska or BC but Ontario. It was just like on Discovery channel minus the bears. On one occasion an over zealous king salmon thought he was going to get up the falls to no avail. Three-foot fish don’t climb falls too well. Mine and Robs’ jaws both hit the ground when we saw that spectacle. I spoke to a fisherman from Michigan who told me that he didn’t think that the run was very big this year other years it had been better he said. He also told me of a good place to try for kings down river. He said if you do hook one up here you’ll never get it in because there is no room to fight it. Little did I know I would prove him wrong the next day if by nothing else but luck.
The run of pink salmon in the Great Lakes originated from a hatchery up on Lake Superior in the 50’s that was raising them to put into a James Bay tributary. Well they never did return to that tributary but the escaped ones from the hatchery eventually formed a self-sustaining population actually a booming population, as the locals don’t give them the respect that they deserve. Pink salmon normally average between 2-5 pounds. Chinook or King Salmon are stocked in the millions into four of the five Great Lakes every year to create a phenomenal sports fishery where none existed before. Kings in the lower Great Lakes run into the 30lb range with the ones from the upper Great Lakes averaging in the 12 – 25lb range. Sault Ste Marie has it all, name a species of salmonid and most likely you’ll find it with in an hours drive of the Sault. Steelhead, rainbows, and brown trout, chinook, pink and atlantic salmon can all be found in the Rapids at one time of the year or another. Lake trout and brook trout can be found in many of the backcountry watercourses.
As you can imagine I didn’t get much sleep that night and was up at the crack of dawn, chomping at the bit, to hell with breakfast we’ll get a coffee at Tim’s drive through. This time I parked further down river near a widening in the road that had turned into a makeshift campground. There were a lot of people from Michigan camped out in various degrees of style from pup tents to camper trailers. The road forks and an old bridge crossed the river there, we walked out on it for a look and saw lots of pinks moving up stream. I donned my waders and we were soon wading our way down stream to a deeply eroded pool we had heard about. Upon arriving there all the good positions were taken and it was a little crowded for me so I opted to go further down stream in search of a King. Rob fished a run just below the deep rock pool where there was lots of pinks holding and the occasional king streaking through. After seeing the king try to ascend the falls yesterday I decided to switch from my 6/7 weight fly rod to my medium action spinning rod. In a shallow run I spotted a king holding that didn’t appear to be too spooked. After half an hour of casting to him with no results and several lure changes I was about ready to give up when he made a swipe at it and I missed setting the hook. On the next cast I was ready and a battle ensued, I never really appreciated the size and power of these fish until I got one on. It was all I could do to keep him away from the branches of a fallen tree. When that salmon ran down stream into the shallows the water literally exploded. Finally I was able to get the fish landed by beaching him. There it was, fifteen pounds of fury at my feet, I proceeded back up stream to show Rob and head back to the truck for lunch. My passage through the campground was met with many head nods and good comments one lady even took my picture. I was quite happy with my first king salmon.
After having a shore lunch or what more accurately would be described as a tailgate lunch of fried fish we decided to return to the falls. After all Robs’ favorite rock was probably vacant and waiting for him. I positioned my self on the rocks above the run just below the falls. On my third cast I hooked a big one, it ran up stream towards the falls then turned and headed downstream. There was a half submerged log at the end of the run, which the salmon cleared by six inches, it was at this time that I realized that I would need help. So I started yelling at Rob (screaming may be more accurate) to get the heck up here to put it nicely, and I dare not repeat what I said when he didn’t move fast enough. Never mind that he had to wade half way across the river and scramble up a rock cut all with waders on to get to where I was. I handed the rod off to him and climbed down the rock cut and then he handed the rod back to me. It was a real team effort and the fight ended prematurely when the big male ran up into a shallow rocky area of the river and Rob herded him into shore. Two in one day, and before yesterday I had never even seen a king salmon let alone catch one.
After getting my catch securely tucked away in the truck I walked down stream only to find all the good locations already occupied by other fishermen and women. So I contented myself with catching pinks in a small run that held a few dozen or so. Some of the female pink salmon look very much like a rainbow trout so much so I think they could be easily mistaken for one. As the day wore on Rob showed himself upstream and he had his rod taken apart so I thought, well he must be ready to go. He had his rod taken apart all right permanately. When I arrived at his location he told me that he had a king on for a while then on the next fish (a pink) his rod snapped, and not up where the two pieces join at the ferrule, but in the middle of the thicker bottom section. Scratch one fly rod.
Day three dawned cold and rainy, it was but a minor inconvenience to us as nothing short of a disaster of Biblical proportions could have kept us from that river. We started at the falls and had the place all to ourselves ( because of the rain) there seemed to be a lot of big male pinks holding up there in the run. I caught quite a few of them that had to be four or five pounds, and as always they were continually jumping at the falls. Rob’s favorite spot the second pool downstream was producing as well, in fact it seemed like every time I looked downstream he was either fighting a fish or releasing one. He was now using my spare flyrod with his reel on it, which was to serve him very well later on in the day. I moved down stream to try a pool that some guys we had talked to the day before had done well in. Which is a relative term because any and every piece of water that a salmon could hold in was taken. We fished there for a while the rain abated and some kids showed up. One kid who only had on a tee shirt and shorts no shoes and was drenched from head to toe (I’m not sure if it was from the rain or if he fell in) asked if he could get a weight off of me. So I said no problem I asked for his lure so I could tie it on as well and he said that he had to run back up river as the one tackle box that they were all using was up there. So I put a fly on his rod, with the pinch on lead weight about six inches up from it, and told him where to cast. He hooked a pink on his first cast and proceeded to reel it up so the nose of the salmon was touching the end of his rod. Ofcourse the line snapped and he lost it. So I rigged him up again and gave him a few pointers as to how to land a fish. On his second cast he hooked another one, and managed to get the fish into shore this time. Then he streaked up river with his prize to show his friends.
We relinquished that spot to the kids and decided to drive further down stream to a small trail that we had found the day before in hopes of finding some kings that hadn’t been spooked by too much fishing pressure. This part of the Garden was made up of shallow runs separated by four to six foot deep pools, and as it was upriver every pool was stacked up with pinks. With the occasional king skulking around the edges almost using the pinks for cover. My first hook up resulted in a blistering run downstream and my line being snapped. It sounded something like this “ZZZZZZZZPING”. The king jumped three times in the next pool presumably to shake my hook. That afternoon I hooked six kings and only managed to land two of them, due to line breakage or the hook pulling out. I now realized how much luck I had yesterday by hooking two and landing both of them. It never ceased to amaze me how fast these fish could peel off 75-100 yards of line, which is OK if you have that much room to fight them. But if you don’t and they get the line wrapped around a rock or fallen tree then you’ll see how quickly your luck runs out. One time I had to run downstream full bore just to keep the king on the end of my line from rounding a corner with out me. When I was fighting my second fish of the afternoon I heard Rob yelling frantically upstream. So I figured that he was either being eaten by a bear or he had a big one on. The latter being the case as when I returned to his location he had a nice one up on shore. Then he proceeded to hook a rather large male while I was talking to him and after chasing it upstream and then downstream for fifteen minutes the largest fish of the trip came to hand, luckily I was there to tail it for him. Then Rob proceeded to tell me about an even bigger one that he had landed by himself, but was foul hooked so it had to go back. While we were standing there talking we saw a piece of fishing line by the shore, so I decided to roll it up and put it in my pocket, but when I started pulling on it, the line pulled back. I proceeded to haul in a pink salmon that was on the other end. Now comes the bizarre part it was my lure from earlier in the afternoon that had departed with the king that had broke me off. I guess that the king shook the lure off and the pink bit while it was falling or picked it up off of the bottom. All this good fishing and less than a kilometer down stream from where all the crowds were. The only people we met on this lonely stretch of river was one family group of five from Michigan. So reluctantly with darkness closing in we had to depart from the Garden and head back into town, tired but pretty happy with the days catch.
If you go, do your homework first, lest you miss timing the run right, and find the river devoid of fish. Another angler from Michigan told me that Labour Day weekend is usually a good bet for pinks and the beginning of the run for kings. The run of pink salmon usually starts in mid August and runs into September. For chinook salmon they follow about two weeks behind the pinks, but this is a just a guide it could be earlier or later depending on weather conditions and the season thus far. Another important factor to consider is where you plan to fish around Sault Ste Marie. The St. Marys’ River rapids, which drains out of Lake Superior, tends to be colder than smaller tributaries that run into Lake Superior or the St. Mary’s. So the run will most likely be little later than the smaller tributaries. The Garden River flows into the St Marys and the lower portion is on an Indian Reservation and can be accessed only by hiring one of their guides. The rest of the Garden can be fished with out a guide as it is a medium to small river. Although if you want to save a lot of legwork a guide is advised, especially on the St Marys’ rapids, as it is a difficult place to figure out for a beginner.
Now I’m going to tell you about my ace in the hole, the internet, if your start surfing the fishing websites and check out their bulletin boards you will find a lot of other anglers conversing about what they’ve been catching. I have found that the Steelhead site is a good one for this if you go into the reports section then select Canada reports, you will find many anglers conversing about the fishing at the Sault. But I have found lots other sites as well. As well as just reading, I like to post questions, which you will be surprised to see how many replies you get. Good Luck.
Contact List
Western Automotive 705-949-4812
Bells Point Campground 705-759-1561
Email bellspoint@sympatico.ca
Bells Point Website www.campgrounds.org
Sault Fishing Website http://www.sault-canada.com/fishing/
Fishing Regulations http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/MNR/fishing/
Sault Ste Marie Campgrounds http://www.ssmcoc.com/summer/camping.html
Steelhead Site www.steelheadsite.com