Steelhead are in, and the lower Salmon River is fishing best

What changed this week

• Steelhead are new. They've been in the Douglaston counts since Saturday 26 September, in the middle and lower sections, and on four of the five days since. Before that the counts were kings and cohos only.
• The lower run is the best water. It rated good or moderate-to-good in six of the ten postings since Saturday.
• The Altmar release stayed at 185 cfs. The posting that expired 25 September was extended at the same flow. The current one runs from 6am on 30 September to 11:59pm on 1 October.
• No fall whitewater releases are posted. The last one on the Lighthouse Hill schedule was 5–6 September.
• Flows are flat. Pineville reads 216 cfs, the same as the day before, with a ten-day average of 220. The Oswego River is up, at 1,220 cfs against 1,160 a week earlier.
• The Niagara River run has started. River kings are modest but improving every day, for boats and shore anglers.
• The west end of the lake is unchanged. DEC's newest hotline repeats the earlier lake conditions word for word.
• The lower fly fishing section of the Salmon River is still closed, with no reopening date.

Steelhead have joined the run

The Douglaston Salmon Run's daily logs have listed steelhead on four of the five days since Saturday 26 September. They showed up in the middle sections Saturday morning, the upper and middle Monday morning, the lower and middle Monday afternoon, and the middle again on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. Kings and cohos are still most of the fish, and both are being reported as running and holding. Steelhead arriving this early stretch the season out past the end of the salmon.

Browns have shown up twice, both times in the middle sections: Saturday morning, and one fish Wednesday morning. An Atlantic salmon turned up in the upper sections Saturday afternoon. Neither is a pattern yet.

Where the river has been good

The lower run has been the best water of the week. It rated good Saturday afternoon, Sunday afternoon and Monday morning, good upriver of the estuary Monday afternoon, moderate-to-good Tuesday morning, and good upriver again Wednesday afternoon. That's six of the ten postings since Saturday. The estuary itself has been the weakest water on the run, rated quiet Wednesday morning and slow Wednesday afternoon. The fish are moving through it, not stopping.

The middle sections have been slow-to-moderate most of the week, with better reports in the afternoons. The upper has been the least predictable. It was quiet Saturday and Sunday afternoons, slow Monday morning, moderate that afternoon and slow again Tuesday afternoon. Then on Wednesday morning it was the best water on the river, rated good through its middle beat, before dropping to low-to-moderate by evening.

The latest posting, Wednesday 30 September: 55°F at 6am, 185 cfs out of the dam and 216 at Pineville. The lower was moderate upriver in the morning and good by the afternoon. The middle was slow-to-moderate, with steelhead in the afternoon count. The upper was good mid-beat in the morning and low-to-moderate by evening.

Water temperatures

Mornings have been cool and steady: 56°F at 9am Saturday, 58°F at 9am Sunday, 58°F at 7:30am Monday, 56°F at 9am Tuesday and 55°F at 6am Wednesday.

The afternoons are less certain. The last afternoon reading was 64°F at 5pm on Monday 28 September, after 65°F on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. On Tuesday and Wednesday the Run posted no afternoon temperature and repeated the morning figure. So the mornings really are in the mid-to-high 50s, but nobody knows yet whether the afternoons have cooled. Fish first light.

Flows and the release schedule

• Salmon River at Pineville (USGS 04250200), 1 October: 216 cfs, gage height 5.31 ft. The ten-day average is 220 cfs, with a peak of 228.
• The Altmar release is 185 cfs, posted from 6am on 30 September to 11:59pm on Thursday 1 October. As of Thursday morning, nothing was published after that.
• The whitewater release schedule ends with 5–6 September. No more recreational releases are listed this fall.

The dam has read 185 cfs on every Douglaston posting since Saturday, so the release keeps getting renewed. It's being renewed in short windows, though, and the current one ends Thursday night with nothing posted after it. It may well be renewed again, but that's not something to plan a trip on. If you're booking for next week, ask your guide what the release is doing. A guide who says they know for certain is ahead of what the dam operator has published. The release line is 1-844-430-FLOW.

Oswego River at Lock 7 (USGS 04249000), 1 October at 4:45am: 1,220 cfs, gage height 2.46 ft, 72% of normal for the date.

The lower fly zone is still closed

DEC's 14 September action stands. The quarter-mile lower fly fishing section, from the Route 52 bridge in Altmar to the hatchery property line, didn't open on 15 September. It stays closed until DEC has collected enough salmon eggs at the hatchery. DEC hasn't published a reopening date.

The normal baseflow is 185 cfs, and it would usually have stepped up to 335 cfs on 1 September. That increase is still on hold because the reservoir is below the threshold.

Still open: the 16 miles of river below the Route 52 bridge, and the upper fly fishing area above the hatchery.

You'll see "closed until Oct. 31" in a few places online. DEC hasn't said that. It's the date from last year's closure, from a September 2025 news story. DEC's 2026 notice says only that the section stays closed until enough eggs are collected.

The west end and the Niagara River

DEC's Lake Erie and Western New York hotline covers 18 September to 2 October in one edition. Mature kings are staging nearshore, with great action off Niagara and Orleans counties in 70 to 100 feet of water. Boats are running meat rigs, flasher-fly combinations and J-plugs around the thermocline, 60 to 80 feet down. Kings are also on the Niagara Bar dropoff at similar depths. Brown trout fishing is still very good inside 100 feet on medium spoons. On the lake, nothing has changed since the last hotline.

The Niagara River has started. River king catches are modest but improving every day, for boat and shore anglers. Smallmouth bass and walleye are coming from all the river drifts. Walleye fishing on the Niagara Bar has been excellent, drifting three-way bottom-bouncing rigs. If you keep walleye from the Lower Niagara, DEC asks you to turn in otolith samples, which tell biologists how many of the fish are wild and how many were stocked.

Off the piers at Oak Orchard and the Genesee, king catches are still limited and should improve. DEC suggests casting heavy glow spoons at night, three-quarters of an ounce and up, such as Little Cleo, K.O. Wobbler and Moonshine. Tributaries west of the Genesee hold only a few kings and browns so far, because the water is still in the upper 60s. DEC expects more fish as it cools.

The Oswego River

DEC's Central New York hotline runs a week behind. Its edition covers 18 to 25 September, with figures from 15 September, so read this as the last two weeks rather than today. Lake fishing off Oswego is slowing as salmon push into the river, and anglers are still catching fish from shore where they stage. Brown trout are coming mostly from below the dam and along the wall, on jigs and blade baits in goby colors. Some salmon are reported at the dam, and Atlantic salmon are taking jigs and floats.

The hotline's flow figure, 2,060 cfs on 15 September, is well above where the river is now: 1,220 cfs at Lock 7 on Thursday morning.