CT ANGLER : Atlantic Salmon Fishing with James December

My good Buddy, James with a quality Atlantic, that took many casts to obtain.

CT Atlantic Salmon used to be plentiful a few hundred years ago before the industrial revolution when many factories made their home on the coastal rivers of CT, like the Housatonic and Naugatuck river. Pollution and dams were the demise of the atlantic salmon along with other species. My grandmother would tell me that you could walk down to the Naugatuck river, and depending on the day it would be a different color depending on what chemicals were dumped into the river on that day. Since the early 1900s there has been a huge effort to clean up the river and restore it to a much more bearable state.

In my high school days, once I found out that atlantic salmon were stocked into the Naugatuck River, I made frequent trips to seek out these once native species with little to no results. My early days of fishing for these salmon was when I learned everything NOT to do...

Do not use surfcasting gear
Do not throw Striper plugs
Do not use treble hooks
Do not fish areas that they are not stocked
Do not use huge lures

Little by little as time went by, I read more books on fishing for atlantic salmon. I talked to people who had been doing this longer than me, and I kept going. I have been fishing for these fish for almost 20 years. I may only make 4-5 trips a year for them, but each year that passed I got a little bit closer to cracking the code.

Here is what you should do...

Change lures and flies often
Fish areas that you know are stocked
Keep moving
If you find a fish and you can sight cast to it, keep casting
Use 10-15lb test flouro
Use light saltwater/medium freshwater gear (3000 sized reels and 10-15lb main line)
Braid is OK
Use the same lures and flies (streamers) that you would use for trout, just with a beefier hook
Be sure to have a net-catching these things is hard enough-once you have one on, you want to land it
Be sure to have a camera/phone ready
Dress warm