Salmon River

About

Salmon River, New York — 1810s-1840s Atlantic Salmon Era, 1980 Salmon River Fish Hatchery, 2010s Chinook Restoration 44-mi. Long before it carried a hatchery's name, the Salmon River watershed lay within the territory of the Onondaga Nation, keepers of the central fire of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. The river earned its name honestly: from the 1810s through the 1840s it was famous for the Atlantic salmon runs that pushed up from Lake Ontario each season. That fishery did not survive the century. By the late 1800s the Atlantic salmon had been wiped out completely—overfished, fouled by pollution, and cut off from their spawning grounds by dams that blocked migration.

The nineteenth century remade the river in other ways too. From the 1830s through the 1920s the surrounding forest was logged to feed the regional timber industry and the railroad expansion that followed, with local sawmills, logging drives, and downstream lumber operations working the watershed. In 1838, Joseph Gibbs and Abner French raised the Salmon River Light Station for $3,000, marking the river's mouth at Lake Ontario. Large-scale logging finally wound down after the old-growth stands were exhausted around 1910, state forestry conservation began in 1915, and state forests were established through the 1930s.

Water and engineering shaped the next chapter. The dam era ran roughly from the 1890s into the 1910s, and upstream the river is still impounded in the Salmon River Reservoir—also known as the Redfield Reservoir—a 3,379-acre expanse in Oswego County. Hydrologists took the river's measure early: USGS survey work in the 1870s and the gauging-station efforts that followed produced the first comprehensive streamflow records for the basin. Today USGS gauge 04250200 tracks the flow, which averages about 1,200 cubic feet per second.

The river's defining modern moment came in 1980, when the Salmon River Fish Hatchery was built to raise Chinook salmon, coho salmon, steelhead, and brown trout. New York's stocking program turned the once-quiet waterway into one of the premier fall fishing destinations in North America; Chinook exceeding 30 pounds run the river each October, drawing anglers from across the Northeast. The fishery underwrites the economies of Pulaski, Altmar, and Redfield, and the 2010s brought a Salmon River restoration effort to the watershed. The river is a designated New York State Wild and Scenic River.

Paddlers know the river too. Its whitewater runs are rated Class II–IV and fish best between 750 and 2,500 CFS: the Upper Salmon from Redfield to Altmar (Class II–III), the Class III–IV gorge below Altmar to Pulaski, and the Class II salmon-and-steelhead corridor that carries the last miles down to Lake Ontario. Downstream landmarks include the 110-foot Salmon River Falls, protected within a New York State Recreation Area. For gear and guiding, anglers turn to Whitaker Falls Fly Shop in Altmar and Fat Nancy's Tackle Shop in Pulaski.