Ladies and Gentlemen! May I have your attention please… THE TIME IS NOW!! In my earlier bloggings I’ve written about my belief that “the best is yet to come” in January and it has happened…today! It was an EXCELLENT day for Salmon Fishing in Vancouver! The report from today is quite simple…GET OUT AND FISH. One of our dockmates hit the water with with his guests and hit 7 QUALITY FISH WHICH WERE OF LEGAL SIZE or ALMOST LEGAL. (legal=24.5 inches or 62 cm) close to home on a half day charter. This is a very active day on the water. I’m not talking small fish or shaker fish—I’m talking QUALITY KEEPER SIZED FISH! These larger winter chinook were on the bite today and were very aggressive. Most managed to spit the hooks on the anglers right behind the boat. It’s common for larger winter springs to spit razor sharp hooks on anglers. One of today’s fish was lost to a hungry harbour seal and also broke off the fishing tackle— and got the guides very rare spoon which has been “the ticket” on recent charters. A few other boats in the area also landed QUALITY salmon in the same area. The largest fish that was landed today that we know of was 15 pounds and several boats lost multiple fish today. There were quite a few private fishing boats out on the water (playing hooky from work no doubt) and the landing nets were out!
I would highly recommend booking and going on a Vancouver salmon fishing charter in the next few days and in the coming weeks. Try your hand at angling for these prime hard fighting fish. So far the action we have experienced this January has been VERY GOOD. While the activity may vary from day to day, and there never are any guarantees as fishing is always fishing but the theme for January is clear, fishing has been CONSISTENT and the QUALITY/SIZE of Chinook Salmon so far this year has been BETTER THAN AVERAGE. In fact, the quality has been improving as the days pass by. Just look at our blog pictures from the past month! Crabbing has been fair to good for keepers and we drop crab traps on every charter. Our location in downtown Vancouver puts us closest to the fishing grounds and maximizes fishing time.
For the locals reading the blog: In the Vancouver harbour and along West Vancouver we are getting 90% of our strikes on the bottom rods fishing in 90-150 feet of water. In almost all cases, we’re running Flashers with Green in them fished short( 10-12 feet) off the cable. We’re fishing small spoons no bigger than 4 inches in length (such as the Silver Horde Kingfisher) on a 6 foot leader behind the flasher. The ever popular GREEN GLOW colour combination is always a good bet. See you on the water!
Here’s a sampling of what we’re catching right now:
Vancouver Chinook: 28" and 27" respectively!
See you soon!
A couple of important notes:
Chinook Salmon must be a minimum of 62 cm long ( that’s 24.5 inches—approximately 6-8 lbs depending on the girth) to keep and Dungeness crab must be 65mm (6.5 inches) to keep.