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Winter chinook are growing in numbers and size!

Saltwater Reports:

Todd Sweet: Last weekend was cold and clear with almost no wind so it was perfect for winter fishing. I dropped off some crab and prawn traps then headed to Tunstall Bay to catch the tail end of the high slack. The ebb had just started so I figured I would give it a couple passes. We dropped the gear in and within 5 minutes had a good fish on the measured out at 25 inches.

TS_Fighting Fish_Jan 5_2014TS_Jan 5_2014

 

It was on an irish creme spoon right on the bottom in 125 feet of water. We did a couple more passes but didn’t get anything. We then moved over to Grace Islands where there had been some action earlier in the week and between the 4 boats there we worked it hard without getting anything else. There was some bait in there but no action. We pulled a couple buckets of prawns and a few crabs to finish off the day.

TS_Haul_Jan 5_2014

Eddie Matthei:

Fishing has continued to be fairly decent with a good amount of bigger but just “undersized” fish and few nice Legal fish. Occasionally you get into a school small shakers but I’m finding that overall the fish are a nice size for this time of the year. This should make for great fishing once they grow that last inch or so. The Vancouver harbour has been holding fish but fish are showing west of Bowen Island as well. I finally had a little spare time any decided to take out a good friend who had never been salmon fishing on the Ocean.

We headed out on the Salty Dawg and dropped a couple of crab traps and then dropped the lines around the at the QB marker. It was a little drizzly but the water was flat calm and you didn’t need a fish finder to tell you there was bait in the water. There were lots of birds picking up small 3″ herring which is why the “3-3.5″ spoons have been working so well. I have also found 4″ herring in some of the fish I’ve cleaned so I’ve also been running 4″ spoons and have had more strikes on them when I give the fish a choice.

So far the best patterns seem to be the Homeland Security, The Kitchen Sink, Irish Cream and my Favourite the Green Glo. I like to use Glo Flashers in low light conditions and more reflective flashers when it’s bright sunny conditions. There’s lots of flashers out and it’s a matter of switching up to see what the fish like that day or time of the day. We were early for the slack tide and trolled for about an hour before my buddy got to fight his first Chinook in the ocean which came on a 4″ Green Go with a Chartreuse double glo flasher. The nice runs he took made it seem like a bigger fish but it was just a 1/2” shy of the limit. These winter fish can put up a very good fight.

EM_Chinook_Jan 7_2014

Slack tide was approaching and I had to decide whether to stay or head to the mouth of the Capilano. I had heard a couple of good reports lately and one very nice fish that was involuntary released and was still out there. I trolled there in time for slack and met two other boats but unfortunately there was not a lot of action there that day. Sometimes you zig when you should have zagged! We each ended up with a couple of large crab for dinner and my buddy got to fight his first Chinook!

EM