Vancouver Saltwater Salmon Fishing Report Well I don’t have a heck of a lot to report.  Our charter operations are shut down and our store doors are closed, but we are accepting phone orders and email orders and then shipping them out or allowing curbside pick-up.  More details on that in the outlook and on our website. I did decide to go check on the boats yesterday on my day off, turn the engines over, check on the heaters, and spray off all the bird poop.  I even went out on a brief solo mission, released a few undersize chinook and a small hatchery coho and headed back to the docks.  That’s about all I have to report first-hand, but I have received a number…

  You can see spring is here, still the odd cold morning, but the afternoons are heating up into the teens and the cherry blossoms are coming out around downtown.  Spring is in the air, and this means we start to see more fish around as well and some suspended fish as the algae in the water makes it a little darker and the bait comes up and so do the fish.  This past week, there has been decent fishing all through Howe Sound, in the Harbour around the freighters and the Bell Buoy, further up the Sunshine Coast and over in the Gulf Islands.  In short, its go time.    Some of the reports have been very good and I am fully confident we are about…

Vancouver Saltwater Salmon Fishing Report  Finally, some calm seas for the winter chinook anglers and maybe a little sun this weekend as well.  You can see winter slowly losing its grip as we start to get more nice days on the water.  Before long, it will be sunny out and we will be complaining about the NW 35 knot winds!     Speaking of things to complain about.  As mentioned in last week’s report, it looks like DFO is going to roll over management actions from last April.  So that means there will be an announcement on April 1st that there will be no chinook retention.  They aren’t done analyzing how last year’s drastic management measures have affected the 2019 chinook returns of the endangered interior Fraser stocks. …

We had quite a few trips this past week and for the most part the fishing was pretty solid.  I was up and down Howe Sound on a 2-day trip and found bait and some keeper chinook in all the usual spots.  Eddie was also into some fish and on a few days, we had to cancel some trips due to wind.  So pretty much a standard week in the land of winter fishing, anywhere from fish in the boat to cancelled trips.  Looking back on the last couple of months, fishing has been average this year in my opinion.  It isn’t going to go down as red-hot fishing, but just consistent.  Put in that time and you will get your fish.  This pattern will…

Vancouver Saltwater Salmon Fishing Report Finally, we had some sun and calm waters this week, with yesterday almost feeling like spring with the mid-day sun bringing temps up into the teens.   Looks like we are back to the wet stuff this weekend though.   The winds look manageable at least, and we have some trips, so if you are heading out this weekend, we will see you out there. Prawning continues to be good and we are dropping prawn traps on all of our full day trips.  I saw DFO out there recently and pulled up to have a chat with them.  They had quite a few traps that they had confiscated as they were set on sponge reef closures.  There really is no excuse for…

Vancouver Saltwater Salmon Fishing Report We finally got a break in the weather a few times last week and there were certainly no shortage of boats out there enjoying the conditions.  I can’t say I was surprised, after one of the wettest and windiest months in recent history, there was some serious cabin fever going on! The fishing was what I would call standard, if you put in a good solid effort you got your chances at legal fish.  In terms of location, we are about midway through the winter season and the fish are well spread out.  The harbour is starting to pick up, right on que, as more herring start to congregate in the area.  The past few weeks there have been decent…

Vancouver Saltwater Salmon Fishing Report Well we are glad to put one of the rainiest Januarys on record behind us and lets hope that February has less wind and rain in the forecast.  We are about midway through the winter chinook season and I would say so far so good.  The main challenge has just been getting out there, but when we have been able to, the fishing has been good and so has the prawning. So what’s in store for this weekend?  Well looks like some sun actually, but with that we often have some NW winds and this weekend is no exception.  We have a few trips planned so we are going to keep a close eye on the weather and hopefully we…

Vancouver Saltwater Salmon Fishing Report  Rain, rain, go away, I need to get out on the water today…..  Well if you have been waiting for the rain to leave so you can head out, you are going to have to keep waiting.   It’s been a wet week and it looks like more rain is on the way.  Despite the rain we have had some fun on the water the past few days.  With proper gear and a heater on board the rain is really no big deal and it sure keeps the crowds down.   Do the fish bite better in the rain?   Not really, as usual it’s all about the tide changes and our bites this week certainly held true to that theory.  High…

Vancouver Saltwater Salmon Fishing Report With the winds this weekend easing off into the week, many anglers may choose to stay closer to home and fish the harbour or tuck away up in Howe Sound- with both areas producing fish lately. Prawning continues to be steady with some great hauls as of late, while crabbing continues to be consistently inconsistent. Just like in winters past, smaller presentations continue to be the standard. Fishing the depths associated to winter fishing, making sure there are glow components in your set up is a great idea – whether it’s the flasher and/or the spoons and hoochies. Gibbs Skinny G, Mini G, and G-Force spoons continue to be some of our go-to spoons. Not to be left out, smaller…