Yesterday was an epic day for chinook fishing in Vancouver! Eddie was out on the water and hooked up 7 springs, including a tripple header with 2 chinook and 1 coho. A boat next to Eddie had a quad, yes a quad, and multiple other boats were into good numbers of chinook salmon throughout the day. From what I have seen so far, yesterday was the best chinook day of the season by far for the Bell Buoy area. The previous two days were solid as well with good numbers of chinook being taken off the Bell Buoy and W. Van, but clearly a big school showed up yesterday and the guides had a great day with lots of chinook hitting the deck of all the guide boats.
Fraser River Red Springs at the cleaning table
These are all red springs heading up the Fraser river and they are fairly shallow in the water column. Fish were hit anywhere from 25 to 70 feet down using a flasher (Hot Spot in chartreuse or green with silver tape on one side and glow on the other) with a 6 foot leader and an anchovy or herring in a glow or glow green teaser head. A few fish were also hit on spoons that have glow finishes and some chartreuse or green in them, like a Glow/Green or Irish Cream spoon in 4.0 size. We also put some herring or anchovy scent on the spoons and this definitley makes a difference for these fish. We have been using the Pro Cure Super Gel and Smelly Jelly Pro Guide Formula in herring or anchovy. These gel scents are great for spoons and hootchies, they are easy to apply and stay on longer than the liquid oil scents.
I took a look at the test set numbers this morning for the Fraser and it looks like there are good numbers of chinook and sockeye entering the river. We should see some great chinook fishing the rest of this month for these Fraser River red springs and sockeye fishing is slowly starting to get better and better everyday. A friend of mine has been fishing the Sandheads area the last 3 days and has had some good success for sockeye and has hooked a spring each day on the sockeye gear as well. So it’s worth heading down and running the sockeye gear, get your two, and then switch up to the baits and depths mentioned earlier and focus on the springs that are in the area. The tides are pretty mellow the next few days so fishing should be good.
Eddie is back out on the water today for back to back 5 hour charters so I will report again tomorrow morning. He will definitley be fishing the Bell and W. Van today in search of more chinook. If you see him out there in the Salty Dawg, say hi or give him a call on 88 A.
If you need to get setup we have a good supply of anchovies and herring at Pacific Angler as well as all the top producing teaser heads and flashers. We have all the sockeye gear you need as well. I will be in the shop today and Wednesday, if you have any questions give me a call at 604-872-2204, and I will be guiding on the weekend.
See you in the shop or on the water.
Jason Tonelli