Vancouver Saltwater Fishing Report
Well it has been another great week of fishing here in Vancouver. By fishing, I mean catching, and specifically chinook salmon. Even on our shorter 5 or 6-hour trips we have had some amazing chinook fishing. Usually on a shorter trip we would focus on coho and pinks off West Van, but the chinook fishing has been so consistent these past few weeks we have been focusing primarily on chinook.
In terms of location, take your pick. It really comes down to boat size, weather conditions, and how much time you have. There has been great fishing at the Bell Buoy, North Arm, Iona Jetty, T-10, and of course the South Arm, aka Sand Heads. Looking at the Albion Chinook Test Fishery, it is clear the fish are starting to move up the river, especially the last 72 hours. There are definitely more fish to come as this fishery usually peaks this coming week. With the fish being on the move, things can be highly variable and can go from hot to cold to hot, as fish show up on different tides, sit off the river mouth and then shoot up. In general though, I would expect the fishing to be quite good this coming week as fresh waves of fish show up.
Mark with a great chinook caught at Sandheads
In terms of depth, 30 to 75 has been good on the riggers as these chinook travel shallow. A variety of flashers have been working well, like the Betsy, Super Betsy, Derby Winner, Twisted Sista, Green Onion Glow, Salty Dawg, BC, STS, and Madi. Some reflective and UV flashers on the top and some more glow on the bottom rods, and you are good to go. Same for teaser heads, we have been doing well on chrome and UV teaser heads on top and glow ones on our bottom rods. With the fishing being as good as it has, some anglers are running dummy flashers and then a piece of bait just above in a teaser head. This is a lot of fun; so if you are really into them, give it a try. For bait we have been doing well using the 5.5 and 6.0 inch anchovies and green size herring. Put any of these baits in a Rhys Davis teaser head and you are off to the races.
Pacific Angler guides Jordan and Zach doubled up on their day off!
As per my last report, I am sure there are some pinks and coho off West Van if you want to target them or you want to do some fly fishing or light spin fishing. I was talking to Andre the other day and he did report some decent catches of pinks on his fly rod and a few coho here and there. With the chinook fishing the way it is, we don’t plan on heading that way anytime soon. Brett did scope out the Cap Mouth yesterday on his way back, see if there were any early ones around, but no bites from the big whites.
Speaking of the white chinook, we are starting to see some in our catches these past few days. The whites are headed to the Cap, the Harrison, or the Chilliwack/Vedder and are some of the biggest chinook we catch each year. The last week of August is prime time for some good chinook days with a nice mix of red and whites, so give us a call if you want to head out that week. 778-788-8582.
Jason’s guests with a couple of nice chinook from the North Arm.
I will be zipping around this weekend as Derby Master for the 7th annual Vancouver Chinook Classic. This event is once again a sell out with 50 teams registered and proceeds going to SFI and PSF. I am sure I am going to be busy with all these fish around. It should be interesting to see what the big fish will be and I am looking forward to doing some DNA sampling and tagging on our weigh boat with Owen from SFI.
See you out there this weekend,
Jason Tonelli