Well if you read our last post on April 9th you will see that we were expecting some chinook to show at the end of April and they are here. It was pretty slow in April up until April 26th and then the fish really showed up. The fishing over the weekend and up until today, May 3rd, has been consistent to excellent and will only get better through May and into June.
There has been some good action off the South end of Bowen Island on the “Hump” as well as some fish off the QA marker. In these two areas most of the fish have been caught in the 60-120 range on the downriggers. There haven’t been many small fish, lots of fish in the upper teens and some in the mid to low twenties. Quality, hard fighting fish!
There has also been some good fishing over at Gabriola (Thrasher Rock and Grande area) offshore in 800 to 1200 feet of water. It is a large area to cover and often one boat will have tough fishing while another lucks out, goes over a school, and gets into some good action. If you aren’t hitting fish right away keep covering water. When you find a school of fish save the pictures for later and get the gear down right away and you will often be rewarded with another quick hook up.
On Sunday I boated 6 chinook from Thrasher Rock and on Monday it was Eddie’s turn to guide and he landed a nice fish from the QA area and on Tuesday Eddie was out guiding again and hooked 5 off the Hump.
At both Thrasher, South end of Bowen, the Hump, and QA, a variety of baits and lures have been working. Herring and anchovies in glow teaser heads have been good. For spoons the Irish Cream and Cookies n Cream in 4.0 have been good and for hootchies the spatter back in blue and green have been good and UV white pearl as well. For flashers anything with glow on it has been a good choice.
It looks like the weather and winds will be in our favor this weekend, some sun at last and only light variable winds in the forecast! Fishing should really only get better as we go into May so I expect some good reports over the next few days. If you need any of the gear shown above or would like to book a trip please give us a call. We have some prime time dates for charters available but we are filling up fast.
See you in the shop or on the water.
Jason Tonelli