Vancouver Saltwater Salmon Fishing Report
The theme this week is NW wind and lots of it! This high-pressure ridge that has brought the summer heat has also brought in a consistent NW wind that has ranged from 10 knots up to 35 knots this morning. As a result, we have been fishing in Vancouver Harbour for over a week now because it has been too rough to cross over to Gabriola and Entrance on our longer trips.
Luckily, the fishing locally has been good to excellent with lots of pinks, cohos and chinook, so there really hasn’t been a need to cross anyways. The fantastic pink and coho fishing have been well documented in previous reports and it’s great to see more chinook showing up daily along West Van from Point Atkinson to the Cap Mouth. With 28-6 and 28-9 open to 1 chinook a day from 62-80cm, it’s nice to put some of these fish in the box along with the pinks and cohos. A lot of these chinook are the abundant “red springs” that are Thompson River bound and are in the 8 to 15 pound range. We are also starting to see some of the larger “white springs” show up, which are headed to the Capilano. The fishing in this area will remain good all of August as more chinook show up next week and September 1 it goes back to 2 chinook a day, min size 62cm and no max size!
Fishing for chinook off West Van has been good with lots of pinks and coho in the mix as well
Fraser River chinook test sets have been great, probably why we are seeing so many Fraser bound chinook off West Van as they get pushed over on the flood tides. When the Fraser mouth area opens September 1, it should be excellent chinook fishing. There will be a lot of pinks too, as the run size was just upgraded to 8.6 million and there will be a good amount of coho in the area also. Basically, this summer is turning out amazing and there are a lot more fish and great days on the water ahead of us. If you haven’t been out there, get out there! It’s been an amazing season and we are right in the middle of some hot fishing!
Give us a call at 778-788-8582 to book your trip or drop by the shop for all your tackle and bait needs. The bait freezers just got loaded up this morning!
See you in the shop or on the water,
Jason Tonelli