Some nice chinook from North Arm and South Arm this week.
Vancouver Saltwater Salmon Fishing Report
Fishing was solid this past week with the focus being on chinook salmon. There were good numbers of chinook taken from the Mile Markers, the Bell Buoy, the North Arm, T-10, and South Arm all week.
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The when and the where really depended on the tide. With the full moon there were some huge tides and this really pushed the fish around and distributed them to all the spots just listed. You can analyze it all you want, and certain tides do push fish into certain areas, but at the end of the day you never really know where they are going to be and you need a bit of luck to be in the right place at the right time. As Derby Master in the Vancouver Chinook Classic I was able to see where all the fish were hooked this past weekend and I can report that it was pretty spread out along all the spots, with perhaps a little bit more productivity out off the South Arm, but there was some also hot bites off the North Arm as well.
I was out on a full day trip on Monday and we hooked 4 nice chinook from the Bell to the North Arm, then headed to the South Arm for the afternoon and were into multiple fish there as well. Meanwhile some other guides I know hooked fish at the Bell and North Arm that same afternoon, so that is an indication that there are some good numbers of fish around. These fish move around a lot with the tide and obviously are here to go up the river, so be prepared for here one day and gone the next action, but usually the last few weeks of August and first two weeks of September offer consistent fishing.
Double trouble at the Bell Buoy this week! Double net job for this double header worked out, thankfully!
The best thing to use is bait, and lots of it. I saw dozens of fish hit the cleaning table this week and not one had bait in its stomach. So why use bait you say? Well these are mature fish that aren’t feeding aggressively so the best way to get them to bite is the real deal. Anchovies and herring. We have been going through 24-36 pieces of bait a trip with chinook bites, pinks, chinook jacks, dogfish, etc, so be prepared. You can catch fish on spoons and hootchies, but for the most part the bait guys will catch a lot more fish. On the top rods, UV green and UV purple teaser heads have been good. So have chrome green and chartreuse teaser heads. On the deeper rods the glow teaser heads have been productive. Any teaser head with some glow, glow green or glow blue in it has been doing well. If you follow us on Instagram you will see that we have been dying our baits in green or blue cures that really make the bait stand out in dirty water and these baits have been very productive. Productive flashers have been Madi, Lemon Lime, Salty Dawg, “Club Dub” with a glow stripe, and silver or gold Betsy.
There are still coho and pinks off West Van as well, but for the most part we have been too busy chasing chinook to head to this area.
See you on the water or in the shop!
Jason Tonelli