Well this is it; the first week of May and the chinook are truly here in full force! We have had great chinook fishing all week off the Hump on South Bowen and there is also good chinook fishing off Thrasher and Nanaimo this time of year. Anytime after May 1st we have had good to excellent fishing at Thrasher, but with the fantastic fishing off the Hump, there really is no need to run that far. In 3 and half hours on Wednesday we hooked 7 chinook and missed 2 more. On Thursday we were into 4 chinook in 2 hours. You can’t beat that kind of action for local fishing, only 30 minutes from the dock! If you have been thinking about booking a charter to the Hump or Thrasher, give us call as the best chinook fishing of the year is literally right now!
Four nice chinooks landed this week on Green Onion Glow flashers!
If you are heading out on your own boat, the even better news is the pesky little cods we have been getting off the Hump seemed to have thinned out substantially. We only hooked a couple on each trip throughout this past week. It sounds like they moved over to Gabriola and Nanaimo as anglers over there were complaining about heavy catches of these fish. Tough to catch chinook when you check your lines and they all have cod on them. When they were thick out on the Hump we were checking our lines every 30 mins or even less, but luckily they seemed to have moved on for the time being. The chinook fishing has been good in the 75-115 range on the downriggers early in the day or on darker days. Later in the day or when it is sunny the fish move down to a bit and you will do better in the 120-150 range with 130 being a hot depth.
Nice fish Bill!
The best producers for us have been the Oki Tackle Green Onion Glow flasher and a chartreuse or green blade flasher with silver tape on one side and glow tape on the other. Other good flashers have bent the Oki Tackle Footloose in Green and the Purple Onion Glow. Spoons have been excellent and the larger spoons are doing better now. The bait in the fish has been 4 to 7 inch herring with lots of 5 and 6 inch herring. Some customers, as well as our guide boats, have been using the bigger spoons this past week and they are working very, very well. The new 5 inch Pesca has been hot and the larger Kingfisher spoons like a 4.0 Homeland, Green Glow, or Irish Cream, have all been producing well.
If you are a bait guy, of course that has been working as well. We have been running anchovies and herring and both have been working well in glow teaser heads with some green or chartreuse shades.
I can’t say enough about how great the fishing has been this year, since basically December. The fishing for winter chinook was excellent and now we are having one of the best years in a long time off the Hump and I am sure Thrasher Rock will be the same. There are simply lots of fish around this year and some big ones. I am sure you saw the picture of the Tyee we caught on a guided trip a few weeks back. Well there has now been 3 other Tyees that I have heard of from other anglers, so make sure your hooks are sharp and your line is fresh because there are truly some big fish out there. Most of the fish are in the 12 to 20 pound range but there have been a good number in the low to mid twenties as well. As the season progresses I am sure we will see some more Tyees being caught. There was a 28 off Nanaimo just a few days ago.
See you on the water or in the shop,
Jason Tonelli