Vancouver Saltwater Salmon Fishing Report for Mid-September
We saw a brief dip in the chinook action off the Fraser mouth last Thursday and Friday, then it was good last weekend, and that good fishing has continued all week right up until today. All 4 of our Gradys are at the South Arm as I am writing this report and fishing has been excellent!
If you read last week’s report you will remember I was talking about peak migration for the Chilliwack and Harrison white chinook occurring around the third week of September and to expect the biggest fish of the year. Well, this has started, and we have seen quite a few fish in the mid-twenties and yesterday day we had 3 fish on the dock that weighed 29.5 pounds and one that hit the Tyee mark at 31 pounds. I have also seen some pictures of Tyees on social media and these big fish will continue to show up off the Fraser mouth for at least another week and a half.
PA Guides Nathan, Eddie, Gavin, and Josh with some nice chinook in the 29–31-pound class!
It is great to see a growing culture of releasing big fish and the smaller to mid-size fish are often the best eating fish. So, if you can get out fishing multiple times and want to be selective on your harvesting, releasing the big boys can be a great option.
However, keep in a mind a fish that is bleeding excessively is likely going to expire, so the responsible thing to do is to harvest that fish, regardless of its size. If the same fish is lightly lip hooked, it is a good candidate for C&R, preferably at the gunwale, with no net use. So, keep all of that in mind when you are deciding if you will harvest the fish.
Also keep in mind the Chilliwack and Harrison chinook returns are doing extremely well and there is no shame in keeping your 2 chinook per day limit or keeping a big fish if that is what you happen to catch. There are chinook of a variety sizes returning to these rivers, just as Mother Nature intended, and a selective harvest of smaller fish, to “get more big fish back on the spawning grounds”, isn’t necessarily the best thing for the fish population. We may think it is, and it might what is in vogue, but the best way to have the least impact on the fish in general, is to retain your first 2 legal chinook, regardless of size, and then move on to other species such as hatchery coho or call it a day.
As guides, we notice that the vast majority of the anglers we have on our boats do one trip per year and they are hoping to come home with one or two chinook. With 4 or 5 clients on the boat, a lot has to go right to get a chinook or two each in the fish hold, and we generally harvest each legal chinook we are lucky enough to land. I hope that puts some perspective into harvest practices of guides and recreational anglers. All that being said, we are actually getting some limits of chinook lately and that is testament to how many fish are out there and of course the skill of the guides.
A nice hatchery coho off the Cap Mouth from this week
If you aren’t going to be off the Fraser Mouth and want to keep it closer to Vancouver, give Point Atkinson, West Van and the Cap Mouth a try. There are schools of staging coho around, you will see them jumping and, on your sonar, and if you want to target chinook, try the Cap Mouth on the flood tide. More and more chinook will be showing up off the Cap Mouth in the coming weeks and coho as well. The rain in the forecast will definitely drive the fish to the river mouth, but I don’t think the river will come up that much. This means we should have good fishing in this area for the remainder of the month based on the current 14-day forecast.
See you on the water or in the shop,
Jason Tonelli