Vancouver Saltwater Salmon Fishing Report
We’re just over a week into May and our guide team has been seeing some great fishing out on the saltwater. When the weather cooperates, we’ve been making the run across the Strait to the Gulf Islands, where bottom fishing has been very consistent with good numbers of lingcod and rockfish coming to hand.
Eddie with some nice lingcod from a trip earlier this week.
Locally, our catch-and-release chinook trips have continued to produce solid action as well. We are participating in chinook DNA sampling again this year to help better understand the stock composition of fish moving through our local waters. The long-term goal of gathering this data is to support future opportunities in areas and times where stocks of concern are not present.
Alongside the fishing, both prawning and crabbing have been good as well. The commercial prawn fishery opens on May 13 this year. Once the commercial fleet starts fishing there is a significant amount of gear set throughout most productive areas and because of that, we generally recommend pulling recreational traps after opening day, as success rates tend to drop considerably.
Crabs are a great addition to the spring dinner table
For our own trips, we typically shift focus and spend more time targeting productive dungeness crab grounds while prawn numbers recover through the spring and summer.
If you’d like to get out for some bottom fishing and help contribute to the Chinook DNA sampling program while you are out, give us a call at 778-788-8582 to book a trip with the guide team!