Vancouver Winter Chinook Fishing Report
It’s hard to believe that we are already in the middle of February, well into the winter salmon fishing season, and what at a season it has been so far! There have been lots of chinook around this year with more to come. We are so lucky to have such great winter salmon fishing in Vancouver anywhere from 5 to 50 minutes from downtown.
I was out quite a bit last week and had great fishing on all the trips. The BC Fly Guys were in town to do a lake fishing seminar at the shop, which was fantastic by the way, and then we went fishing on Sunday. There are some great posts of the action on their Instagram page, check it out @bcflyguys and check out @pacificanglersportfishing for more great posts.
Jason & the BC Fly Guys pushed through the wind and rain on Sunday and were rewarded with an epic day of Vancouver winter chinook fishing
Note that this fishery is scheduled to close March 31st, so if you want to experience this great chinook fishery, you should book your trip right away. These fish are a lot of fun to fish for, taste amazing, and the BC spot prawns are a great addition.
There are also some larger fish around as we get into late February and March as the fish have been feeding all winter long. The weather seems to be warming up as well, so what are you waiting for?
A nice size winter chinook from last week about to hit the cleaning table
For gear the most productive setup for me lately has been a black flasher with some glow tape on it with a blue glow spatter back hootchy. The chartreuse flashers and hootchies can also be excellent, and I gave them a good wash this past week, but the fish were clearly on the darker gear.
My go to black flashers are the PA Custom Black aka “The Black Mamba” which is made for us by Oki, the “CB55” from Gibbs, and the Oki “Black Onion”. Lately I have been using the Delta hootchy in blue glow spatter back. It’s a little bit longer and thicker plastic than the Yamashita version and it glows like crazy. Both brands work well, but the fish seem to be hitting this larger version quite well right now. If you are fishing deep, make sure to charge up those glow flashers and hootchies before you drop them down to the depths.
The black flashers and blue glow spatter back hootchies have been productive this past week
If you are looking for the above flashers, hootchies, and UV lights to charge your gear, we have them at the shop, free parking out front. If you can’t make it down, give us a call and we will put together some items for you and ship it. The new online store will be up in a couple of months as well, but not in time for winter chinook season.
As I mentioned before, 6 weeks left, so book your trip or get out there while you can!
See you in the shop or on the water,
Jason Tonelli