Vancouver Winter Chinook Fishing Report, Regulation Update, Coho Outlook
Well, this is it, the last weekend before chinook in our local water closes to “no fishing for chinook” regulations effective April 1st. More on that later; let’s focus on the positive for this weekend, which is the great fishing, crabbing and prawning.
The fishing has been good this past week. There are definitely some nice schools of chinook around, the trick is finding them. We have been out all week and have had success at a variety of locations.
Our typical strategy has been to fish South Bowen from Cowan Point up to Roger Curtis. Most days this has produced some nice chinook and we have been getting them 80-130 on the riggers in 150-350 feet of water.
When this area isn’t producing, we are generally heading over to the Bell Buoy area and have had success as far out as the QA Marker and as far in as the Mile Markers along Spanish Banks. Most of the action has been close to the bottom around the Mile Markers and Bell. Out off the QA try 70-130 on the riggers as it is around 350 feet deep out there. There have also been fish caught in the Freighters and at the Cap Mouth. There are lots of spots to try, the fish are moving around a lot, so you may need to as well.
A nice 4 fish catch for Eddie’s guest this week!
Crabbing and prawning have been excellent, especially the crabbing. It seems to be a lot better than recent years, so that is nice to see. The prawning has really held up as well, and we have about a month of that left before the commercial fleet opens up.
Productive tackle for these March feeder chinook has been mostly chartreuse shades. Our favorite bright and glow flashers like Salty Dawg, Lemon Lime have been working well paired up with similar chartreuse and green spoons with glow. Irish Cream, Trailhead, and Outfitter colours are all good choices in Skinny G or 3.5 Kingfisher. Hootchies are also working well and like the spoons, your chartreuse glow or green glow splatter back versions are the way to go.
With the dirtier water this time of year chartreuse is the way to go!
So, get out there this weekend before it closes to no fishing for chinook April 1st. I will get into the details of those regs and the next chinook retention opportunities in next week’s report, but for now it is 2 chinook a day, hatchery or wild, 62cm or greater, until end of day March 31st.
What I do want to talk about now is coho! We are seeing thousands of juvenile coho in the Strait of Georgia this winter. They are over at Gabriola, in the middle, and off Bowen. This is great news, as it looks like most of the coho are going to stick around our local waters to feed instead of leaving for the West Coast. This bodes well for the June, July, and August coho fishery this summer.
I hope you had a chance to experience this fishery last year as it was phenomenal. Fingers crossed it is that good again this summer. Even if it is half as good as last year it will be exceptional fishing. Retention for hatchery coho starts in June, so in the meantime, release all juvenile coho with care.
Have a great long weekend! We are open Friday, Saturday, Sunday and gone fishing Monday!
See you in the shop or on the water,
Jason Tonelli