British Columbia Fishing Blog

We had a good day, or bad day, depending on who you ask.

This morning we decided to do our first Vedder coho trip of 2011. It of course started with a rather sleepless night filled with excitement. The alarm went off at 4:00am and we were on the road by 4:45am. Because the water is so low and hearing success from our friends recently, we decided to bite the bullet and fish one of the more popular spots in the lower section. We arrived by the river at 6:30am with not many people in sight, which was wonderful. The rain may have something to do with it. For the first 30 minutes or so, we were almost alone so the water was not spooked, which is ideal for coho salmon.

Nina started out with the spoon casting outfit as it’s pretty common for undisturbed coho salmon to chase down a piece of moving metal. Sure enough, she was into one fish after a few casts, but it quickly wiggled itself off like what a coho salmon would do.

Once there was enough light to see the float, I sent a piece of freshly cured pink salmon roe out. The water where we were fishing was perhaps 4 or 5ft deep, so I had the float depth adjusted to about 3ft, which should avoid all the aging pink salmon and submerged twigs. The float actually did not dive in the first 15 minutes or so, which was not necessarily strange. During most of our morning outings in the past, fish don’t usually come on the bite at first light, but a period of time after. Is it possible that fish are simply moving from the shallower part of the water where they rest at night into the deeper part as day breaks?

Just when I was about to question how effective my roe was, the float finally took a dive. The first couple were missed as always by my sleepy eyes and arms, then there was a solid hook-up. The fish leaped several times further downstream so I couldn’t see what exactly it was until I brought it closer. It was a rather bright chum salmon, which I released.

Once I rebaited my hook and started fishing again, there was a series of poor hook-sets. At one point, the float dove in three consecutive drifts, but each hook-set only sent the float combo flying back in the air with an empty hook. Sensing that the bite was on, I told Nina to switch to her float setup right away.

While I kept concentrating on fishing further out in the middle, Nina drifted her roe closer to where we were standing as she couldn’t cast further out. That turned out to be a good problem because she had a take-down after a few casts. The hook-set was spot on. After holding out breaths for a couple of minutes, she beached her first hatchery-marked coho salmon of the day. Actually, it was her first coho salmon ever from the Chilliwack River.

Knowing that there was a school of active fish right in front of us, we quickly rebaited and sent our floats back into the water. Just when we were expecting to have one of the better days on the flow, more bodies started showing up and lined up just above us. Don’t get me wrong, I in fact enjoy having company fishing around us as some of you have noticed that during the Tidal Fraser River pink salmon season. What really determines how the fishing day turns out is the type of crowd you are fishing with. As expected, long leaders and constant thrashing of the rig in the water turned the bite completely off unfortunately. It was like a switch between night and day. I told Nina that they didn’t stop biting for no reasons.

After a long period of inactivity, there finally was a sign of life. Nina hooked into another good fish. The constant silver flashes in the water and surface splashing suggested another coho salmon, which was similar in size to the first one she landed. She played it nicely into the shallow but the hook popped out right before it was to be tailed.

We then experienced a few good take-downs. At one point, Nina’s float dipped quickly but not fully so she failed to set the hook. I made the following cast to do the same drift and said, “I haven’t had a bite for long time.” Just as I finished the sentence, the float disappeared completely. Of course, the lack of focus sent the empty hook flying back into my face once again! Slightly frustrated, I decided to switch to the spoon setup. Within a few casts, I had a solid hit and hooked into a lively fish, which also unconnected itself in less than a minute!

As the morning progressed, more people appeared behind us and were not afraid to take over the little space there was. I consider myself very easy going when it comes to being surrounded by anglers and try not to judge how anyone fishes, but certain common courtesy should be expected, such as vocally expressing your interest in fishing near me. One individual, who did not have waders, did just that and I was glad to have him fishing not too far downstream from me. We timed our drifts to avoid tangles and it worked out just fine. Another late arriver dressed head to toe in Focus Fishing gear, did the complete opposite. While I walked ten feet away from my spot to take out more roe from the bag, he proceeded to act as my replacement. I kindly informed him that I am still interested in fishing next to my wife. He didn’t seem to understand so I repeated myself one more time until he moved. The same individual also didn’t quite understand that if my rod tip can touch your nose, you maybe causing inconvenience. Finally, his shifty feet performed some cat-like moves. Everytime I moved slightly upstream to help Nina, he moved onto where I was standing. Apparently I was standing on the sweet spot. In the end, as more people showed up, we decided to move much further downstream to the tailout of the run and he of course helped himself to our spot before we even made our way down. This wasn’t a big deal of course, one should choose to take it with humour. As I’ve pointed out in the past, if you choose to stand by a toilet, don’t complain about the smell and flies.

While fishing the shallow tailout, I spotted some coho salmon moving into the run. I decided to shorten up the float depth and focused more on where they were rolling. As expected, the float took another dive and this time my hook-set was pretty precise. The way this fish fought suggested that it was definitely a coho salmon. The silver body, roughly around the same size as Nina’s fish, made its way to me pretty fast. I carefully guided it into the shallow water, but it took one more dash into the deep and I felt the dreadful pop once again!

The rain became heavy at 10:30am, but this did not stop more people from showing up. We finally felt a little uncomfortable and decided to leave the spot. Before we packed it up for the day, I suggested that we should check out another spot where no one was fishing. The high bank made it difficult, but the slot seemed to be untouched and looked very fishy. It didn’t take many drifts of a big piece of roe to confirm my curiosity. The float was taken down hard and a rather heavy fish shook its head repeatedly without surfacing. It was not a coho salmon, but a small chinook salmon. I walked the fish downstream until we found a suitable spot to land it. Nina climbed down and grabbed onto its tail perfectly. The fish was around 8 to 10lb. We decided to release her as one fresh fish in our cooler was already enough for tonight’s fine dinner.

Overall, I’d say it was a pretty good outing, excluding a few episodes. The hooking wasn’t too bad, now we just need to improve on the landing. While the spot maybe productive, the atmosphere indeed plays a big role on the quality of our trip, so I’ll have to rethink whether we will put ourselves in that situation again anytime soon. As others have pointed out, it is a long river and quiet spots are not uncommon. Once the river rises, fish should spread out quickly and better fishing experience will come shortly.

The change in water level indicated in today’s hydrograph wasn’t noticeable to us while we were fishing, but we noticed a slight change in water clarity as the day went on. Visibility remains pretty good by the time we left but it definitely was not as clear as when we first arrived this morning.

We just uploaded a new video feature to our YouTube channel. This one features Nina fly fishing in Southeastern British Columbia for westslope cutthroat trout and mountain whitefish. The video is in Danish, but subtitle is available. Simply click on the “CC” button at the bottom right corner of the video frame to activate it. Enjoy!

If you were woken up by this loud profanity in Downtown Vancouver this morning, my apology. It was just me losing a nice coho salmon in the Capilano Canyon.

I originally wanted to go the Capilano River yesterday morning after the water level rose on Monday. As expected, there were plenty of fish rolling and jumping around when I arrived at first light today. After fishing this system since the mid 90’s, I wasn’t about to get too excited as I know how tight lipped these fish can be. I flicked the spoon out and hoped for at least a couple of hits in today’s outing. That’s as much as I would hope for because I rarely get more than that during each outing throughout these years.

As expected, the lure was untouched for a good period of time. I switched to a spinner at one point and found it very popular among those juvenile steelhead, so it was quickly replaced with the spoon after a few pecks. There was a mix bag of fish in front of me. Some very fresh coho salmon could be seen leaping around. They were easily in the 5 to 10lb range. A couple of fish looked much bigger than the rest. At first I mistaken them as large chinooks but was pretty surprised after seeing a few more jumps. There were also a few dark coho salmon, which have probably been in the system for awhile. Several pink salmon could be seen digging around gravels in the shallow water. The odd big adult chinook salmon made their appearance in the deep section. There were also some chinook jacks swimming about. With not a single person around at 7:00am, it was hard to complain. I just needed a fish at the end of the line.

After perhaps one hour, there finally was a sign of hope. During one retrieve, the line went slightly slack as if a fish was pushing the lure forward. This was followed by a solid tug. I set the hook swiftly, but could tell that it wasn’t set hard enough and most likely it was barely hooked. I nervously kept the tension as the fish surfaced. It was a really bright coho salmon in the 5 or 6lb range. Fantastic! Just one of these would make my day. After its surfacing, it began to run and roll a couple of times. That made me even more nervous. Due to the rolls, the line became wrapped around the fish as it does quite often when fighting a coho salmon. Seeing what was happening, I was a bit more confident. That didn’t last long of course, because the fish unrolled itself. A few seconds later, the dreadful pop and slack occurred. I was disgusted, the fish was so close to being landed! Like a big baby whose candy has been taken away, I of course began cursing away and splashing around with my rod. A heron stood 15 feet away from me, probably wondering what this mad man was up to at dawn.

It took a few minutes to calm down and regroup myself so I could get back to the action. The worst thing to do would have been losing my patience and the retrieve speed that was used to lure that coho. Luck was not on my side for the rest of that morning. Beside one other fish that followed my spoon to the shallow, it was uneventful until the sun hit the water.

Fish were splashing around the whole time. Some really nice fish could also be seen porpoising at the tailout. Frustrated, I took out a bag of boraxed roe and rigged up the DNE balsa float. Wait, scratch that last part, that only went on in my head. It certainly was frustrating during the bait ban when these fish could easily be caught with some freshly cured roe under the float. Oh well, rules are rules after all.

My Capilano River outings can be grouped into two categories, the good days and the bad days. Most of my trips have resulted in at least a couple of hook-ups. The good days are when the fish made it to shore. The bad days are when the river is full of fish and nothing sticks onto the hook. This is definitely one of those days, which keep luring me back every year. Why anyone would want to get up before dawn to endure this type of torture, only fishermen can understand.

Since the Fraser River pink salmon fishing season started around two weeks ago, fishing has been pretty challenging. there are always surprises every season. This year, fish seem to be travelling into the river without following a consistent pattern. In the last week or so, fishing has actually been pretty slow and many wondered if the season was actually tapering off to a dismal finish. Well, the last couple of days have proven it otherwise. Massive schools of fish have been rolling into the Fraser River with the tide and they were as fresh as a salmon can get. This female pink salmon fell for my spoon this evening and without looking at it closely, one may just mistaken it as a coho or sockeye salmon.

Fishing should be good for at least another week, so be sure to get out and enjoy while it lasts.

After fishing for pink salmon in the Tidal Fraser River for one week, we put together this video blog for you to enjoy.

If you have never participated in this fishery and want to, we’ve put together a ten-minute video tutorial in our subscribers section.