Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum
Fishing in British Columbia => Fishing Reports => Members' Fishing Reports => Topic started by: CohoMan on March 03, 2010, 08:08:47 PM
-
Decided to head up to Chilliwack after a half day downtown Vancouver dealing with my financial advisor duties.
Got to the river around 1:30pm. Fished for a couple hours without any actions but I heard of three fish hooked under the KWB.
I then went further down a bit and saw a guy hooked into a hatchery fish.
At around 4:30pm, someone hooked into a big fish and he fought it for a while and they saw the adipose fin but..... No. it is not steelhead, it is a SPRING!!!!! of about 20lb. ???????
-
Never seen them before?
I have hooked 2 winter springs in the Vedder and man are they ever a hoot.
Notice the signs up all along the dike telling diff between a Steely and a spring, it's because the Vedder has a small winter run of chinook.
I sure hope he didnt kill it, man are they ever a nice looking fish 8)
-
That's down right wacky, but with this El niño this year, who knows.
-
It was released quickly.
-
Sounds awsome, im going to head down for first light on Friday.......Fingers crossed ;D
-
I was there in the morning, was raining the entire time I was there...Had to leave early around noon unfortunately.
Saw the same 3 guys planted under the KWB since 6am when I left.
Upper river was really clear, but didn't see any fish in the water and didnt hear of any action from the other anglers up there.
-
those springs are destined for the lilloett river, the vedder does not have a winter run of springs :-X....they are there once in a while but they are not native to the vedder.. Everyday I would love to see the pics of the two you got on the vedder.... as you know seeing is believing....
-
About the same time in March about 15 years ago while on a group fish with 6 buddies, one of the guys caught a red spring. We were at a run near Peach rd and everyone on the run thought it was a monster steelie, it jumped twice and fought just like a steelie. Only until it was beached and we saw the tell tail black gums that it was a spring. What a gorgeous fish it was.
-
trust me, i have pics of the 20+lb, unfortunately he didn' want to be famous, so i'm mailing him the pic. i also have pics of another one about 15lbs. i'll see if i can get only the fish on the pictures if possible. good that they closed the fishery, probably would have been a few steely's bonked with the excuse that they thought it was a chinnook ::)
-
Over the years I have caught two chinooks at this time of year in the Vedder. My son also landed one a few years ago
-
this might be a dumb question but here it goes. If a winter chinook is in the vedder in march and there are very very few of them. What are they doing there?do the wait till june or july for the rest of the team to spawn or do they spawn amongst the steelhead? Is that even possible?to have a steelhead and Chinook cross?
-
Was thinkin of posting the pic of my chinook that I caught last week , but for some reason the picture won't attache to the post.
-
this might be a dumb question but here it goes. If a winter chinook is in the vedder in march and there are very very few of them. What are they doing there?do the wait till june or july for the rest of the team to spawn or do they spawn amongst the steelhead? Is that even possible?to have a steelhead and Chinook cross?
they are lilloett fish not vedder fish, they always stray off for a few days but they are not spawning or returning to the vedder.... but it does look like its time to hit the lilly....
-
Hi tnt
Just curious why you are confident these are Lilloooet River bound chinooks? Perhaps you have submitted DNA samples??
-
Everyday I would love to see the pics of the two you got on the vedder.... as you know seeing is believing....
Never use to carry a camera with me... that's a new toy I got the last 2 years of fishing.
And really, even if I did have pics I probably wouldn't post them anyways, I don't need to prove myself to anyone, I was simply stating that there are indeed a few kicking around in the Vedder and it is not a one time thing. When you (use to) fish on a river 300+ days a year and almost every day during Steelhead season (especially March and April) you are bound to hit something out of the ordinary.
I have seen these things caught as high as Wilson Road (one of my friends helped tail one at tamahi).. kinda weird to think that they would go that high and then turn around (although I know Cultus Sockeye do this so who knows). I'm still fairly sure that there is a small run of these things native to the river, kinda like the small run of chromer December chum. Might be time to do a little research...
-
Here's a couple of pics of Vedder springs caught in the last couple of weeks. Donated by penn and Yoda.
Feel free to add your own to the collection....
(http://i533.photobucket.com/albums/ee338/alwaysfishn/springpenn.jpg) (http://i533.photobucket.com/albums/ee338/alwaysfishn/springpenn2.jpg)
-
thanks for the good job of editing, too bad my children didn't teach me all these tricks before they moved out! i need the step by step method. i think that these are resident chinooks. should have taken a scale sample up to the hatchery. will do that next time a scale falls off.
-
oh my god :o
they are beautiful! rather catch a spring then a steelhead now :D
-
I have gotten whites like that in the Vedder before ;) in late August/early September.
that second pic is the cleanest spring i have seen out of saltwater, very nice ;D
-
I think EveryDay is right, and maybe Dave might have some additional information. There is a very early run of Vedder springs that come in and my understanding is that these are native fish that are now so few and far in between.
-
TNT if you have any information that the Chinook in the Chilliwack/Vedder now ...are not native but are strays from the Lillooet please share!
From what I have heard there is indeed a small remnant native population of "spring" Chinook in the Chilliwack/Vedder. I imagine they go straight to the lake where they would hold below the thermocline and wait until they are ready to spawn later on.
One more issue for Fishery Managers to mull over....
-
ya i have heard that these winter springs are in the 50 or less fish run size :'( :'( I have yet to see one with my own eyes (in person) but these pics are great ;D
-
Buck would be the best person to answer this as he has the information. The discussion on the winter chinook in the Chilliwack River was discussed a few years ago when all parties agreed that a permanent retention closure should be in place until the river reopens in July, but I've deleted those emails already so can't remember the exact information that was provided by the hatchery.
-
Back in the 60’s, early 70’s we used to start fishing the Chilliwack for it’s indigenous chinooks as soon as the freshet was over, usually mid June. Even then these fish were not plentiful but because so few anglers targeted them we were always able to hook a few each year. Landing these fish was another story however as they were extremely powerful and they liked to hold in water just above rapids, ie. Tamihi, Boulder Hole.
The largest I landed was only about 16 pounds but I saw many fish lost that were in the mid 20’s and one monster in the Boulder Hole that was a good 35. Interestingly, these fish we caught in June and July and even into August were never silver bright like the 2 pictured … they were a dull pewter colour. Remember, back then most of the die hard local Chilliwack anglers stopped fishing in March, mainly because they were loggers and went back to work. As there was so little angling pressure during March and April it is possible these Chinooks did come in to the Chilliwack much earlier. Along with these chinooks there was a fabulous run of char – we called them Dolly Varden and maybe they were as they were silver bright and red fleshed … and tremendous table fare. Largest of these I saw was about 8 pounds with the average about 3-4 lbs.
Now, this indigenous Chinook stock is almost gone but a few do remain. The Chilliwack hatchery people make an effort to capture these few fish for broodstock, and have spawned a few over the years but finding and capturing them is difficult and not cost effective. They tend to spawn about a month later than the transplanted summer reds now in the system, meaning their progeny emerge later ( when water temperatures are warmer and food is more plentiful) than those of the transplants. That extra month is probably the reason the transplants will never become self sustaining.
It’s a shame the DFO - SEP officials at the time didn’t do their homework on this issue and enhance the stock that was specifically adapted to the Chilliwack River, rather than a hodge podge of up country stocks.
-
The first spring of those two is equally a shiny as the second , there is one more photo of that one laying on it's side in the water looking just as brilliant . Just don't have technical ability of attaching photos on this forum .
-
To attach/post photos on the forum is quite simple. Go to www.photobucket.com and sign up for an account. Once you are signed up, upload your photo(s) to your account. Once the photos are uploaded, each photo will have codes that you can select below it. Select and copy the IMG code and include the code in your post. Once that's done, the photo will show up in your post.
-
To attach/post photos on the forum is quite simple. Go to www.photobucket.com and sign up for an account. Once you are signed up, upload your photo(s) to your account. Once the photos are uploaded, each photo will have codes that you can select below it. Select and copy the IMG code and include the code in your post. Once that's done, the photo will show up in your post.
??? ::) ;D
By the way, beautiful fish.
-
Let me guess both these fish were caught well below the crossing? typically just up fom the canal, the farthest up I have seen them is peach rd.... you would think with all the prime holding water up river that they would be caught further up if these were residing fish....I will bet you could put a tag in that fish and it will end up in the Lilly....Just my 2 cents tho....
-
(http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy228/penn_01/IMG00404.jpg)
Here's another shot of that same fish .
-
Beauties! Nice catches gents.
-
??? ::) ;D
See, the instructions not that hard, Penn understood them. :P
-
Nice posting job penn!!!!! ;D ;D
-
Let me guess both these fish were caught well below the crossing? typically just up foam the canal, the farthest up I have seen them is peach rd.... you would think with all the prime holding water up river that they would be caught further up if these were residing fish....I will bet you could put a tag in that fish and it will end up in the Lilly....Just my 2 cents tho....
I think we'll need a little more science than that to convince us...... :-\ ;D
-
Let me guess both these fish were caught well below the crossing? typically just up fom the canal, the farthest up I have seen them is peach rd.... you would think with all the prime holding water up river that they would be caught further up if these were residing fish....I will bet you could put a tag in that fish and it will end up in the Lilly....Just my 2 cents tho....
I caught a Spring last year in February or March around Borden Creek so they do go higher up than Peach Rd.
-
Both of the ones I got were above the crossing...
One just below Wilson Road and one at the Native Reserve ::) (Although this means nothing since I don't have pics apparently).
Have also seen one landed at Tamahi and one of my friends has also seen one caught at Tamahi as well.
Must have just been really lucky in my 3 years of Steelheading to have seen 3 if they aren't even native to the Vedder... and no they were not Steelhead, I'm not that dumb ::)
Also 2 years ago when fishing with my buddy at Tamahi he hooked into something that we still have no idea what it was.
Took off downriver like a bat out of hell and wouldn't stop at anything. He eventually lost it after it had peeled out almost half his line and was still running.
It never jumped or even came to the top once, and just the sheer power had me thinking that was also a spring.
-
I caught a 20 lber in 1990 down at the powerlines, on a rubber worm,in march....thought I had the mother of all steelheads, it was a hatchery fish too.
back in the day when you had to crank the camera and wait 2 weeks for the film to get back from the space shuttle.....or 1 hour at wallymart. ::)
-
I caught a 20 lber in 1990 down at the powerlines, on a rubber worm,in march....thought I had the mother of all steelheads, it was a hatchery fish too.
back in the day when you had to crank the camera and wait 2 weeks for the film to get back from the space shuttle.....or 1 hour at wallymart. ::)
Damn you must be really old. ;)
-
well mabye when i hooked that fish that almost spooled my fly reel was a spring. i thought at first it was a snag so tried to dislodge the hook and thats when the fish exploded. i am still mad about losing that fish.
-
probably snag ed it!
-
probably snag ed it!
i am ninty percent sure it wasn't snag as my dad saw the way it was hooked. he was standing on the bridge.
-
Was on the lower end of the Vedder River, March 15th, at first light. I was fishing with, a small pink jig, short floating. The float goes down, after a good fight. A twenty-five pound, Silver Spring was being carefully released. I was surprised at how silver it was, and to even hook one this time of year.