I decided to go down to the river to watch the commercial chum salmon opening and fish for a few hours at the same time in the afternoon. Upon my arrival, I was pretty surprised by the amount of boat traffic in the area. Constant boat traffic means constant waves pounding the shoreline, which does not make fishing too pleasant. Nevertheless, I took the fly rod out and worked the beaches, hoping to fool a bull trout or two.
From 3:30pm to 5:00pm, not a whole lot happened. I spotted a couple of rises close to shore. Not salmon, but they were either trout or char feeding on the surface. I then spotted a chum splashing close to shore, must have been pushed in by the nets. From 5:00pm to 6:00pm, things became more exciting. I first had two solid hits in a row but managed to miss them both. At first I thought that it may have been a good sized bull trout, but a few chum surfaced just several feet in front of me changed my mind. They continued to circle in front of me, in just two feet of water. I was quite certain that they were staying away from the nets. I made some casts toward them with no success, but I managed to fool a tiny bull trout that was not much more than 8in long. I had one more hit just before dark.
Water clarity is very good and for once I think time of the day actually is a factor on the fishing result. In the last three outings (Saturday, Sunday and today), I have been consistently getting bites between 5 and 6pm while other hours were unproductive.
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Topic: Tidal Fraser River, October 27th 2009 (Read 770 times)