Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[243Pete]

Caught two early last week in about an hour and since then haven’t been able to catch anymore. Have tried Richmond south arm near 4 road a couple times and from Burnaby Foreshore park once. I’m brand new so I’m learning a lot but it is disappointing when you have such success early on and then a period of nothing.

With fishing there are highs and lows, this year in particular hasn't been the most easy despite the large numbers coming back but don't let it discourage you as you aren't the only one who is having difficulty right now, seen many anglers from between no3 road and Gilbert the past two weeks who have either caught only one or two despite multiple hours of fishing or none at all.
I've been fishing that area of the lower Fraser with great results since opening, watch other anglers who are having success, strike up a convo and you never know who you might run into. 

[yoh]

It's as they say, they call it fishing and not catching 

Always try moving around a bit too, even within the same spot. I was packing up and getting ready to leave, when I cast a couple more times on walk back and almost immediately got into fish, much after everyone seemed to have stopped getting fish.



New forecast for temps are looking great. Should be able to catch the tail end of the pink run with hopefully faster fishing.

Talked to a few guys that said they drove from out east and the Fraser tributaries are still pretty slow for Salmon.

[redside1]

Fabulous! Now we can all spend hours & hours chucking lures at nothing! People shouldn't spend money to buy lures for such an opening. Better to send the money to me and I'll invest it for them. What scam to lobby to open the river for pinks now. DFO will just say they gave us what we asked for. Nothing like an opportunity for nothing. 

not trying to beat you up Ralph but looks like this comment aged well.
Pretty much 90% of the return already past Mission right now. The fish arrived a week earlier than forecasted and of course the run size was 1/2 of original forecast. It's a good thing the opportunity to fish came early instead of waiting until early September to open it. Having the river open with few in it should have created a better angling experience overall. Challenging to get with such a demand for fishing opportunities.

[wildmanyeah]

not trying to beat you up Ralph but looks like this comment aged well.
Pretty much 90% of the return already past Mission right now. The fish arrived a week earlier than foretasted and of course the run size was 1/2 of original forecast. It's a good thing the opportunity to fish came early instead of waiting until early September to open it. Having the river open with few in it should have created a better angling experience overall. Challenging to get with such a demand for fishing opportunities.

in fairness i don't think anyone predicted the earliest return on record

but also lol

[wildmanyeah]

there is estimated 12 million pinks now migrated past mission, I wonder how that ranks for spawner escapement 

[redside1]

in fairness i don't think anyone predicted the earliest return on record

but also lol

I agree, Not trying to beat up Ralph, just pointing out it's better to have an open fishery before the fish actually show up so it's fishing not just a mad rush mayhem experience because the fish are here right now and could be gone tomorrow. Ralph offers many informative posts almost every day.

[Fish Assassin]

Not a bad morning to be out. Quite a few fish including a limit caught

[fic]

13.5 Million Pinks accounted for. It doesn't look like they will change the 12.5 Million in-season estimate.  We could hit 15+ Million when it's all said and done.

[RalphH]

I think the pink season may be all but over. They haven't published the Mission passage for yesterday as yet but Friday's weekly report was that what mostly remained was approximately 1.3 million 'late' fish. Since then about 1.5 million has been recorded as passing Mission. Remember that thjis years return is 12 to 15 days earlier than the long term average.

I was on the Vedder last Wednesday and yesterday. The difference was remarkable. Last Wednesday schools of  clean fish were passing through. Few anglers were present. Yesterday the river was crowded. I saw no fresh schools move through from the start of the flood through about half the ebb. There were large numbers of pinks but they were largely dark zombie fish tight against the cut banks and not in the good numbers at least based on the forecast. Maybe the Chilliwack run still hasn't recovered from the '21 floods. I was skunked though I saw fish caught by drift anglers who who swept presentations through the schools. Not the sort of fish I would retain.

[RalphH]

not trying to beat you up Ralph but looks like this comment aged well.
Pretty much 90% of the return already past Mission right now. The fish arrived a week earlier than forecasted and of course the run size was 1/2 of original forecast. It's a good thing the opportunity to fish came early instead of waiting until early September to open it. Having the river open with few in it should have created a better angling experience overall. Challenging to get with such a demand for fishing opportunities.

They actually rang quite true for the first week of the opening when fishing was very slow. Fishing didn't really get going (I would not call it excellent) until a few days before the Labour Day weekend. It was also directed more at the hype specifically from the BCWF presentations that went so far as to say the return could be as high as 50 million.

BTW to say the comment "aged well" means it rings quite true in hindsight. Early on I warned that the preseason estimates are very unreliable and actual returns could be much lower. Certainly was true in this case as returns look to be less than half the preseason forecast. I was more right than wrong.

[wildmanyeah]

I was more right than wrong.

 

labor day was also early this year next pink run it will be a week later lol

on the plus side it seems like its gonna be a good coho year, caught more hatch coho this year then previous out at the mouth. Reports of the same too. they were all pretty small tho

[RalphH]

At 208,000, yesterday's passage of Pink salmon is the lowest it has been since Aug 24th. That's quite a drop from less than a week ago when it approached 1 million and was over 1/2 million for a number of days.

[yoh]

How convenient that the weather is only starting to get good and the run ends... At least coho is next 
It was a slow season for me start to finish but still happy with what I got. Everyone I encountered was very polite which gives me hope.

Will still try to get out there a couple more times before the end of the week, lower numbers but lower temps may mean less people to compete against

[Fish Assassin]

Still quite a few people out but not as bad as a couple of weeks ago.

[funpig]

I last fished the lower river at about 4pm on the incoming tide on Monday September 8. It was slow. No surface activity.  After about 1 hour, I landed a small very fresh pink buck with the help fellow angler named Philip (thanks). It looked like a doe until I cleaned it; the milt sacs were pink instead of white. 

This was probably the last pink on my last cast for the season. I will probably not go out again until 2027. For me, the run peaked on August 31, when I limited out. Since then the fishing in the lower river has really fallen off. It has been a fun season, 16 fish over 16 days of fishing about 3 hours per day. We ate the first one and the last one, froze two and gave the rest to friends and relatives. People were happy to get a fresh fish.