Outlook
June is here! The summer solstice is right around the corner and so are our summer time fisheries.
The Capilano River has been producing some coho salmon, but overall, it has been a slow start to the season.
Poor wind conditions have made Saltwater fishing a challenge, limiting anglers to more in-shore areas. Coho fishing off West Vancouver should be picking up any day now being that the Capilano River is quite low.
We are getting very close to beach fishing for coho. We have already seen a few anglers trying their luck at Ambleside. We haven’t heard any positive reports yet, but that should soon change. In preparation for this challenging and rewarding fishery, we are offering two specific beach courses, a fly tying course and a techniques course that are designed to teach you everything you need to know to be a successful fly angler on our local beaches. Details below…….
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Upcoming Courses
TYING BEACH FLY PATTERNS – Andre Stepanian
Class Size: 7
Join Pacific Angler for a 3hr evening seminar of tying flies specific to catching salmon on our coastal beaches. Without a doubt, fly selection is critical while beach fishing. These flies are often not commercially available, so successful beach anglers learn to tie their own patterns. Your instructor will walk you through each fly pattern step-by-step. This course is suitable for fly tiers with a basic knowledge.Students are required to supply their own vise, tools and materials. A 10% discount is available on materials and tools purchased for the course.
Cost: $40.00
Dates: Jun 10
Time:6:30pm –9:30pm
FLY FISHING ON BEACHES
Class Size: 20
This single evening 3hr seminar will cover the basic principles needed to be an effective beach fly fishermen in BC from Howe Sound to the east coast of Vancouver Island. Topics covered will include rods, reels, fly lines, flies, tides, and techniques. Andre Stepanian, the instructor for this course, has been chasing salmon on our local beaches for over two decades. Remember, east coast Vancouver Island has a pink salmon run every year and last year the Capilano had 12,000 coho!
Book this course early as we sold out all 3courses in 2013!!
Cost: $40.00
Dates : July 9, July 15 and July 23
Time: 6:30pm – 9:30pm
INTRODUCTION TO FLY TYING
Class Size: 7
There is no greater satisfaction than catching a fish with a fly you tied yourself. This course was specifically designed to give you the fundamental skills needed to tie proven fly patterns used here in BC for trout, salmon, and steelhead. This course consists of 3 sessions; each session is 3hrs.
Students are required to supply their own vise, tools and materials.A 10% discount is available on materials and tools purchased for the course.
Cost: $75.00
Dates:
Jun 9, 16 & 23 Time: 6:30pm – 9:30pm
Upcoming Events
BC’s FAMILY FISHING WEEKEND
The 15th Annual BC’s Family Fishing Weekend is taking place June 13th-15th province wide. Be sure the check out their website for a list of events and activities in your area.
F3T- THE FLY FISHING FILM TOUR
Join us June 12 to kick off the 2014 Salmon Season and give DAD the gift he wants for Fathers day: tickets to the F3T!
We will be back in our favorite theatre, at the Norman Rothstein Theatre at Oak and 41st ave.
Again we are pleased to have thousands of dollars in GIVEAWAY PRIZES, including a trip to Ruddocks, a $1000 Fly rod from our friends at RL Winston, tons of SIMMS merchandise and we also have a ton of glasses to giveaway from our friends at COSTA.
Join us at 6:00 for adult bevies, with the show starting at 7:15.
Net proceeds from this show will be going to a donation to The Seymour Fish Hatchery and the JCC Theatre Company.
Tickets available now online and very shortly in all your local flyshops.https://www.pacificangler.ca/wp-admin/post-new.php
Ticket giveaways from our friends at FlyBC and Fishing With Rod, so keep checking their site!
Product Feature
ABEL MOOCHING REELS
We are now fully stocked on Abel Mooching Reels. These top-of-the-line saltwater mooching reels are the new industry standard. After two years of fishing these reels on our guide boats, we can tell you with confidence that these reels are as good as it gets. Legendary Abel quality, incredibly smooth retrieve, and a low-maintenance cork drag system that is sure to not creep while downrigger fishing. Everything that goes into an Abel reel is made in their factory in Camarillo, California.
“Machined entirely in the USA from prime grade metals”.
“Full saltwater anodizing using Abel’s proprietary method”.
Be sure to come by the shop and check out these exciting new reels.
Freshwater Reports
RIVERS
Squamish
There won’t be much to say about this river system until september. Resident trout can be targeted in the summer months once the water has dropped. These trout are best targeted with nymphs, streamers, and dry flies. We have a feeling that the river is past the point of return for the spring season, however, it is possible that it could come into shape for a small window.
Squamish Cheakamus system is a100% catch and release, single barbless fishery so play by the rules and have fun!
Chilliwack River
The next fishery on the Chilliwack system will be red springs starting July 1st.
Note: The Chilliwack river is closed to fishing for the month of June.
Chehalis River
The Chehalis River is now open to fishing. We have not heard anything from this system yet. We suspect that the water is still too high. If you are in this area, we would love to see a picture of the water or get a first hand report.
Harrison River
The Harrison is now in freshet.
Capilano River
The water level in the Capilano is now quite low. Fly fishing at the Cable pool with a full sink type 6 line stripping an olive woolly bugger has been the most effective method. Roll cast off the cliff into the pool, wait for it to sink and strip the fly up with steady pulls. The fish are not always into the fast strips, try various retrieves and change your fly size every so often as Coho are very moody and a change in tactic may elicit a strike. Be patient and persistent and you will hopefully get one or more. If you are fishing the lower pools in the river, use a sink tip line swinging the fly with a few twitches at the end of your swing.
Please note: ALL steelhead(adipose clipped and unclipped) must be released with the utmost care.
The most popular method for this fishery is short-floating with light/medium power casting and center-pin rods. Productive baits include cured roe, roe bags, krill, dew worms, and Colorado blades. Fly fishing is also quite effective for these early run coho. 7-8wt single hand fly rods equipped with full sinking type-6 lines allow you to strip your fly while maintaining a deep presentation. The most effective flies are olive woolly buggers (Andre’s Cap Coho Bugger), muddler minnows, and small polar bear winged flies in sizes 8-12.
Andre Stepanian
Interior Lakes
I went lake fishing at lower Kane lake last Monday. I left my house excited to fish chironomids, but the fish did not share my excitement. The fish were sipping caddis emergers and dark coloured mayflies. The water temp that day was 60F. The fish were anywhere from 25ft deep to 2ft deep. The caddis were orange in colour from sizes 10 to 14. Around 1:00pm the black mayflies started to come off. It lasted for about two hours as the clouds rolled in. Similar activity would have been taking place at many of the lakes in the 3600 ft range. This is the time of year to have a full arsenal of different flies in your box as you never know what to expect. Check the forecast before you head out. If you can choose your days to head out, look for a steady or rising barometer as the fish are more happy and will eat throughout the day.
-Andre Stepanian
More solid reports have arrived from Douglas Lake Ranch. Stoney and Minnie have been fishing quite well in recent days. The fish have been down deep in both lakes (20-30ft). Both the sunk line chironomid technique and long leader floating line technique have been accounting for many of the fish to the boat. Boobie flies fished on a full sinking type 3 or type 6 line have proved to be deadly since the fish have been down deep. This technique can elicit some incredibly aggressive strikes.
We have heard some good reports out of the Caribou region this past week. This is typically the time of year when these lakes start to fish well.
If you are new to chironomid fishing, try fishing lakes where the fish are known to be willing biters(Tunkuwa,Leighton,Englishmen etc.). This will help to speed up the learning curve. At the same time, always have Leeches and scuds in your arsenal. Chironomid fishing starts as early as 11:00am and lasts till 4:00pm more or less, so before this the fish might feed on leeches and scuds.
Here are some lakes that are worth checking out in the Merritt area: Davis, Englishmen, Harmon, Marquart, Lundbom, Kump, Corbett, and Courtney. For more in depth information and getting set up for your trip please drop by the store.
Andre & Max.
Local Lakes
Rice, Lafarge, Como, Buntzen, and all the other local lakes are fishing well.
It is a good idea to play around with different techniques to find the most effective method on any given day. When experiencing slow fishing with stationary bait rigs like float fishing or bottom fishing, a spinner or a spoon can really change your luck.
We encourage people to take the introductory angler in their life to one of these stocked lakes. It is a great way to get people into the sport based on how willing the fish are and proximity to the city.
Stump Lake in Squamish is fishing well for smaller cutthroat trout. Because this lake is tannin stained, dark coloured bugger and leech patterns are most effective. Don’t be afraid to fish some flashy flies to target some of the bigger cutthroat that may be feeding on the invasive pumpkin seed.
The Whistler Lakes are starting to heat up. We have heard good reports from Alta lake recently. The species of target in Alta lake are cutthroat trout and rainbow trout. Cutthroat are best targeted with woolly bugger and minnow type flies like muddlers and belly dancers or small spoons like a Dick Nite. The rainbows can be taken on a variety of flies. Chironomids fished under an indicator can actually work quite well on Alta for rainbows.
We have also heard decent reports from the Pemberton Lakes recently.
Local Saltwater
Since fishing off the Hump has faded away we have mainly been running across the Georgia Strait and have enjoyed some pretty good fishing. With the exception of a few slow trips we have been coming back with some gorgeous early season chinook over at Thrasher Rock. Most of the fish are in the low to high teens with a few larger fish in the twenty pound rang thrown in.
The most productive depth has been 100’ to 140′ but anywhere from 80′ to 180′ works on any given day depending on water clarity and how sunny it is. The fish are feeding on 4″-5″ herring so spoons and hoochies in that size range are working well. For spoons, Cookies and Cream, Homeland Security, Kitchen Sink, Irish Cream and especially the Pesca spoons called the Leprechaun and Uncle Bob have been my favourites in 3.5 and 4.0 sizes. Spatterback hoochies in green, chartreuse, and blue have been working well with a 32 to 40 inch leader. I have also had some good success with 3 inch Irish Cream and Kitchen Sink spoons fished as high as 80’- 90′. On those days I found the fish had been dining on stickleback minnows. Prawning has died off due to the commercial fleet harvesting them for about 3 weeks now. Crabbing has been excellent and will continue until the commercial fleet starts fishing for them as well in mid June. We’ve also been spotting porpoises regularly and on 3 of my trips last week we also had the added bonus of sighting whales as were heading back to Vancouver. The first sighting was a couple of transient orcas and the other 2 sightings were a humpback whale. A couple of days ago another boat spotted a pod of about 2 dozen resident orcas as well. What a great way to cap off a successful trip!
Tight Lines,
Eddie Matthei
To book your trip give Jason a call at 778-788-8582. If you are heading out in your own boat, stop by the shop for the latest up to the day report and info on the hot flashers and spoons.
On behalf of the Pacific Angler staff we wish you the best in your fishing endeavors and we hope to see you either at the shop or on the water. To check out the latest Pacific Angler news view the Pacific Angler Facebook page.
-Jason, Eddie, Matt, Andre, and Max.