Outlook

It is that time of year again! Drift rods and two handed rods are being laid to rest and stillwater and saltwater gear is being dusted off.

Interior lakes are icing off, turning over and the fishing is starting to heat up. Our lower mainland river systems are in full freshet bringing another steelhead season to a close. The coho salmon fishery on the Cap is just getting started now. If you are looking to do some freshwater fishing in the lower mainland, our local lakes are a great option- especially for introductory anglers.

Chinook fishing is coming into prime time! The hump has been fishing well. The other side is also producing well from Nanaimo to Porlier. Be sure to check weather and tides before you head out to these off-shore fisheries.

Featured Product

 

Saltwater Salmon Gear and Local Coho Patterns

In preparation for summer salmon fishing, we are fully stocked with a variety of Rapala, Fenwick, Daiwa, TrophyXL, G.Loomis, and Sage down rigger and mooching rods.

A rack full of rods!

Along with all the rods, we are well stocked on bait, teaser heads, salt and bait coolers!
We now stock Coleman 4.7L coolers- perfect for storing and brining your anchovies and herring. Small, convenient, and durable, these coolers are just the right size for having your bait ready while staying out of the way.

Saltwater Fixings!

Andre’s Cap Bugger

With Capilano coho starting to trickle in, Andre has tied us up a bunch of his proven Capilano River coho fly the “Cap Bugger”. Stripped quickly or twitched on a Type-6 full sinking line, this fly garners quick takes and aggressive strikes from other wise fairly tight-lipped coho.

Andre’s Cap Buggers!

Fish Farm Documentary on 60 Minutes

The most popular on air news magazine in North America, 60 Minuteson CBS with an average of 12.3 million viewers a week, will air a segment on salmon farming this Sunday at 7 p.m. PST.

Special correspondent Dr. Sanjay Guptaand a 60 Minutes crew were in Campbell River in October 2013 to film local salmon farmers for the program.

To see more, visit 60 Minutes

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.

Ticket giveaways from our friends at FlyBC and Fishing With Rod, so keep checking their site!

Pontoon River Course

This course has been designed to enhance the knowledge of river safety & dynamics in anglers of all skill levels.  Some of the topics you will learn are: river features & terminology, hazards, and navigating.  The two day course covers all of the essentials, while the third additional day offers boat repair & swift-water rescue, plus the option to run a section of the Nicola in your own pontoon.  KUMSHEEN Resort provides great accommodation, abundant activities, amazing facilities, and easy access to some of the finest rivers in BC.

SEAT SALE: May 12 and 13, the course is being offered for only $350 for the course running on the 17th and 18th of May (Two Day course)!

This two and three day course runs on May 17/18 (19th for three day course).
For more details, booking information, and to download the information filled PDF, visit
Kumsheen Pontoon River and Safety Course

 

Learning to Tie Classic Salmon Flies with Michael Radencich

 

In this course students will be learning to tie a variant of “The Royal” which is a Francis Francis fly, as well as  “The Artful Dodger” which is from the book “Jones’s Guide to Norway” by Frederic Tolfrey.

If students would like to bring any copies of their books by Michael to get signed, he would be very happy to do so.

For more information and to reserve your chair for this fantastic and highly anticipated event please call Jim McKinnon at 604-312-2009.

A great example of a pattern tied by Michael Radencich

 

Freshwater Reports

RIVERS

 

Squamish

With the warm spring weather we experienced last week, the Squamish system went into full freshet. Although the weather this week has been fairly mild, we’ve heard the river has still refused to drop back into shape. We don’t expect it will drop back down to a fishable level until after freshet.

If you are planning on going up this weekend, please be safe. We would recommend that anglers do not drift the river. That being said, we have been wrong in the past and we would love to see some pictures of the river or get a first-hand account of what shape it is in.

Chilliwack River

The fly only season has started on the Vedder River below the crossing. We heard a good report from a customer who was fly fishing for bull trout with epoxy minnows below the train bridge, however, this was just before the river went into freshet.

The next fishery on the Chilliwack system will be red springs in July and August.

**The Chilliwack River is closed to fishing above the Vedder Crossing Bridge May 1st-May 31st**
**The Chilliwack River is open to FLY FISHING ONLY below the Vedder Crossing Bridge May 1st-May 31st.**

Chehalis River

The Chehalis River is now closed to fishing. It will reopen June 1^st.

**The Chehalis River is closed to fishing for the month of May**
Harrison River

With the Harrison River standing at a 9.6, it is safe to say that it is over for now. Walk and wade fishing is unsafe at this height, and boat fisherman should exercise extreme caution due to high water and large amounts of debris. Out-migrating cutthroat could be something to think about while the other rivers are out. Small buggers, larger fry patterns, and stonefly nymphs would be a good selection to help round out a spring fly box.

Capilano River

Being a dam controlled river, the Capilano River remains fishable through May and June. The river has been sitting at a nice level all week as it usually is this time of year. There has also been some colour to the water which is likely due to snow melt in the upper reaches of the watershed. We have heard of coho salmon being caught throughout the system by both gear and fly fisherman. Please exercise caution while fishing from the cliffs.

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 reasonably fast 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.

-Max Stickel

Interior Lakes

 

With the warmer weather making its way throughout the province, more and more lakes are starting to become ice-free.

As the ice melts and lakes start to turn over, angling opportunities throughout the different regions of British Columbia are starting to become of interest to those who fish lakes.
Each day, more and more lakes are opening up, turning over, and starting to fish.

We’ve heard that Hatheume Lake, which is just outside of Merrit, has opened up and that the fish are already moving around and being active. We haven’t heard too much about the fishing, but it was nice to hear it was open.

Red Lake in the Kamloops area has been ice-free for a while and turned over pretty quickly right afterwards, but reports on clarity are still, well, quite unclear.

Local Lakes

Rice, Lafarge, Como, Buntzen, and all the other local lakes are fishing well. This is always the best time of year for these low elevation fisheries.

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.

Local Saltwater

The time to go after chinook is now!  I could end the report right there, but that would be pretty boring.  In short though, the fishing has been red hot over on the other side of the Strait of Georgia with excellent reports from Nanaimo down to Thrasher, down to Porlier.  Anglers have been fishing from 200 feet to 1500 feet offshore and getting fish as shallow as 40 and as deep as 180.  So what does this all mean?  It means there are a huge amount of chinook in the Strait right now and you should be booking a charter ASAP or getting out on your own boat.  The fishing is usually good this time of year, but it seems to be better than normal for the time of year, and we think the best is yet to come!  

 On this side we are continuing to do pretty good out on the Hump off S. Bowen when the winds haven’t allowed us to cross over to Thrasher or when customers have opted for shorter trips.  We haven’t had the epic days that some have had on the other side, but we have had some pretty good fishing, definitely worth heading out there.  As per usual, the Hump can be hit or miss due to the shear size of the amount of water to cover.  I was out last Saturday and put in a full shift and did not get a bite!  The very next day we had 7 good hits, hooked 5 of these and put some nice fish in the box.  You really do have to cover some water in this fishery and when you find them, mark some waypoints and do all you can to stay on top of them.

 

 A nice chinook taken out on the Hump last Sunday.

 

The productive flashers have been the Oki Tackle Big Shooter in Kinetic UV Jelly Fish Yellow Green Mist aka “Club Dub” and an Oki Double Glow with a green or chartreuse blade.  We have been fishing the Club Dub on our lines shallower than 120-140 and going with the double glow on the lines that are down deep in the 140-180 range.  It should be noted the fish have been pretty shallow this week with most of the action on the Hump occurring from 70 to 100 feet so the UV flashers have been pretty productive.  The fish haven’t even been that deep over at Thrasher with lots of fish being taken from 90 to 140 so far.

 

 On the Hump we have been fishing the above pictured flashers (in particular Club Dub) with anchovies in a glow green/chartreuse teaser head or with spoons.  Productive spoons have been the Pesca 3.5 in It’s Not, Leprechaun, and Gut Bomb and Kingfisher 3.5 in Irish Cream and Homeland Security.  Over at Thrasher we tend to fish a lot of hootchies, in particular the spatter back series from Yamashita in glow yellow, green and blue shades.  Below are the top producers and we have good inventory on them right now.  We like about a 32 inch leader for these hootchies and a fairly fast troll.  The previously mentioned spoons are also working very well.

 Crabbing has also been very good in the harbour.  We continue to drop some traps on each trip and are starting to pull up some big ones.

 

So the time to go chinook fishing is now!  Call us at 778-788-8582 to book your charter.  If you have your own boat, come by the shop for the right gear and some friendly advice on how to set it up and where to go get some of these awesome chinook.

 

See you on the water or in the shop,

 

Jason Tonelli

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, Matt, Max, Andre, and Jordan