We spent our Thanksgiving long weekend away from the Chilliwack River even though coho salmon fishing is pretty hot right now, so we could stay away from the crowd. I decided to take my dad out this morning after the crowd had dispersed. Heavy rain was a slight concern as I didn't know how long we would get to fish before river condition deteriorated. We arrived in the dark at 6:30am, a few people were already standing by the bank. One of them turned out to be a familiar old face on the forum. I checked the water clarity in the dark, which was probably not the greatest idea, because I saw nothing. At first I thought visibility is really poor even though the water level had not risen that much. Once daylight broke, I could see that the visibility is not bad. In fact, the condition is almost ideal.
In the past couple of weeks, I have been trying to get my dad into at least one coho salmon. Until today, he had been unsuccessful. The first trip he managed to connect with two springs, which he struggled to bring in. At 75, he no longer has the strength to pull in a big fish. Last Friday evening, he managed to hook into one coho salmon but lost it.
We started the morning by float fishing roe, at the same spot where Nina and I had some luck last week. At first there were no signs of fish surfacing, which was rather discouraging. That doubt was erased when my float disappeared under the dim light. I was slow on the pull but the fish remained on, at least for 20 or so seconds before it popped off.
Water level had risen slightly overnight, so it appeared that fish were no longer holding at our spot. Instead they were on the move. I decided to give the spoon a go, seeing that I've had success with it under these conditions in the past. It only took a few casts before I missed a tap. A few more casts later, a fish had followed in and grabbed the spoon not too far from where we were standing. It was an extremely silver wild fish. Chris aided by holding my fishing rod while my dad took a photo of my fish.
After it was released, I proceeded to hook another one that hit the spoon very hard. It leaped right away and spat the hook out at the same time. Meanwhile, my dad also missed a bite on the float.
Just when we thought fishing was picking up, water clarity was degrading fast at 9:00am. It was mostly from a pump house nearby, which was releasing plenty of dirty water. I decided that we needed to make a move further upstream, to a spot where cleaner water and holding fish were found.
After relocating our car, we walked for about 10 minutes and were rewarded with a spot that had not been fished by others. The tailout looked very fishy. Back in steelhead season, I had made a mental note that I would return later for coho salmon. I made the first cast and the float went down right away. I pulled and all I received was a baitless hook. The following cast yielded a pink salmon that didn't realize it should have spawned a couple of weeks ago. My dad made the third cast, which resulted in a birdnest. While straightening out his line, I watched his float taking a fast dive. I yelled for him to pull. The hookset was poor, but the fish had already taken him down the riffles. The kicks indicated a coho salmon, a good one too. Not able to gain some line with the reel, we decided that he should walk backward to gain line and walk forward as he retrieved. This worked and eventually the fish made its way back upstream. I wanted him to guide the fish into the little shallow bay just downstream from where we were fishing. He struggled to do so and the fish bolted downstream once again when it felt the gravel bed on his abdomen. A few more minutes of battle and we were back to the edge of the shallow spot again. This time, he successfully brought the fish into the bay where I was able to tail it. It was a wild buck, roughly around 6lb. My dad was both excited and disappointed, because all of the coho he has landed so far are wild. Nevertheless, it was worth celebrating as it was his first ever Vedder River coho salmon. After a couple photos, we sent it back to the run.
On the next cast, I managed to hook another coho salmon. This time, a smaller fish, had a slight remain of an adipose fin. Most likely it was a mis-clipped fish, but I did not want to keep it to avoid any trouble.
On our fifth cast, my float went down once again. This time, the hook-set resulted in another fish but it popped off after a few seconds, sending my Drennan float back, which cracked on the rocks.
With four good bites out of the first five casts, I thought the rest of the morning was going to be spectacular. It was quite the contrary as we only had a couple of more bites. We did see a few very big coho salmon leaping in the run and it appeared that lots of fish were holding in this moderate flow. We ended the trip at 11:30am, a pretty successful outing despite of an empty cooler to come home with.
Author
Topic: Chilliwack River, October 11th 2011 (Read 1924 times)