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[islanddude]

 On the Oyster river yesterday. One cutthroat. No steelhead. Talked to a local who said it was the worst yr. he had experienced in yrs.
  I fished this river back in the late seventies and into the early nineties. Used to have lots of 4-6 fish days in late March and April.
 In the yrs. of 1989-91 we had back to back major flooding due to the rape and pillage of the.old growth in the  water shed. Sanctioned by the government of course. You could smell the dirt and hear the boulders smashing together before you even saw the river.
 The returns dimished after that to a remenant in one of the most productive steelhead rivers on Vancouver Island. All east coast rivers also where effected and by 1997 there was a closure on all Vancouver Island rivers, other than some hatchery rivers, to steelhead fishing.
 We will see a repeat of the event I have described due to the rape and pillage of the second growth here on Vancouver Island. The forest companies are being allowed to strip mine the second growth  with the sanction of the government. Money talks and common sense walks.
 

[VAGAbond]

That is sad.    I caught my first steelhead in the Oyster back in March 1962.   We considered the river to have been considerably damaged by logging even back then.

[Silex-user]

Yeah, I used to fished a lot on East Side Van. Island rivers back in 80's & 90's. I would start fishing the Englishman river first, then work my way up to the Little and Big Qualicum rivers and finally the Oyster river in about 4 days. Used to catch quite  few cutthroats and bonus steelies on Oyster river. Sad to see what happen to those rivers with hardly steelies returning now a days.


Silex-user

[Dave]

Fished the Oyster back in the very early 70’s … at the time I was a very young and naive director of the SSBC, living on 4th ave in Vancouver .  Cal Woods, the Secretary of the SSBC, had a flower shop close by and somehow we became friends; fortunately for me we fished together a few times, on different rivers, before his death.  Anyway, he squired me to a SSBC meeting on the Island, at Barry Thornton's house in Courtney (I think), but it was plainly obvious we were here to fish Barry's river, the Oyster.
And fish it we did, for a day; I remember Eric Carlisle catching two… Cal getting a magnificent 17-18 lb fish after I had missed it, and me, a gorgeous 10 lb doe so bright it shone, caught very near the estuary.  Only other anglers I can remember are Dr. Joe Sladen and I think, Jim Culp.
I have memories of a beautiful river, especially the upper section. 
Sad for your loss Wes … 

[islanddude]

 I spent 3yrs.participating in the brood stock program that the Provincial branch implemented back in the early 80's on the Oyster. I remember fishing with Bob Hooton, Charles Brant, Ralph Poperall, Lew Carswell, Greg Eaton and many others.
 We were very successfull and thousands of steelhead returned from the brood stock we helped capture. Unfortanately I guess we were too successfull for the program never carried on.
 Later in the eighties and into the nineties volunteers were pushed aside by the Provincial branch. They formed their own elite brood stock crew.
 Then along came the idea that the branch would capture downstream migrating steelhead smolts in the late 90's. Raise them in Duncan and spawn them when they became adults. What a disaster that was. They should have taken a real good look at the way fish farms raise their brood stock.We squandered the oppurtunities to reverse the downturn in the survival of steelhead during that period of time.
 Some of the rivers on the Island had made some sort of recovery in the last 6 or 7 years. Nothing like the old days.
 Is this year a foreboding of what is to come. They say history repeats it's self.
 

[Every Day]

I would say a bunch of rivers on the island have made recoveries.

I don't know what the old days were like... but I have many times in the past years come up on pods of steelhead in runs of up to 150 fish, both during the fall and the winter. I've had a number of days where 10-12 fish are not uncommon on the fly. In my mind these are good numbers, sustainable at the very least. A lot of the East coast rivers though - the qualicums and englishman have not been recovering quickly - but the Englishman has almost hit numbers now where they are considering a re-opening of the upper river.

At lot of the "dead" rivers are getting surprisingly good returns that are just not talked about (not necessarily this year, but the past few years). There are some of us that check them out lots - I've started doing so in the past 3 years, and if I don't get at least a fish a day on those flows I'm not happy with it.

I would also say this year isn't as bad as people are saying. I think there have been just as many fish as normal - the thing I am noticing is that the water conditions are majourly affecting the fishing. During the prime water/high water periods the fish are just cruising right past anglers, not stopping, not biting. The only good days I've had are during low water - during times I would normally consider unfishable - after we have had a good bump. I'm assuming this is because the fish are no longer safely able to move, and get stuck and become aggressive, but only for a couple days before they get lock jaw. I've gone to a number of spots where steelhead are stacked up above boundaries (even more so than past years actually), they've just shot right up and started staging.

Maybe I'm way off - but this has actually been my best steelheading year ever averaging a fish every ~2 hours, or 3 per trip so far, and it's only been getting better every trip in the past couple weeks! They seem to be showing up very late in most rivers... even ones that should have had their peak in December are just showing up and peaking now...