I think there are about 20 kilometers of Vedder to fish. Virtually every salmon that enters the river passes by somewhere along that 20 km's.
I don't get why people go to where the crowds congregate, then come on forums like this and post how terrible the Vedder is.... I live in Chilliwack and am proud of what a gem of a river we have. Unfortunately it draws a lot of fishermen.
Avoid the crowds and you can enjoy a day on the Vedder as much as many of us do.
I certainly agree what a gem that river is. For what its worth I have been fishing that river for a number of years and its taking a long time to learn how to avoid crowded areas - anywhere within easy reach of parking is crowded. Even spots that I knew about last year that were relatively uncrowded are no longer there because the river is constantly changing.
If you live in Chilliwack I can quite see how you would find those uncrowded areas by hiking in advance or whatever is necessary. If you don't live in the area it is far easier to gravitate to crowded areas just because it saves on time (..especially for people who can't get out all that often). Yesterday I took the whole day out just to explore the entire river from top to bottom to see if I could locate uncrowded spots that looked promising - I think I found a few areas but it requires a lot of work up front for someone less familiar with the river as in my case. I think that may answer the question as to why people gravitate to crowded areas.
One other thing I don't get is I have been watching people quite closely and I could not find one example of anybody fishing with his or her leader less than twice the depth of the water in any of the areas I was watching. I can only assume that none of the people from this forum were there yesterday