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[iblly]

Saw very few fish traveling up north arm on the flood tide last four days.

[chironomidking]

By the way, any feedback from the last couple of days (Chilliwack / Aggasiz)... how has the fishing been?

Fishing has been super slow - nothing caught all year.  However, flossing has been hot.  Just need to find where the push of fish are moving.  Wait times between pushes have ranged from 15 minutes to 4 hours

[waterbearer]

lots of socks in the river. 4 of us limit out in 3 hrs yesterday at laidlaw plus one spring. River is running a bit slow so use a 2oz betty rod tip up and feel those snags out .Get out there early in the am and floss your two fish and get on with your day.

[Steelhawk]

It seems like the natives don't work too early to set the nets up. So morning is usually good to great and then you will be fishing for net-mark fish plus some stragglers for the rest of the long day. Lol.

So I consider myself pretty new to fishing and this was my first season on the big river fishing for sockeye. I had tremendous success, landed multiple fish including two beautiful silver red springs. I've also found a successful setup with a shorter leader that worked well for sockeye. In short, the setup suspends a small colorado blade on a corky. The total leader length is 1.5 meters ( and could probably be shorter ). Corky is pinned one foot from the colorado blade. The theory is that the corky should suspend the colorado blade just at the right level for sockeye to see. With this setup I had some really exciting violent bites. Yes, I believe sockeye did bite the colorado blade as I have hooked multiple sockeye on this setup and the corky and the small leader definitely reduce a chance of flossing.

Nice to see fishing buddy Dobrolub having success with his creative method. If you want to catch sockeye especially the aggressive bucks with them biting in the mouth, give his method a try. If his method is applied to the travel lane of sockeyes which is not hard to identify, you should be able to limit out with 2 mouth caught sockeyes at this water clarity level on the good days (with no netting below you). Great job buddy. Glad to see you having some great time.

[marshal]

Saw very few fish traveling up north arm on the flood tide last four days.

The numbers through Mission have been dropping all week.  While I get my 2 every time, in short order, most others I speak with have been struggling this week... except for some who post here.... hmmmm

[randya]

Fishing was brutal this a.m. Saw 5 fish total between 100 guys on 2 bars toward Hope, all caught before 0800. Spoke with Natives at Whatcom selling fish for $20 each. They said is was bad for them as well, only 6 fish on their last set

[Tangles]

And that's a wrap folks!

https://www-ops2.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fns-sap/index-eng.cfm?pg=view_notice&DOC_ID=213069&ID=all

DFO shuts it down Sep 5th

Not a bad season - I went out five times, got skunked on opening day loosing 3 fish then easy limits every other time, no springs hooked or witnessed caught.
All in all definetely slower than 4 years ago. I never saw anything even close to the 5-10 fish on at the same time all the time and guts and blood flying all over, but still gratefull to get the chance to get out there.
 At the spots I went I saw 0 issues with the crowd, each and every time I had respectful people around me and everyone was very polite.

[96XJ]

So I participated in my first Fraser River sockeye fishery one day last week , never bottom bounced before either , after I “caught” my two sockeye I stood on the bank and watched the other fishers, no one was playing the fish , just keep your drag locked down and get the fish to the beach , it was a rather unsatifying experience for me , I understand now why some do not participate in this fishery any more  , I’m not sure if I will again either

[Robert_G]

So I participated in my first Fraser River sockeye fishery one day last week , never bottom bounced before either , after I “caught” my two sockeye I stood on the bank and watched the other fishers, no one was playing the fish , just keep your drag locked down and get the fish to the beach , it was a rather unsatifying experience for me , I understand now why some do not participate in this fishery any more  , I’m not sure if I will again either

This topic has been beaten to death for over 25 years now, but I'll give you the main points.


1. No TRUE fisherman considers bouncing for sockeye on the Fraser 'real fishing'. If they think otherwise....then they are suffering from delusions.

2. Many true fisherman still do it however (myself included), but for the purpose of harvesting delicious salmon....and no other reason. I do not find it relaxing unless for some reason I have the bar to myself which is like never....Fresh sockeye are 40 bucks a piece in the store and I will not pay that when I can get 2 fish in less than an hour 5 minutes from my house.


3. Bottom bouncing the Fraser results in about 99.9% of the Sockeye being flossed....meaning the fish is not an active participant in taking the offering. There is a rare fish or 2 that will chase the wool tie or corkie on the downswing later in the season when the water is cleaner, but the occurances are so rare, that it is irrelevant to bring it into the discussion.


4. The fact that the fish are snagged and not willing taking the bait is also irrelevant when taking into consideration that this is considered a harvest fishery and NOT a sport fishery. In one commercial opening this year (Area E), they gillnetted over 200,000 sockeye in 22 hours with who knows what for bycatch, while in that same period of time, sport fishers flossed less than a 1000 fish. In the grand scheme of things considering again that this is harvesting and not fishing....the methods of sportfisherman are irrelevant.


Finally in closing, if you are still trying to reconsile this type of fishery to TRUE sportsfishing....then you aren't in a place to understand how this works anyway.
So whether a person agrees with this or not....taking all things into consideration, with the millions of fish being seined and gillnetted, the rest of us who pay taxes deserve to enjoy a few thousand fish from this fishery....regardless whether they 'bite' or are 'flossed'.

[dave c]

This topic has been beaten to death for over 25 years now, but I'll give you the main points.


1. No TRUE fisherman considers bouncing for sockeye on the Fraser 'real fishing'. If they think otherwise....then they are suffering from delusions.

2. Many true fisherman still do it however (myself included), but for the purpose of harvesting delicious salmon....and no other reason. I do not find it relaxing unless for some reason I have the bar to myself which is like never....Fresh sockeye are 40 bucks a piece in the store and I will not pay that when I can get 2 fish in less than an hour 5 minutes from my house.


3. Bottom bouncing the Fraser results in about 99.9% of the Sockeye being flossed....meaning the fish is not an active participant in taking the offering. There is a rare fish or 2 that will chase the wool tie or corkie on the downswing later in the season when the water is cleaner, but the occurances are so rare, that it is irrelevant to bring it into the discussion.


4. The fact that the fish are snagged and not willing taking the bait is also irrelevant when taking into consideration that this is considered a harvest fishery and NOT a sport fishery. In one commercial opening this year (Area E), they gillnetted over 200,000 sockeye in 22 hours with who knows what for bycatch, while in that same period of time, sport fishers flossed less than a 1000 fish. In the grand scheme of things considering again that this is harvesting and not fishing....the methods of sportfisherman are irrelevant.


Finally in closing, if you are still trying to reconsile this type of fishery to TRUE sportsfishing....then you aren't in a place to understand how this works anyway.
So whether a person agrees with this or not....taking all things into consideration, with the millions of fish being seined and gillnetted, the rest of us who pay taxes deserve to enjoy a few thousand fish from this fishery....regardless whether they 'bite' or are 'flossed'.
[/quote Well said. My sentiments exactly. That being said cant wait for coho on the pin. Tired of my hands being sore.

[ByteMe]

This topic has been beaten to death for over 25 years now, but I'll give you the main points.


1. No TRUE fisherman considers bouncing for sockeye on the Fraser 'real fishing'. If they think otherwise....then they are suffering from delusions.

2. Many true fisherman still do it however (myself included), but for the purpose of harvesting delicious salmon....and no other reason. I do not find it relaxing unless for some reason I have the bar to myself which is like never....Fresh sockeye are 40 bucks a piece in the store and I will not pay that when I can get 2 fish in less than an hour 5 minutes from my house.


3. Bottom bouncing the Fraser results in about 99.9% of the Sockeye being flossed....meaning the fish is not an active participant in taking the offering. There is a rare fish or 2 that will chase the wool tie or corkie on the downswing later in the season when the water is cleaner, but the occurances are so rare, that it is irrelevant to bring it into the discussion.


4. The fact that the fish are snagged and not willing taking the bait is also irrelevant when taking into consideration that this is considered a harvest fishery and NOT a sport fishery. In one commercial opening this year (Area E), they gillnetted over 200,000 sockeye in 22 hours with who knows what for bycatch, while in that same period of time, sport fishers flossed less than a 1000 fish. In the grand scheme of things considering again that this is harvesting and not fishing....the methods of sportfisherman are irrelevant.


Finally in closing, if you are still trying to reconsile this type of fishery to TRUE sportsfishing....then you aren't in a place to understand how this works anyway.
So whether a person agrees with this or not....taking all things into consideration, with the millions of fish being seined and gillnetted, the rest of us who pay taxes deserve to enjoy a few thousand fish from this fishery....regardless whether they 'bite' or are 'flossed'.

no truer words, I totally agree, socks are a harvest fishery.........maybe we should sticky this post

[GENERAL-SHERMAN]

Iv had my fill of the Fraser and won't be going back. With the fishing as slow as it's been for the last week due to native openings both drift and set not much is making through other than the odd spring . Last 3 trips iv been skunked and saw very few fish even hooked by dozens of other anglers . For a run that was down graded all season it was sure raped and pillaged. More openings were given then deserved for sure. I don't feel guilty participating in the bottom bouncing whatsoever . Obviously as stated above it's not true fishing and a meat fishery. Other members of this forum who post videos of ignorant anglers fishing with rod and reel all over the internet like a bunch of bar fishing snob purists make me laugh. Give your head a shake and look at the bigger picture . If you don't like it there's plenty of bottles on the beach to pick up. optimistic for a future opening 4 years for now but doubt we will be seeing anything with poor management and stock trends continueing downward. Still I was super happy to harvest some fish this season and hope many took advantage of the limited opportunities we were granted. I'm  Looking forward to topping off the freezer this fall on the local rivers 

[sumasriver]

Bottom Bouncing.

Are you kidding me.... I would rather spend my time doing almost anything else.
Much rather go for a quiet hike up river than spend any time with a few hundred guys BBing a bar on the fraser..... 


I can't wait till the coho season starts though.

[RalphH]

I've had some very enjoyable days catching sockeye on the Fraser.  While the FN economic fishery takes it's share it's a small fraction of the commercial catch. Right now they are taking few fish despite their opening. The summer run is tailing off now and the late run fish haven't started to come in big numbers. They usually time right into Sept and looking at some past PSC reports the Sept 28 '10 report estimated there were still about 9 million fish holding off the Fraser mouth.

Most of the run has done at least as well as the forecast and somewhat better than the p50. The late run is lower than expected but still healthy. More fish will come in over the next few weeks and we'll see just how they tops out. They will certainly make escapement targets for that run I bet.

More and more I rely on the Mission escapement report and if you look at it, it's fallen to almost 10% of the peak daily passage of 2 or 3 weeks ago.

[GENERAL-SHERMAN]

Does anyone know the actual number of soceye First Nations have "reported" harvesting this year throughout the Fraser system ? That's information I'd like to know not the possibility of a good late run push coming through for awaiting nets .