Today is the last week of our summer program "Introduction to the Fraser Estuary" of youth fishing camp.
I started the day by baiting dough and untangling line for four kids.
The incoming tide is usually excellent for coarse fishing, and today was no exception. The kids were having trouble setting the hook when the float danced on the surface, but after awhile fish were brought in one after another...
Today's highly included this HUGE shiner perch Angus got, one of the bigger one I've seen over the years. Shiner perch is of course a marine species, but they are very abundant around the Fraser estuary in July and August once the freshet finishes.
Trout Slayer and Fishersak came and observed the camp for awhile. They laughed at my grief as I had to take care of four dangling rods at once.
Just kidding, both of them assisted the kids when they needed.
After the camp finished, we went over to No. 3 Road pier but saw no risers. After some discussion, we decided to head to another spot that may produce.
Perch, Trout Slayer, Fishersak and I headed off. We arrived at the new spot at around 4pm. There were no risers...
Surprisingly, once we started fishing, I had a huge hit on my rod and proceeded to set the hook. Fish on! A nice chrome pink doe circled, danced before Fishersak scooped it up cleanly. The fish is sitting in the cooler now.
Once the first fish was on the beach, we were motivated. We got even more excited once we started seeing the odd surfacing. Soon after, Trout Slayer was into a nice fish. This fish grabbed his lure very close to shore, reminding us to keep that spoon in the water til the last second.
After Trout Slayer's fish, the school really started surfacing.
fish were finning left and right, but none could be enticed! Very rarely this happens when pink salmon fishing, but when it does it can be extremely frustrating.
Anyways, Fishersak and Perch both contacted a fish each, but both fish came off due to <insert Fishersak and Perch's excuses>. I then hooked one close in, but came off after a few rolls.
A couple more hits and misses, things were not looking that great.
At the end of the day, we still only had two fish on the beach. We walked to a new location where we saw some fish rising. Immediately I had a nice tap that I missed.
Soon after, a large male couldn't resist my spoon!
This fish took a long hard run at first, it almost didn't seem like a pink salmon at all.
When the fish got closer to shore, Trout Slayer ran over and scooped it up.
I hesitated, and told him to let the fish go as I didn't want to clean a fish today (Trout Slayer cleaned my fish earlier for the exchange of roe
).
Just before sundown, I managed to hook one more that popped off after a few splashes.
Day three, hooked five, landed two, kept one. Another great day of BC fishing.