British Columbia Fishing Blog

We just finished producing a video feature for Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC‘s Learn to Fish program.



Learn to Fish is an exciting initiative designed to introduce participants to recreational fishing. The age specific, fun, and hands on lessons make it a perfect fit for youth and their families as well as organized groups of all ages and abilities. To date the program has been a tremendous success, and has been delivered to over 55,000 youth and their families across the province!

Currently the Learn to Fish program runs out of two of the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC’s Visitor Centres located in Abbotsford and Fort Steele (near Cranbrook), Greater Vancouver urban lakes, the Lower Mainland, Kamloops and Okanagan region Provincial Parks, and Southern Vancouver Island region lakes.[/p]

Last week Nina and I went to Alice Lake and Edith Lake in Squamish after they were just stocked with Fraser Valley rainbow trout by the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC. The fishing was great, just as expected. The weather co-operated too for once.

Here is a video from the trip. It is in Danish as we made it for Nina’s new fishing blog, but subtitles are actually available in the video. To activate subtitles, simply click on the close caption option (a “CC” button at the bottom left corner of the video frame).

If you live in Vancouver BC, you really don’t have to venture too far to catch trophy-sized fish. That is one great thing about living in this city, I simply have to walk or drive to a nearby spot and I usually will not be disappointed.

The Fraser River drains into the ocean through Vancouver, where it is known for the large return of Pacific salmon every summer and fall. Most people, even anglers, are not very aware of another exciting event that goes on in this waterway every spring. Starting in late March, millions of juvenile salmon begin their out migration from the streams where they are hatched. These fish are followed by coastal cutthroat trout and bull trout, which are opportunistic predators that take advantage of this seasonal buffet.

The presence of these anadromous trout and char creates fantastic fishing opportunities. It is the time of the year that I always look forward to. If the water is clear, then fly fishing with small fry patterns usually results in aggressive chasers in shallow waters. That being said, this out migration unfortunately coincides with the start of freshet, so water is usually muddy when this fishery takes place.

When water clarity is poor, the alternative is to simply fish with bait such as salmon roe. It is a method that I do not enjoy as much because the wait can be dull and there are often lots of bait-stealing sculpin around. Nevertheless, I would still take it over no fishing at all.

We decided to give it a go this week. We caught the last hour of the incoming tide after work, so it was simply a short outing to wet our appetite. Visibility in the Fraser River is now no more than six inches, so we were limited to fishing with bait. Among hundreds of sculpin bites, one pull took me by surprise. Check out our latest video blog to see what ended up on the end of my line.

The first two video features that we’ve made for the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC are now available for viewing!

Spring is trout stocking season for the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC. Last week we followed one of the hatchery trucks around and filmed Buntzen and Como Lake being stocked. This is an new video project that we are doing with the society and you will be able to see the finished videos on their newly launched website later this month.