British Columbia Fishing Blog

Each year, my dad pays me a visit for a couple of weeks so we can fish together. This year is no exception and he has timed his visit to coincide with the fall salmon season. I usually try to find a different fishery for him to experience during each visit. Last year we were spoiled by the large Fraser River pink salmon return. The year before we experienced Thompson River chinook jacks. This year, the goal is to find him a coho salmon. Every trip in the past always worked out well, so I was hopeful this year would also be the case.

Unfortunately, last week’s fishing did not turn out as good as I had anticipated. We visited the Chilliwack River, hoping to intercept a coho salmon or two. After donating some spoons to snags and watching countless number of coho leaping in front of us, we came up empty handed. Luckily just before our last trip ended, my dad finally connected with a fish. It was not a coho salmon, but a semi-coloured chinook, which was still good enough as he has never caught one other than jacks. A photo prior to its release made three days of persistance and frustration disappearing.

Although our excursions to the Vedder have ended, the hunt for coho has not. We went out yesterday to take part in the fishery that we had anticipated. The Tidal Fraser River salmon fishery is more suitable for my dad, because it requires no walking. During last year’s opening on Thanksgiving weekend, I managed to encounter a variety of species, so I was hoping for similar outcomes for this weekend.

The weather worked out pretty well, sunny and a light northwesterly wind. At first I had planned to catch the morning high tide but the turkey dinner at friend’s from the night before scratched that idea. By the time I got up, the tide had already peaked. Instead, we hit the afternoon incoming tide. Even though the second tide is not as high, I have experienced good results just as the tide started rising. You’d be surprised how shallow the water is at where some fish would be travelling through.

We arrived at the chosen spot at 3:00pm. The tide was just turning and water clarity was as poor as it could get. The mud bank in front of us was just submerged. Because water clarity was so poor, lure or fly fishing was out of the question. Bottom fishing with roe was the only method that could produce a fish or two.

I took out some roe from the cooler and it instantly changed the air quality around us. After our last trip to the Vedder, I started drying some roe that were leftovers. Instead of drying them for only 12 hours, I forgot and they were left on the rack for 48 hours. By the time I checked them, they were hard as rocks and little green fuzzy molds were popping out on the skeins. Disappointed, I wrapped them up and packed them in the fridge anyway for yesterday’s excursion. After being left in the fridge for a couple of days, they had softened up a bit. Since the water is muddy, I didn’t think the molds would matter.

Once I had both our rods out on the holders, the waiting game began. My record in this type of fishing is poor. Too often I end up losing patience or missing bites, that’s why I always prefer fishing with lures or flies. I had my dad’s rig settled not too far from shore while mine was much further out. Sometimes coho salmon travel through pretty close to shore.

During the first 15 or so minutes, there was a sculpin party happening. Little nibbles were happening on both rods until everything was chewed off on the hooks. Once we rebaited, the party stopped and we were greeted by something more appealing. Dad’s rod began dancing in the holder not long after it was cast out. The first set of bites almost pulled the rod off the holder while he was not paying attention. By the time he reached the rod, the fish was long gone. The second set of bites also did not look like sculpins. When the third set of bites took place on his rod, he held it up to detect more bites but little did he notice the line had gone slack. I urged him to reel in quickly as the fish was swimming toward him. By the time he regained tension, there was nothing on the hook.

These were great signs, but it was rather frustrating that no fish had been hooked yet. They were either coho or bull trout. The bites kept coming from the same shallow spot and finally Dad was able to hook a fish. The fish stayed under while he brought it in, suggesting that it was a bull trout. A skinny bull trout surfaced and swam into my net after a minute or so. It was not what we were after, but this was keeping the day very entertaining.

The bites stopped for awhile after the bull trout was released, then my dad was once again seeing bites on his rod. This time the bites were not as big, but still did not seem like sculpins. He held the rod up slightly, to feel the tugs. Once the nibbles became pulls, he set the hook. Immediately, a fish broke surface at where I had casted his rig. It was clearly a coho salmon. I quickly ran down the rocks with the net, without realizing the fish was much bigger than what we first thought. It began swimming to the left and went under my line. I frantically ran back up so I could bring in my line without tangling the fish. Once my rod was packed away, I made my way down the rocks again. Meanwhile, this fine fish performed two jumps in front of us, darting around like a submarine. At one point it swam toward shore so fast that my dad thought he had lost the fish. Eventually, the fish surfaced on its side, within my reach. I extended the landing net and barely scooped its whole body into it. I noticed the adipose fin right away and passed on the bad news to the proud catcher.

It was one of the bigger coho salmon that I have seen caught down here. Back in the mid 90s, it was a norm to see many specimens like this each day, but not so in the last decade. This fish was perhaps just over 10lb. I instructed my dad to climb his way down the rocks so we could get a good photo of it before sending it back home. The tail was so thick that he had trouble gripping it so thanks to another nearby angler, we ended up posing with the fish together.

The rest of the evening was rather uneventful. Like a good guide, I made sure that I did not get any bites on my rod so I would not outperform the guest. Chum salmon were rolling on the surface in good numbers as the tide rose. We called it a day at 7:00pm when the wind became a bit too chilly. Water clarity actually improved a bit when tide was peaking, good enough for throwing a spoon in my opinion.

So, yesterday’s lesson is, rock-hard roe with fuzzy green mold is the ticket if you want to catch big coho salmon in the Tidal Fraser River, so start aging your roe in the garage.

Now that my dad has caught a chinook and a coho during this stay, we have to work on getting a chum before he leaves town on Thursday.

Yesterday morning I got up at 4:30am and was exhausted after only having four hours of sleep, but I still woke my dad up so we could catch the first light bite anyway. We arrived just after it was bright enough to wade across a side channel, but someone was already fishing at my chosen spot. I wasn’t too chatty as I was trying to find a place for my dad to wet the line. Even though he graciously offered to share his spot, I proceeded upstream because my dad needed quite a bit of space since his margin of error in casting is too big. We headed to a run further up from them, which was surprisingly nicer than when I was there last. An adult spring jumped and greeted us while I was unpacking the rods. The first twenty minutes yielded no bites, but then there were a couple of hits and misses. My float dove in the tailout at one point and I was able to beach a nice chinook jack. While I was cleaning the fish, my dad was able to connect with a small coho jack. It was a hatchery marked fish, but it slipped out of my hand while we were deciding whether we should keep it or not. After that, the bites stopped even though the odd fish were still leaping up from the tailout. Overall it was pretty slow for us, considering everyone has been commenting that fish were jumping everywhere last week. Now we rest for another early morning trip on Wednesday.

Today we had originally planned to give the Vedder a go since my dad is visiting and the fishing appears to be quite good. After some consideration, we decided to avoid the crowd and save the trip for a weekday. Instead, we spent a couple of hours fishing the Tidal Fraser River for a variety of species. This time of the year can be rather interesting, because you have a chance to encounter chinook, coho, chum salmon as well as bull trout, cutthroat trout and northern pikeminnow.

Yesterday I managed to have two shakers on the line so after some modification, ie. using a sink tip instead of a floating line, I was determined to land some fish. The fly that I have been using in the last few weeks is just a simple minnow pattern that my friend Carlo showed me many years ago. This has rewarded me with quite a few takers but nothing has been landed, which is rather frustrating. The fish that I have been hooking were either cutthroat trout, bull trout or jacks.



The change of fly line worked today. Within three casts, I was into a good sized fish. I couldn’t tell what it was until it broke the surface. It was a bull trout, a rather skinny one. This is pretty typical for this time of the year before they start fattening up over the winter months after salmon finish spawning.







The second fish came after I changed to a much bigger zonker style pattern. A northern pikeminnow attacked the fly in the shallow water. It fought harder than the bull trout and had me thinking that it might be a jack for awhile.



If you find salmon fishing rather crowded right now, this is a good alternative.

At last, the Fraser River has almost restored its peaceful setting after several weeks of sockeye fever. This year’s record run was certainly good news, but it made the river rather chaotic. At the Fraser River mouth, one does not have to look too hard to find boats zipping in and out of the harbour, thousands of salmon jumping at each tide change, seals and sea lions hunting, fishermen attempting to catch fish from shore, and of course exciting salmon viewers being impressed by one of nature’s wonders.

Now that the run is almost over, I have been able to venture out for a couple of hours each day with my flyfishing rod, hoping to catch whatever is lurking around. My main target species have been trout and char, but beside one beautiful cutthroat trout that was lost by my feet a few weeks ago, fishing has been slow. There should be no excuses, because the water clarity of the Fraser River has been fantastic, fish can easily spot my presentation. My only theory is that fish have been stuffed with all the discarded sockeye salmon parts from commercial fishermen, so they are not as keen to hunt down something that actually moves.

Yesterday I was finally able to connect with a nice northern pikeminnow. This fish engulfed a size one fly, which I simply jigged along edge of the reed beds as the tide current carried it downstream. This week’s tide is ideal for this type of fishing, because the afternoon outgoing tide is a small, gradual drop. I really enjoy fishing under this condition, because there is plenty of time for the fly to reach the fish without being disrupted by the strong current.



Today I returned and found some rises on the surface. Unless the bigger cutthroat trout that I saw last week, these were slightly smaller so I was not very certain what they were. Could they be steelhead smolts? Perhaps smaller anadromous cutthroat trout? I tied on a small nymph pattern, hoping one of them would attack it as I skipped it just below the surface. Sure enough, I felt a gentle tug after the first cast but was too slow to react. On my second cast, I placed the fly slightly further out and connected with a cutthroat trout immediately! Unfortunately, the fish unhooked itself while I was busy untangling my fly line.

I continued casting the small nymph after the disappointing loss. This time, I placed my line almost parallel to the reed line, so I could drag it along the edge of it. I suddenly felt one tug after another. Not knowing that it may be, I lifted the rod and found a peamouth chub at the other end of the line. Although it was just a small minnow, I was pretty ecstatic because it was my first peamouth chub on the fly. This has been something that I wanted to do this summer, so I was more than satisfied. Once I sent it back to the river, I proceeded to catch three more with the same technique before the bite suddenly died off.



Fly fishing, willing biters, calm sunny days, this is what early fall fishing on the Fraser River is all about.

The sockeye salmon run is coming to an end soon but there is still no shortage of fish flooding into the Fraser River during incoming tides. If you have the chance, head down to the Fraser River mouth and watch thousands of sockeye salmon leaping on the surface in the next couple of weeks.