Georgia Straight Coho fishing is super hot right now. There are large schools of Coho following the bait throughout the entire strait. The only tricky thing is targeting the marked fish that you can retain. There are lots of unmarked fish and Chinook, and sometimes it's hard to get past the Chinook to find the Coho. What I've been hearing repeatedly is that the marked fish are mostly in the top 50ft of water. If you get below 50ft you will mostly catch unmarked Coho, and below 80ft it's mostly Chinook.
Jigging or trolling that top 50ft is very effective just now, if there is bait in the area. If you don't mark bait, or aren't getting fish then change location. If the Coho are there, you will get hits very quickly.
For the last few days Five Finger Island, and Hudson Rocks have been the hot areas. The top trolling lures have been Gibbs Skinny G Maverick and West Coast Tackles Superman Spoon. Pair either of these with either our Custom Maverick flasher or a Blue Magoo Flasher and you will get fish.
For jigging use the 28g Shimano Current Sniper in Blue Pink, or a Green Hornet Lil' Nib and you will do well. Most hits come on the initial drop, so be ready. And Coho jigging is very vigorous, so no lazy cod jigging.
On Wednesday night the fish were in the shallows just south of Hudson Rocks. They were chasing bait into 15ft of water. So if you ever wanted to bucktail, or even fly fish for ocean salmon, now is your chance. The Luhr Jensen 2.5" Ghost Flash Fly would be the perfect lure for this situation.
For Chinook fishing go a bit deeper, 90–140ft, and try a large plug like a 5" Game Changer. Run it with a dummy flasher or even better the CruciFish or Sointula Flashers. These are leveled up dummy flashers that really bring fish in. I'm eager to try the Sointula soon when the Sockeye fishing in Alberni kicks off. Check out my article on these new flasher alternatives in next month's edition of Island Fisherman Magazine. With the warm weather coming, Sockeye might kick off a bit earlier than usual. I normally wait until the 3rd week in June, but this year might be a bit sooner. Good luck!
Thanks to Tim Kelter for the great photo above this article!
