Prawn season is in full swing all around Vancouver Island. Most areas are reporting excellent catches and others are somewhat less stellar. Basically from Nanaimo and up to past Campbell River is very hot. The North Island guys are reporting that the prawns are some of the biggest they have ever seen. In particular the prawn sets in deeper water (350-400+ft) have been outstanding. As always the Canadian made Bauer traps are doing the best. We stock both sizes of them.
South of Ladysmith it has been a bit slower, but the salmon opening should make up for that. The salmon reports in the open sub-areas near Ladysmith down to Saltspring have been very good. I'm hearing an average of one marked Chinook per five wild caught. This means most fishermen are getting to retain fish. Smaller lures like Coho Killers in Black/Chartreuse have been working well. I think the herring spawn has hatched, hence the little lures, as salmon move in close to shore to feed on baby herring.
On the west coast Bamfield, Ucluelet and Tofino fishermen are reporting good Chinook fishing lately. One Chandler employee went to Ucluelet last weekend and had a great trip. He got several Chinook in the low 20lb range, which is very large for this time of year.
His top lures were the new West Coast Tackle Loki UV and Godzilla spoons. These are both really nice looking spoons that held up well. Interestingly he got multiple halibut on them too. He also was running a Turd hoochie, which caught Chinook, but not halibut. Odd, but that's fishing. He was also using the new Dirty Dog flasher from Gibbs. This flasher is very bright, and is based on the west coast staple Salty Dawg flasher. Running it with the Loki spoon is probably going to be the top combo for this spring.
