The big rains have started and the river fishing and beach fishing season is upon us! Now that river level are rising this years salmon have started moving into the rivers to spawn. This means lot's of fishing opportunities for trout, steelhead, salmon in the rivers and salmon on the beaches near river mouths.
In the river soft beads and casting spoons will dominate for the next few months. Right now the rivers are a bit blown out with the first heavy rains. In these conditions run big obnoxiously bright beads even up to 20mm like BnR 20mm Red. Once the water clears up a bit switch to smaller more subtle beads like 10-12mm natural coloured BnR beads for tout and steelhead. And larger beads like 16mm Unreel Tackle Polar Frost or casting spoons like Prime Lures Glory in Copper/Orange for salmon. Also in the rivers having invisible line is very important at least for tout and steelhead. (salmon don't seem to care as much) 12lb blue label Seaguar is one of the best lines to use. I use it in various pound test for almost everything. It's abrasion resistant and absolutely invisible.
In the ocean the fish are moving but are still biting. I've seen some good catches from around Neck Point and in front of the Qualicum River. Interestingly I've seen the first of the winter springs (aka Feeder springs) showing up around Five Finger Island. This is great news because it means we won't have a gap between when this years fish go up the rivers and when our winter season kicks off. Smaller spoons like a 3" Yellow Tail are what I use for these guys.
Over at Sandheads at the mouth of the Fraser River there are very large white springs staged up. These are my favorite salmon to eat as they have the richest meat of any salmon species. If you can get over there fishing is good for these big Chinook. Skinny 'G' Gold Nugget Herring Aid spoons, and 5" Gold Tubby Plugs will catch them.
Our fly fishing section continues to grow, and fly tying materials have been ordered. So we will soon be a complete fly fishing store.
Tips up!
steve@harbourchandler.ca
