Fishing

The Winter run Steelhead are throughout the entire river now and we have been running trips on both the upper, middle and lower sections. This was a good day with all boats hooking at least 4 fish per boat, while today was less productive with one boat with a strike out and the other hooking two.

The river is completely open except for a small salmon closure from the top of the hatchery lagoon to the power lines that are located 500 meters upstream from the top of the lagoon. Starting to see a lot of Steelhead and that should get going very soon. We have a few good days with the fly this past week and once the rains come this weekend we will switch over to gear. This fall has been great for Chinook and a very slow for Coho. The numbers of Coho counted through the Stamp falls counter has been fairly high but fish on the hooks has very low. Higher than normal flows for the last half of September have spread the Coho out and as you may know our Coho move very quickly making them a tough target. Our focus will change to Steelhead very soon and if you are thinking about Fall Steelhead, now is the time.

Early season spring fishing produces some quality Chinook Salmon in the 10-25 pound range. So far the best Salmon fishing has been close to Ucluelet so not a big run to the fishing grounds. Fishing the outside edge of Barkley Sound, Great Bear and out as far as three miles offshore. The fish are hunkering right on the bottom, so the gear varies between 110-150 feet deep depending on bottom depth. Using Spoons with Flashers or Anchovies with Flashers. Fish are biting on the tides but morning has been by far best.