As part of my developing relationship with Island Fisherman magazine I was asked recently to write an article on prospects for the Fraser River Sockeye return and fishing opportunities in 2018, and it can be found here:
Elsewhere, in inner Barclay Sound adjacent to Port Alberni the sockeye fishery for returning Stamp/Somass fish is now underway. The forecast is for a reasonable return but it’s early days with lower abundance observed so far. The daily limit for anglers remains at 2 fish per day, hopefully that will be increased to 4 sockeye per day sooner than later.
Meanwhile the chinook fishing continues to be productive around much of Vancouver Island and near Vancouver. Good fishing stories are being reported from widely separated locations such as Port Renfrew, Barclay Sound, Northwest Vancouver Island, and numerous places between Campbell River and lower Howe Sound. A new development in the north Strait of Georgia was the recent arrival of coho, in Campbell River they simply showed up over the Father’s Day weekend. One day there was none, and hadn’t been all year, and the next there were reports coming in of encounters from all over. Naturally given the date the coho are still on the smaller size but they’re ambitious, hammering larger plugs fished deep for chinook, so once they start eating adult herring they will start to grow quickly.
Counter to all the gloomy news coverage in mainstream media fed by anti-fishing NGO’s, the real story is that there’s lots of productive salmon fishing being had around the southern BC coast, long may it last!