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Salmon Eye Fishing Charters
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Nootka Marine Adventures
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Salmon Eye Fishing
By David Y. Wei and Suzanne L. Clouthier
With a moderate climate and mild winters, Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands, and southwestern British Columbia offer some of the most consistent year ’round freshwater and saltwater fishing. Choose between saltwater destinations in calm, protected sounds or the waters of the Inside Passage; on the exhilarating ocean swells of the open Pacific; along the edges of breath-taking, swirling whirlpools in tidal narrows around the Gulf Islands; or within protected mainland fjords. In almost all locations, you’ll find a huge selection of salmon and bottomfish.
From mid-summer to fall, wade shallow river estuaries on an incoming tide while casting to schools of salmon on their final spawning migrations. With 2017 an odd-numbered cycle-year for southern pink salmon, it’s a great opportunity for novice and younger fishers to hook and land their first salmon.
The far-reaching inlets of this spectacular region’s mainland portion require water- or air-access, but offer pristine wilderness stream-fishing for searun cutthroat trout, Dolly Varden, and resident rainbow throughout the year; steelhead during the winter and early spring; and a chance at catching that once-in-a-lifetime, massive tyee during late summer.
Give credit to the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC’s Vancouver Island Trout Hatchery, in Duncan, and its regular stocking program for much of the fine rainbow and cutthroat trout fishing in most lakes on Vancouver Island. You can also find largemouth and smallmouth bass, and even catfish, in a number of lakes in southern Vancouver Island and on Salt Spring Island.
British Columbia Ferry Services, with 34 ships that serve 47 ports on 24 routes, has been an important part of travel to and from Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands, and the adjacent mainland since 1960. The company’s B.C. Ferries Vacations office can help to plan and book complete travel packages around the region.
Southern Vancouver Island
You’ll find excellent salmon and bottom fishing around southern Vancouver Island (from Sooke on the west to Cowichan Bay and Salt Spring Island on the east) throughout the year. Between October and April, vast schools of baitfish (herring, needlefish, and squid) concentrate in Victoria Harbour, Oak Bay, and Saanich Inlet. This abundant bait attracts aggressive feeder chinook weighing up to 10 kilograms, along with the odd tyee.
Early in the season, troll your gear just off the bottom where the feed hangs out. For lures, use:
- small whole herring or anchovy, or Gibbs-Delta Big Bite artificial anchovy in a Rhys Davis, O’Ki JDF, or Jughead Shaker teaser head with two-metre leaders
- small spoons (Gibbs-Delta Razorback, Skinny G, G-Force, or Gypsy; Silver Horde Coho Killer; Tomic; O’Ki Titan; Luhr Jensen Coyote; or Pesca SPF or RSG) in green-and-glow, Army Truck, or “police car” colours with two-metre leaders
- hoochies: purple haze, army truck, oil slick, Tiger Prawn, green-and-white, glow splatterback, or translucent white octopus or squirt hoochies with one-metre-long leaders
- small Tomic Tubby Tyee (#602, or #639) or Lyman (#306 or #327) glow plugs.
Troll all these lures behind full-sized flashers (Gibbs-Delta Guide Series, O’Ki Big Shoter, or Hot Spot) with the latest glow or mirror Mylar tapes and UV plastic blades, as well as the reliable standbys: green, red, or chartreuse blades with silver Mylar. Bottom-bouncing your heavy downrigger ball occasionally will attract halibut as well as salmon to your tackle.
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