2015 Gulf Islands Reports

Fished Fairfax Point Wednesday evening for a couple hours with no luck. Thursday AM tried Pender Bluffs and took home 5 pinks. Lots of double and triple headers to keep the kids interested. We threw many pinks back. Fished mini flashers and pink hoochies with one line set up for springs with anchovy. No chinooks.

We found pinks from the surface to about 70 ft and we could see huge schools of them on the sounder. If you went through a school... Get ready for two or three hook ups. Crazy. Even nailed one right on the surface by jigging my line in front of a school while I was attaching the downrigger clip. My boys thought that was amazing!

One item of note, I thought the fish were all very small compared to the fish we were catching in Sooke earlier in the week. Maybe it's because they are so early this year.


Franko

MILF (Man, I Love Fishing)
 
how is porlier pass and thrasher been doing i heard theres alot of pinks st porlier right now how deep do you troll pinks?


You will catch pink so easy.... try with 20' - 100'

Bring your fly rod with anything pink or red lure on it... no weight or down rigger.
 
went out to thrasher this evening fished from 8 till around 10
all i got to say is i was the only boat out and it was on fire like ive never seen it
there was bait no matter where i was , fish were biting 90-150ft on just about everything caught lots of smaller coho a couple pinks and lost a beuty right at the boat around 17lbs
 
Pretty quick limits this morning on pinks at pender bluffs. Caught them from 30-100 ft on sox gear. A couple double and one triple header so they are around in good numbers. Forgot my anchovies in the fridge so will targeting springs tomorrow I suppose.

Must have been 20 boats at the bluffs this morning and most seemed to find some action. We released 1 nice 8 lb sockeye that would have been tasty. Perhaps we will get an short opening later this summer but for now they go back.
 
Fished thrasher on the weekend. There was a ridiculous amount of shakers and chinook in the 40-55cm range. Arms got a pretty good workout with the manual downriggers.

Got one hatchery coho about 5lbs and released a wild that would have been close to 10lbs. There were a decent amount of pinks biting as well, especially on the valdes side in about 90ft of water. The bait was pushed up to the reefs and there were salmon everywhere. Hooked into a big chinook but we lost it 50ft from the boat. It was 95ft down in 120ft of water.
 
Have 9 days coming up at the north end of Saltspring and don't want to pink salmon fish at the Bluffs. Anyone been out to either Tent Island or Porlier Pass recently and, if so, any luck?
 
Have 9 days coming up at the north end of Saltspring and don't want to pink salmon fish at the Bluffs. Anyone been out to either Tent Island or Porlier Pass recently and, if so, any luck?

Tent is closed as of Aug 1st for springs.
 
This just came in from fisheries-
Fishery Notice - Fisheries and Oceans Canada

Subject: FN0786-RECREATIONAL - Salmon: All Salmon Species - South Coast - Areas 17 to 19 - No Salmon Retention

In 2014/2015 Vancouver Island experienced extremely low snowpack with
exceptionally low precipitation during the spring 2015 period. Water levels in
many systems on Vancouver Island are now extremely low and river temperatures
in many cases are reaching lethal limits for salmon migrating through these
systems. Predictions are that above average summer air temperatures and reduced
precipitation will continue, and likely will further contribute to elevated
stream temperatures throughout Vancouver Island.

The Cowichan River is experiencing particularly warm water and low flows at the
present time. It is anticipated that these severe river conditions will cause
Cowichan chinook to stage in the marine area, and likely delay entry into the
river until flows improve. This will likely result in Cowichan chinook being
more vulnerable to fishing in the marine approach areas to the Cowichan River,
due to these river conditions.

A closure was implemented on all southern island freshwater systems, including
the Cowichan River, in early July prohibiting all fishing, including First
Nations FSC fishing. Management measures are now being expanded to the
adjacent terminal marine areas, elevating the key chinook non-retention areas
to salmon non-retention areas. DFO analysis has shown that the implementation
of this management measure will reduce the exploitation rate on Cowichan
chinook.

The following subareas will close to salmon retention effective 00:01h August
4, 2015 until further notice:
Subareas 17-5 to 17-7, 17-9
Subareas 18-6 to 18-8
Subareas 19-7 to 19-12

These areas may re-open to salmon retention, with the non-retention of chinook,
if environmental conditions improve.
 
Been away for awhile got back at it on Monday with two kids who'd never caught a fish :) Tried Pender Bluffs at the change to flood - lots of boats - only saw 2 pinks landed and very few jumping so moved to the eddy behind Enterprise Reef. No other boats some jumpers and managed to get them each a Pink before heading home. Great fun and two new fishermen!

Sounds like the Pink action is slowing down? Anyone fishing out off of Salamanca?
 
May try Salamanca this aft but haven't fisher there in weeks. If I make it out ill post a report. Fished pender bluffs yesterday for a couple hrs and no springs for us. Couple of pinks including 1 that got nabbed by a seal.
 
Sound good tin can ....

CAN ANY ONE REPORT on Active and Porlier Pass's ..... even Thrasher ?

May drop a few lines through the week at these places ....... will report when back.
 
Tried porlier from 11 til 12:30 no luck for us. Porlier has been a wash for us this year. Last year was good. In its defence we haven't put as much time in out there. We have spent more of our time in alberni / Barkley sound, where, for us, fishing has been great.
 
Well, we did manage to get out to Salamanca yesterday and trolled around from 3-5pm. Ended up with just 1 pink for dinner for our efforts but the crew I had with me from back east was stoked nonetheless. On our way back thru active we ran across an awesome killer whale show of around 25 whales (L-pod perhaps) and they were extremely active as they started heading across the strait towards the Fraser. Lots of tail slaps and breaches which was awesome.

Chinook have been tough to come by for me in my last few attempts around Galiano / pender. Looks like it may be time to focus on Vancouver area as things have been heating up there
 
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