Herring spawn reports?

whats the best way to find the herring? look for the seaguls going crazy feeding on them?
 
Copy of post put on the Nanoose to French Creek thread..... Went out from Nanoose to jig herring again y'day PM. Took a while to find any & had to travel North from Schooner Cove to French Creek. On the way passed 7 commercial boats going South & had already seen many going off through the day. Seems from the DFO reports I've been getting the spawn run is coming to an end & there may be no / limited openings from now on. It also seems that more of the catch has been Gill Net with a more limited Seine catch & a lot of that may have been test sets (Not sure if I'm interpreting this correctly, this is based on catch reported vs quota for each)

That said, lots of sign that the spawn had completed / was underway from the Englishman River Estuary to French Creek. I tried off the Englishman Estuary, where i was marking schools offshore, but only got a few. I saw only limited bird activity & no Sea Lions around Dorcas Pt & north to Mistaken, so there can't have been much spawning there.

Moved north & found active spawning just S of French Creek. 2 Gill netters were still working the area along with hundreds of sea lions & 1000s of birds. Caught a rubbermaid dish container load in 40 minutes before calling it a day. Interesting that all the fish caught were smaller than the ones caught off Dorcas point the week before. Many were only 10-12 Cm long (last weeks were all @ 22 Cm().

Today is rollmop & bait packaging day.

DSC06866.jpgDSC06871.jpg
 
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Was at Lazo today to finish up on the coming season's bait. Nice day, early fog burnt off. Launched at comox, was a gong show loading back up!! Guy loading his boat with electric winch, unit failed with boat 1/2 loaded and tide receding , and people waiting to launch & load…. so much for my opinion of electric winches..

Spawn might be dropping off. Still lots of small schools to sit on and jig for few drops then move on. The huge schools of few days ago were not found but still found plenty..

Time to chase bigger fish.. Hope don't have to use Comox launch soon!!

PB
 
as of Mar 11/15-seine catch 6,664 of 15,440 tons, GN catch 3,500 of 13,975 tons, 46 NM spawn. Most of the GN have gone home because of poor market price. A few seines still waiting for tests of the quality of fish/roe- they need 10-12% roe to make any money and there could be slinks mixed in the schools now.
 
Saratoga Beach had a couple inches of roe wash up this morning tide line was 2 inch deep and 4 feet wide one end of the beach it was piled 4 to 6 inches deep this is the fist time I have seen this there. I see that the rough water a out going tide took most of it out there is still lots at north end.
Terry
 
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I live beside Rathtrevor and could find no sign of a spawn, last year was the beach was thick. I think the spawn changes location year to year.
 
Roe on Saratoga Beach

blueugl said:
Saratoga Beach had a couple inches of roe wash up this morning tide line was 2 inch deep and 4 feet wide one end of the beach it was piled 4 to 6 inches deep this is the fist time I have seen this there. I see that the rough water a out going tide took most of it out there is still lots at north end.
Terry
Click to expand...

Roe back on beach this morning this time more on south end a least as much as the first day.
Terry
 
Is it still worth jigging for herring now that they are spawning? I have been asked again to collect 20 herring for sampling. And possibly some roe. I can launch out of french creek, deep bay or dep bay.
 
PC, they are easy to jig if you can find a school spawning. A little harder now around Nanaimo as the schools are down deeper and heading back out. I'll send you a pm with my home email.
Pescado_Loco said:
Is it still worth jigging for herring now that they are spawning? I have been asked again to collect 20 herring for sampling. And possibly some roe. I can launch out of french creek, deep bay or dep bay.
Click to expand...
 
If a guy running out of Burrard Inlet was looking to Jig some herring this weekend, where would be the closest general area. Pretty out of the loop when it comes to the herring spawn locally.
 
WCVI Herring Report. Nootka/Esperanza
There will be NO Commercial Herring Fishing in Area 25 this yr.
However there is lots of Pre-Spawning Activity. Birds ,Sea Lions, Seal.
There was a DFO Fly over this past Tuesday. Lots of Herring but NO spawning yet.
Herring are mostly stacked at the mouth of Esperanza inlet- at Nuchatlitz, Rosa Harbour, Garden Pt.,

Halibut & Ling Cod seem to be moving in for the up coming feast. Several hali. & a few ling on the cleaning tables today. Prawns are still going STRONG.
Looks like a GOOD season of Catching ahead.
Make it a great day.
FOJ
 
Was walking on Saratoga beach during the ebb tide,the eel grass is COVERED in herring spawn for at least the 2km we walked, you could pick it up in hand fulls.There was thousands of gulls gorging and 4 sea-lions working off shore. The long time locals said they had never seen this much spawn in at least 25 years ! This bodes well for the Salish Sea my friends, lets hope the dark times are over and limits of Cape Mudge coho are in our future !
 
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