Prince Rupert

Today and tomorrow I had the opportunity to head to Prince Rupert, BC. It was about a 7 hour drive with a mixed bag of weather, a bit of sun and a lot of rain. We checked in to a B&B and got an early night to make sure we got up in time to get out for some fishing. 

The weather started cloudy and a bit of rain but bybthe time we reached the fishing grounds the weather began to improve and by mid morning we had sun shine. A few humpback whales graced us with their oresence and to top it all off the water was calm and the fish were biting. It took all of 4 minutes before we were into our first coho of the day. One of many dime bright fish brought up from the depths. We fished water from 75 ft deep to nearly 500 ft deep with our bait averaging about 60 feet down. After filling our quota of salmon, all coho and one chinook, we took off to fish 200+ feet of water for halibut. It didnt take long there either and we hooked into a few and my first ever halibut. One keeper and the rest were let go. Jigging for them was fun but tiring. 

Crab traps on the way back gave us our limits of dungeness crab and we are back at it tomorrow for more salmon, halibut and maybe some ling cod.

Bulkley 2022

Just got back from 2 days on the Bulkley. It's early in the steelhead run and the first day there gave up no steelhead. Although I was plenty entertained with a few pinks and some dime bright coho.

Day two started with a bang. Fourth or fifth cast and a steelhead hit like a freight train and took off down stream, reel screaming... but... I won.
My prize was a quick picture and the memory of and pleasure of meeting it. Off it went back to the river.
The rest of the morning was spent hooking a few more coho and a bull trout.

Can't wait to get back there in September when more steelhead are around.

Bulkley Bust

The Bulkley was a bit of a bust today. Went looking for steelhead but could only manage three coho. The water was more coloured up than I would have liked. On a plus side the coho were nice and bright. One was hooked on the spey and two on the spinning rod. The pictured doe was spoon fed and given the 'ol one grit sand paper after and invited for supper. This marks the first time I have fished the Bulkley and not got into any steelhead. It's a tough life.

2019 Bulkley Steelhead

Left the house at 3am this morning to drive the 3 hours to the Bulkley river. A quick Tims stop for a kids menu coffee and some loud music kept me awake after only getting four hours sleep the night before. Oh, and Brrrrrr.... it was cold. Only 2 degrees celcius this morning. Upon arriving at the Bulkley I immediately regretted not packing gloves. However, i soon forgot about the cold as the sun peaked over the mountains and I had my first fish on. A steelhead who immediately became acrobatic and promptly snapped my 15 pound fluro leader. Re-tie my leader and fly. Back to swinging the double hander. Water clarity was perfect, just a bit of colour, and the flow was spot on. A few more casts, a few steps down stream, a few more casts and a few steps then WHAM, fish on. Cartwheels, hard runs, the reel goes zing and the battle is on. This one came to hand, had a quick pic and was released without leaving the water.

The day continued with one more steelhead to hand and one freight train the hit HARD, showed off his big square tail and then broke my leader (again). Next time I'm using 20 pound. In between steelhead there were nuisance fish that were also taking the fly. These fish were getting in the way of finding steelhead *cough* *cough*. Not sure why anyone would want to hook coho on the fly while looking for steelhead.... .. (insert sarcasm sign ) Kidding aside, the by catch of coho was pretty fun too. Landed four of those buggers. Retention is one over 50 cm and one below. Couldnt get the one below 50 but retained one over 50 for the smoker.

Bulkley Double Double

This morning I woke up at the crack of too early, rolled out of bed and drove throught the darkness and smoke to the other side... .. .. Smithers.

I got to the Bulkley river where a couple people were casting spoons in the run above where I began my day. I put together my spey rod, threw on my favorite weighted black and blue intruder fly and started working the water. I had only been there for about half an hour, slowly working my way down a nice long run, when a couple arrive. She goes to the run upstream and he... ..low holes me. I wasn't too happy but I wasnt going to let it ruin my day. At least he was moving down the run, so I followed (at a distance). He was moving a bit faster than I was, finished fishing the run and joined his fishing buddy up stream. No sooner had he left and I had my fly slammed hard like a freight train followed by a big steelhead exploding out the water. After a great battle with lots of heart stopping acrobatics I managed to land the beauty. I snuck a quick pic (hard to do by yourself) and sent it on its way.

As the day went on I managed to hook three coho (two of which I landed) and another steelhead (which I lost) all in that same run. My spey rod got a good workout, my new Monic GSP running line is fantastic and I cant say enough good things about my galvan reel. LOVE those reels. #galvanreels .. sponsor me and I will gladly promote your reels everywhere I go. Oh and while i'm at it.. #monicflylines ?

Things died down and I explored up stream which yielded no fish. I went back to the first run and thought I woud give it one more sweep through before I drive home. The guy from earlier and his wife were there and working there way through. I let them go and followed behind and pulled another steelhead out behind them! This time he came over and snapped a quick pic for me. Nice guy. They came up from Oregon and had been fishing the river for 5 days with only a couple coho to show for it.

The day ended with a double double for me. Two steelhead landed and two coho landed.

Pursuit of Coho

This week I was out on the Skeena system again, this time chasing coho with my single hand fly rod and spey rod.

When we arrived at the Skeena, things looked promising. We set up camp and fished that evening at Ferry Island. There were coho and sockeye surfacing close to shore. Despite the water being colored up, and after a few fly changes, I did manage to hook a sockeye on the fly on a charteuse fly I nick named the "pick your prom dress" (a hybrid between a pick your pocket and a prom dress fly). This was my first ever sockeye on the fly.

The next morning we fished Ferry Island for a couple hours with no hook ups. So off we went to fish the Kitimat river in search of coho. We hit numerous locations and all we saw were zombie chum and spawning pinks. Nothing worth catching. I did manage a small cutthroat and a very nice resident rainbow. We retreated back to Ferry Island where we were camping. That evening we had no more fish to hand on the Skeena.

Thinking that the river may be more clear up stream we drove past the Copper river and found a spot to park way up stream to try our luck. Apparently luck didnt make the drive out with us and were were skunked, and demoralized. This was our last full day out there and nothing really to show for it.
That evening I did manage to hook in to a beautiful chrome coho on the spey back at Ferry Island. I had given thousands of casts over the last few days and only had my fly line knot up a couple of times. As I mentioned earlier luck was not there with us and as I was u tangnling a knot in the fly line near the reel was when the fish hit. I had it on, it turned towards me and I stripped lime mad to keep the tension on the line hoping I could play the fish without having to untie the knot at the same time. Well the coho wanted nothing to do with it and tore off in a big strong run. I had a decision to make. Let the fish run and pull the knot through the eyes on my spey rod or grab the knot before it went through and pray the fish turns. Not wanting the knot to rip off the eyes on my rod I grabbed the knot. Unfortunately the fish did not turn and it snapped me off. After a few choice words I tied back on a new fly and continued to fish. No more action that  night.

Back at camp, demoralized and exhausted we discussed our next steps and decided to leave and hit the Bulkley on the way.

The Bulkley was a little more clear than the Skeena and the dip netters at the Morricetown Canyon were getting sockeye, coho and even a steelhead. The first spot we found we saw a fish in a tail out and I got him to turn to my fly twice but couldnt elicit a bite. So, we moved on. We had a tip on a location and thought we would try it.

The Bulkey was a beautiful river and I cant wait to get back. We found a peach of a run, perfect for swinging flies. There was evidence of coho remnants in the water and two people were leaving with coho they had caught. Our hopes were high and it didnt take too long before I had a fish hit, although it snapped me off after a few head shakes. As the afternoon wore on the fish were rising here and there and we fished a seam where we kept seeing them rise. Out of nowhere I had a big hit on my fly and a brief fight with line peeling before it snapped me off. Awake and pumped I fished through that spot hoping to convince another to bite and it paid off. A fish hammered my fly and promply took off out towards the current giving a nice cartwheel on the way. It wasnt a chrome coho that was for sure, it seemed to have a bit of colour but I was happy I was into a fish. As the fight went on the fish bull dogged and stayed low in the water trying to get into the heavjer current. Eventually I had him on his way in and I got my first good look at him. It was a Steelhead! Nerves were high and so was my excitment as I worked it in and landed it. This was my fist fly caught steelhead and what a beauty. After a couple quick pictures it was on it was back in the river.

A short while after that my fishing partner was into a fish that hit like a freight train. The fish was quickly peeling line and burning his fingers before it broke his fly. It was a tank of a fish. It hit hard like a steelhead and I'm sure it was bigger than mine. Both fish hit on a black and blue intruder style fly.

Cant't wait to get back to the bulkley!

On the vise

In preparation on my trip to the Skeena River and surrounding area tomorrow, I have been trying up all sorts of salmon and steelhead flies. The latest of which is a variation of a favorite steelhead fly of mine. I have tied it in a variety of colours such as pink/purple, blue/black and now an orange/copper. I'm hoping to entice some steel and maybe a coho with it. I have had good sucess with copper flies for coho in the past.

For those of you interested the recipe is:

Hook: Owner size 2 - model 5115-091 tied as a stinger on a 25mm waddington shank.
Thread: 140 orange
Tail: copper flashabou
Body: wrapped copper flashabou
Hackle: black hackle tied in at the tip
Dubbing ball: holographic - gold orange diamond dub
Under wing: uv pearl crystal flash
Wing : orange fox fur (or craft fur)
Over wing: black angel hair
Collar hackle: natural guinea

Low and clear fly fishing at the Capilano

Four o'clock in the morning is so early!

After only getting about 4 hours of sleep the night before, I was up and ready to hit the Capilano river with my fly rod for some early season coho.
When we arrived at the river we were happy to see it was quite void of the usual crowds of fishermen.  This was probably due to the early hour and the fact it was a weekday. Not to mention we were in for some tough fishing due to the very low and clear water. In these conditions it is important to go with small size offerings. Today I was using size 10 and 12 flies.
We started off near the highway bridge, a popular run I had never visited before. I can see the attraction to that run, there was a decent pool and some nice water to fish with a few boulders u der the water to provide structure. However, with the low clear water there were no fish holding there. So after giving it a try and coming up empty handed we moved on and up stream to find some more water to drop a fly in.
At our next stop we found a nice deep pool that had some surface action with a variety of sizes of fish from little smolts to decent sized coho. The main pool with all the action proved to be full of tight lipped fish. I went for a bit of a walk down stream and managed a couple small fish (4 and 6 inches). Not wanting to bither the little guys I moved on and found some nice pocket water. The water was deep and slow enough and a slightly agitated surface so I could not see down into the clear water. Perfect... except it was quite the technical pocket to fish with varying currents, tight quarters and the challenge of etting the fly down deep without the rest of the line getting caught in the heavier current and sweeping the fly out. At first I tried it with a bead head fly (as seen in the picture) and a heavy sink tip, but it wasn't enough to keep the fly deep. I felt my fly was not in the zone fast enough or long enough. The pocket was no more than about 8-10 feet long and maybe 2-3 feet wide of slower water. Nothing was tempted to try my fly. My next step was to secure a tiny splitshot to the leader to help keep it in the zone. No sooner had I done this and i could see a coho follow my fly up on the retrieve ( which was more or a slow lift upstream than a strip) but trn away last second. This happened two times before it slammed the fly. The coho took to the air with a couple jumps, some vigorous headshakes and then snap.... my leader broke just above the fly. I was disappointed but excited at the same time.
Unfortunately, that was the only other fish we touched this morning and it was the only one we saw hooked. The water needs to come up a bit to bring in some fresh fish.

Capilano Hatchery

I was in North Vancouver this afternoon for my daughter's dance competition.  Since we were so close, we made a last minute decision to visit the Capilano hatchery after the dance performance.
We didn't stay for too long, but just long enough to check out the fish ladder, the hatchery displays and the fish holding behind the viewing glass.
If you haven't been to the hatchery I highly recommend it. It is a great place for the kids to learn a little about pacific salmon and steelhead and also get up close to see adult fish as well as juvenile.
There were a few nice coho behind the viewing glass that had made their way up from the Capilano river as well as one lonely steelhead. My kids enjoyed seeing the fish and exploring all the exhibits. It was a proud father moment when my youngest walked up to a display and promptly said "That's a sockeye daddy, it is red with a green head. And that's a chum, because it has purple stripes." Not bad for girl who just turned 5 two weeks ago.

After the hatchery we took a walk down to view the carnage at the Cable Pool. There were plenty of rods fishing the water and after speaking to a guy, there had been a couple of coho caught earlier that day.

The coho run in the Capilano consists of smallish coho typically and is an earlier run than the rivers of the surrounding area. The coho in the river are notoriously tight lipped and often shoot up the river quickly after the water level rises. When the water is low, they stage at the mouth of the river circling around in the ocean water waiting for the next heavy rain.

On a side note, in case you are planning on fishing the river, there is NO RETENTION OF STEELHEAD on the Capilano river and you would be wise to familiarize yourself with the proper identification of these fish.