Winter Chinook – 2018

The annual fishing calendar has moved into the best time of year to capture a fish and bring it home as the guest of honour for dinner. All the summer chinook bound for spawning have past through, entered their rivers and done the deed.

Winter chinook in our neighbourhood are mostly American. That is because DFO has allowed BC chinook to dwindle over its tenure, while our American friends have done the opposite. Fraser chinook are in short supply, and the main ones remaining for killer whales are the Harrison and Thompson rivers, which are also in decline.

Still, the Cowichan has had a stellar recovery in the past few years, and these fish circle Georgia Strait for a year before migrating offshore. It’s an example of how fish can come back, when given a helping hand. 

Summer fish are higher in the water column and closer to shore within 150 kms from their river. Apparently, they taste the water as a method of helping find their river, and the shallower water is where the river water lies, presumably because freshwater flows out over saltwater, as it is lighter and has lower ionic pressure, mostly, salt, or sodium chloride. I would bet that close to shore also tastes like the shore they are going by.

But winter fish aren’t going anywhere other than to three meals a day. They stay close to the bait, which are usually herring or sandlance. They are deeper than summer fish, and oriented around structure. Herring are midwater fish, while sandlance are substrate fish, so one either fishes at a set level or on the bottom.

In Victoria, Clover Point illustrates a point well. Regardless of other factors, points naturally concentrate fish. Ross Bay is a flat that slowly curves toward Trial Island several miles east. If we assume there are three fish spread out across the flat, it takes some time to find them. However, to move by a point all three fish need to be in the same place, because the point eliminates the area where the three fish were spread out.

So, there is a natural concentrating effect around points, banks and structure. I typically fish about 110 feet deep in the winter, and Clover drops off quickly to 100 feet and then drops to 180. Do catch the outfall pipe on your screen and lift your lower line so it doesn’t hang up. 

Moving west, the Victoria waterfront has several more natural choke points, or bottom structure: the Flag Pole, Harling Point, Brotchie Ledge and the Breakwater, and thence to Macaulay Point. And wherever we fish, the same pattern reveals itself. Otter Point is a more dramatic point than Clover, but it has the same principle. Trial Island is the same (and water drops quickly to 120 feet), as is Ten Mile Point that gives access to the Sidney waters, with Darcy Shoals between.

Even in waters that have almost non-existent tides, the fish are spread out on the side of structure opposite from the direction the tide is flowing. I cut my teeth in Saanich Inlet and found that the Bamberton shore which is pretty much straight had a half dozen hotspots. From the north end, first was the Silos, then two small reefs in front of the dock, then what I called The Slide – it being where concrete had been dumped from trucks to the south of the docks, and was a small depression, there were two more unnamed points where the structure came out from the shore, until a half mile from Sheppard Point, where you began angling off shore following the straying structure and set up for going around the point in deep enough water not to hang up your planer, thence to McCurdy, Stone Steps, and so on. Regular as clock work the fish were found in exactly the same places, but, as stated, on the side opposite from where the tide was coming from, even though you wouldn’t notice it in the boat. On several occasions I told my fishing companion that if we were going to get a fish, it would be right now on the port rod, and was rewarded with a bite. The point is that fish position was precise.

The other factors are lunch and tides. As smaller fish, midwater herring are naturally moved by the tide, one way and then the opposite roughly every six hours. Chinook keep close to them and thus reading bait schools on your depthsounder tells you this is the spot to concentrate your fishing. Sandlance, even smaller, are also moved, but concentrated near the bottom, are moved less so as current rises off bumps creates a vertical eddy, then continues on. The spire off Christopher Point in Sooke is an example of a vertical eddy. To a lesser extent, the Oak Bay Flats has a few of these spots, but it is an area of conflicted tides – tides going in both directions on different sections of the Flats – with the major structural gremlins being Brodie Rock, the Great Chain Islets and Discovery Island.

As it is the case all year round, it makes more sense to fish with the tide rather than against it. You move with the tide, find the bait and fish, and then circle the spot. If the tide is moving quickly, it makes more sense to pick up your lines, move back up stream far enough that your gear is down and working properly before the fish spot. Near shore reference points, it becomes abundantly clear that you are going nowhere when you fish into the tide, as that spot where the fish are can take an hour to crawl back into, and even then, you are pointing the wrong way, as fish typically line up facing the current, and you have to move by them to make a turn and fish through them with the current, another half hour.

One final thing for this week: take a look at your downrigger before winter fishing. That is because more line is out than in the summer, and corroded electrical connections cause more problems in the winter. Clip the cable and replace the swivel above weak line. Check the plug end of the downrigger, sanding with emery paper or light sandpaper to a nice copper finish. Similarly, do the same with the leads that go to and from the battery.

I recently had inconsistent starting when I turned the key, checked for being out of gear, and that the kill switch was on, then did the next thing, which is investigate the battery. These days most batteries are closed and thus you cannot look in the capped spots and fill with distilled water. Instead, I looked sequentially at the leads. On one post there were three and all were corroded. So out came the sandpaper and each was sanded thoroughly, cleaned, the post cleaned and leads put back on.

The second post, had, to my surprise, seven leads. Little wonder it could cause a problem. All seven needed shining – each on both sides – the post sanded and the area around the post cleaned of all the shavings, before putting the leads back down. Things now feel solid. Remember that connections should be inspected at least once a year.