Salmon Outlook – 2017

DFO’s Salmon Outlook for this year’s salmon season is out and it looks like an average year with fishing in all areas, though with few outstanding opportunities. 

Here is the year in a nutshell: “Thirty-two (32) Outlook Units are likely to be at or above target abundance (categories 3, 4, 3/4), while 31 are expected to be of some conservation concern (categories 1, 2, 1/2). The remaining 22 Outlook Units have mixed outlook levels (categories 1/3, 1/4, 2/3, 2/4). Overall, the outlook for 2017 has improved relative to the previous outlook (2016). Eleven (11) Outlook Units improved in category (Fraser, Early Summer Sockeye – N Thompson, Fraser Summer Sockeye – Chilko, Nechako, Quesne, Harrison, Raft, Stikine and Taku wild sockeye and Fraser River Summer Run 41 Chinook). Three (3) units declined in category (Somass sockeye, Alsek Chinook, and Fraser odd pink).”

Now, while DFO says 2017 will improve overall compared with 2016, when you look through the document, that improvement depends in part on northern returns that we here on the south coast do not fish. Hence, the average year here. Conditions in the past two years at sea have been affected by the ‘Warm Blob’ and an El Nino, both associated with poorer performance for plankton and thus salmon at sea.

Vancouver Island often starts the season with early sockeye to the Somass system and Henderson Lake in May, with the China Creek area being fishy from June on. The past two year’s returns have been outstanding, 1.8 million, for example. This year is looks like a much lower return, with a sport fishery tentative at this time. Maybe not the year to pull your boat over the hump, but if you can stand the full combat armour of the Paper Mill Dam freshwater sockeye lining fishery, you might as well do that, assuming the number comes in exceeding 200,000, and thus an authorized fishery. It should be noted that Stamp River sockeye keep on coming into September, so there may be some still in saltwater during the Labour Day Port Alberni derby.

For Juan de Fuca/South Van isle sockeye, the Fraser run of some 101 subcomponents has some that are poor, and others that offer opportunity. The issue depends on two things: water temperature and its effect on diverting up to 100% of sockeye down Johnstone Strait if water remains warm; fishing where the strong subcomponents are separated from weak ones, for example, closer to terminal areas, or based on run timing.

Some subcomponents can be less than ten thousand (Sakinaw, at an almost non-existent, 52, for example), while others provide large portions of the overall return. Runs that are average to healthy include: summer Chilko, a run that averages 1.6 million; summer Nechako, 470,000 average; summer Harrison that have vastly exceeded their long-term average of 130,000, often more than double; South Thompson, 200,000; and Fall Birkenhead, 296,000. 

By contrast, the north waters of the Nass, Stikine wild, and Taku wild will be buoyant, so if you are going north, there are some fish way up there, and this is the year to go.

Turning to chinook salmon, the Fraser River fish we depend on in Victoria, those 4-2s and 5-2s, are still in difficulties, so not good for us. On the other hand, WCVI’s three main hatcheries, Conuma, Robertson Creek and Nitinat will return average numbers of fish, but more in the five-year category, meaning fish exceeding 30 pounds. Do remember that Nitinat fish slop over to Port Renfrew and thus the August, September period, when added to the large, white Harrisons is a better than average year to investigate. WCVI wild chinook are in dire need, particularly Clayoquot Sound with less than 501 fish, not surprising for an area with 22 fish farms and IHN, and algal blooms from sewage.

ECVI hatchery rivers will be at target, including Quinsam/Campbell River, and thus a year to row Tyee Pool; the Cowichan at 6,500, with jacks in 2016 suggesting an improvement, which is a welcome sight after a very bad stretch, and possibly some directed fisheries on both outside and inside. This may be a year to treat yourself to a fishing resort trip as the River’s Inlet and Bella Coola chinook are expected at average to above average, and those Wannocks can reach 70 pounds.

As for coho, the Fraser stocks that were in trouble in David Anderson’s day as DFO minister, are still doing poorly. WCVI stocks are stable, and thus add to the catch of anglers migrating to Nootka and Barkley sounds. On the inside, Cowichan and Black Creek coho are improving. If you are on a trip north, Skeena coho are in good shape.

2017 is an odd year, and thus Fraser pinks will be in the Victoria catchment area. They are forecast to be slightly below the long-term average of 13.4 million. So, the easiest to catch salmon will be in high enough numbers to send virtually all anglers home with fish. Those who partake in the beach fisheries for pinks will find stable or improved fishing this summer, from Nanaimo north to Port Hardy, easily a dozen drainages. It is a year to learn to fly fish for those who have not done so in the past.

Finally, there will be some good chum fishing which should exceed its escapement goal of 800,000 for the Fraser. Last year was 2 million at the terminal end, and with the long-term trend having turned positive since 2010, expect more fish rather than fewer. Like last year, this year would be a good one to do the chum madness fishery in Brown’s Bay north of Campbell River. On a blue sky, high pressure warm day in September/October, this fishery can be insane it is that good.

Both Nitinat and Nootka will have good returns of chum, with the added bonus of a higher than usual number of five-year olds. So anglers on foot have a good chance of staggering home with some fish in the 20- to 25-pound range. Johnstone Strait drainages will have above average chum returns and this will add to the Fraser chum in choke point waters north of Campbell River.

Winter Chinook Tackle

While there have been far too many windy days preventing fishing in the past month, anglers are getting out on good days. In our Victoria area fishery that extends from Sheringham Point to Saanich Inlet, certain lures and flashers have caught more than their share of fish.

On the flasher end, the newish Gibbs Madi, Lemon Lime and Purple Onion have been the go-to flashers along with the Bon Chovy and Purple Haze. The Moon Jelly hue in the Gibbs lineup is positively sexy. Anyone who has ever caught a chinook salmon in winter will know that purple is the background colour on their shoulder, underlying the basic silver and metallic grey above their lateral line.

You should look into the O’Ki line of Betsy flashers which has a full range of colours. You will recall that the Super Betsy is a good combination of colours in the Race Rocks and west fisheries late in the summer and through fall, before October rains wash the coho home. But with a half dozen variations, there are glow flashers that also work all winter, too. 

Do note that flashers and tackle that have worked in the past will continue to work, though it makes good sense to pick up the new things, use them, and evaluate which ones you think are an improvement. For example, the Army Truck in a flasher is still a useful winter flasher, and of course, in its day, was the go-to colour combination. And the green Hotspot flasher with a glow side, now an oldie-but-a-goodie choice, will still work in the winter, too.

And any pattern with glow-in-the-dark colours, along with UV properties will also work now. The reason is that in winter we consistently fish at depth where sunlight penetration is lost, and thus any gear with light emitting power stands out more because it is, well, sending out light. Ultra violet flashers, and particularly hootchies, have the added advantage at depth because salmon, unlike humans, can see UV light.

Turning to the spread you put out, it is a good idea to make a plan of the first three lures you are going to try in your day. So, you have the first spread, and an option for the next. Your records – you do keep fishing records, don’t you? – will tell you what worked for you in preceding years in the winter. I always put out one bait line because it often catches the most fish, but only one line. 

The reason for putting out only one bait line is that you need to pay attention to the bumps the tackle gets – shakers for example – and bait’s inherent qualities to soften and change the spiral you so patiently introduced into the wire in the back third of the bait’s body before sending it down. It needs to be checked frequently, at least every 20 minutes, and thus you are constantly dealing with that rod. The advantage of spoons is that they need the littlest care, and can be counted on to be fishing far longer without fouling than any other tackle.

Typically, we use anchovy, small where the predominant bait is needlefish, and medium where the larger herring predominate. Put this on the port side where the captain can most easily see the rod first. Captain’s chairs are on the starboard side of boats, hence, port for the bait rod. Note that if you see the leaderboard at Island Outfitters, you will note that all top-five fish were taken on bait. So, it is no accident. If you put most effort into perfecting only one type of lure, make it bait. Just keep refining what you do, noting what does and does not work.

As for teaser heads to anchor bait, you will want a good dozen colours to choose from. For winter, all should have glow properties, and UV, if that is offered, the Bloody Nose being an example. Green, white, pearl, combinations, 602 and so on all being examples. For an alternative, try the silver Purple haze head. For rigging a wire and images of completed heads, see: http://onfishingdcreid.blogspot.ca/2014/02/wire-rigging-teaserhead-feb-23-2014.html. 

Turning to plastics, use hootchies where herring predominate, and squirts where needlefish predominate. An alternative hootchy where needlefish are the most common feed, are ones with lines that run from nose to tail, presenting a slimmer silhouette to the fish.

Common patterns include glow green/white, white with UV red eyes, Purple Haze – there are two Purple Haze colours: silver/purple, and translucent purple, the latter changing colour slightly once it has been in the water, and becomes more fishy, presenting a more purple hue – Irish Mist, Mint Tulip, Army Truck and any hootchy with glow.

Finally, spoons have been good this winter, and are far and a way the best lure for dependable action. There is no bait to erode, no plastic fronds to get caught in hooks, etc. Once you put them out, they can be counted upon to continue working. If you leave one line a bit long, make it the spoon line.

And a whole host of spoons have been good this winter: any green/glow lure (do recall the Coyote Spoon), glow/silver, G-Force, Skinny Gs in Brass/Silver, Bon Chovy spoons, Coho Killer White Lightning, Green Splatterback, and also the Cop Car Glow. 

A spoon I was sorry to see go was the Radiant white glow. It was so strong it would send out light all night long. I once hung one up in my bedroom and it did indeed glow all night long, far outstripping its competitors. I note that Lighthouse Lures says their glow lasts longer than any on the market, but haven’t tried them yet. Anyone else?

David Lambroughton Calendar

Every fisher needs a fishing calendar to keep track of time. There’s a whole year’s worth out there for fishing and you’ll need to write the days down so you don’t forget them. David Lambroughton’s calendar is simply the best on the market for fishers.

You owe it to yourself to send $18.99 to David for him to send one out to you. Visit www.davidlambroughton.com, to take care of the details. David has this tendency to travel around the world looking for neat places to toss a fly. In the long run, I’ll be fishing some of those browns in New Zealand, too. I have taken images for glossy magazines for more than two decades, so I can tell how nice his really are, well composed, unbelievable colour saturation, some stunning fish and locales.

Look at the cover and ask yourself just how big was the fish that left its splash in the middle of the image, of a stream that has that Chalk Streams of England look written all over it. And the purist might point out that if it is ‘the take’ by the fish then it is the only true method of fly fishing: upstream, dry fly artistry mentioned in many Haig-Brown books, and other books of English back ground over the past century.

And the inside cover images are handsome flies in the Atlantic Salmon fashion, as in they don’t represent an actual bug, but are well proportioned colourful flies tied in the traditional patterns with the full panoply of a talented tier’s skills and longstanding classic materials. Should you ever have the good fortune of an extra hour or so in Campbell River, go take the tour of Haig-Brown’s house for the superb glass-cased Atlantic flies, tied, I think, in the Art Lingren style.

Such flies do work for summer steelhead as well, so have current use. The other book to pick up is Trey Coombs, Steelhead Fly Fishing that has colour plates of all the classic flies, as well as the fishing method still argued about today more than a century later. In a nutshell, greased line fly fishing results from when they used silk to make fly lines. To make them float, the lines were coated in grease. To make the fly track properly, an upstream mend was put in the line just after landing, to turn the fly so its tail passed down stream first, and sunk further. 

You will find a more lengthy explanation of greased line fishing in Coombs’ book as well as Haig-Brown’s A River Never Sleeps. The latter book also has a good list of historical fly fishing books for the well-stocked library. On the west coast, though, our fly fishing is mostly for anadromous species, meaning fish that spend part of their lives in saltwater and part in freshwater. This includes the five species of salmon, two species of steelhead, searun cutthroat trout, Dolly Varden Char and searun brown trout, of which there are very few.

We are very lucky because anadromous fish take several weeks to recognize real food when they change from salt- or fresh-water. That means we tie stimulator flies, ones the get attention and elicit a strike, but don’t actually represent any real food item.

But purist freshwater fly fishers, who fish for resident trout that spend their entire lives in freshwater, know the ticket to fish is a fly that resembles an actual insect that the fish feeds on, right when you are fishing. Hatches of May, damsel and caddis flies occur in the warm part of the day, the adults living only long enough to mate and lay eggs, and thus the images in the Lambroughton calendar have lots of sun, warmth and wonderful fish. And anglers getting around on their knees to stay out of view of their quarries, and tying flies on, brace yourself, hooks as small as size 16. I can hardly see a size 16 hook – my eyes having been the bane of my life since birth – so, I am pretty happy to be on the coast and fall back on having to tie stimulators on size 1 and 2 black salmon hooks. Oh, darn.

The February image features the low gradient trout streams of Sheep County. These are pleasant, small rivers that are set in rolling hills and grassy fields where sheep mow the lawn for you. You will see what a good, easy river looks like. Every hundred yards there is a run, corner, pool or combination thereof, and between them a riffle where you can easily reach the other side, unlike Van Isle Rivers that have sweepers, logjams and almost impenetrable bush to whack. 

One of my close experiences with the bottom of a logjam, here, came after a flood of Noah proportions. I put my foot on flotsam between two logs in a jam that was at least 20 feet high not giving it a second thought, and the next second was on my back down an eight feet deep hole looking back up through the hole to where I had just tread. I learned a valuable lesson: as flood waters recede, all the flotsam slowly comes together, and as the water departs, come to rest up against one another, support one another, and thus when the water is all gone, look like level ground. Not so. Now I always test with a toe before putting weight on the crud.

A lovely brown in the March image was taken in the water. I have done the same for a very long time, because, as David mentions, it is kinder to the fish to keep it in water, not dry ground, gravel, dirt, etc. where it can be injured. It is the zen of getting older and not wanting to change the karma of nature. 

Lambroughton makes a good point: getting yourself a back-pack inflatable craft that you can carry anywhere, dramatically increases the amount of fishing water in a day. And remember, in BC that means avoiding all the bushwhacking. He has a Waterstrider and I have a Watermaster. I suggest you pick one up. You and a buddy leave a car at the top, a car at the bottom and just drive between cars. An example on Van Isle is the very long drift between the Roberson Creek Hatchery at the top end to the Provincial Park just before Stamp Falls. If you don’t stop, you go over the falls and are never seen from again.

June has a good example of cutthroat trout residence: wood, logs, overhanging trees, a deep crease and slower water. And look at the generic rubber legged Elk Hair Caddis. This habitat is the exact opposite for steelhead which prefer rock, absolute heads of pools, tailouts and straight line runs with rock, not wood. The cast pattern is different too.

And the Lambroughton calendar has a typical occidental west coast summer steelhead river for July. He does make the same point on their residing in the absolute heads of pools, in that oxygenated water where the river tumbles in.

The very pretty Mataura River image shows ultra-clear water and the middle of a warm autumn day. It makes the point that the connoiesseur can take a day with only a few memorable trout. On north Van Isle, I once had a trip made by a 9-lb summer doe that took my fly in the first five minutes of a weeklong trip.

As for fishing in New Zealand, do recall that it is summer in December, so you can have the best of the summer here and then make it extend all year round going there. And do put that on your Lambroughton calendar.