It’s been a busy two weeks since our last report, lots going on in the Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island. Despite the fires burning throughout British Columbia, the fishing remains excellent. We have been targeting sturgeon on the Fraser, Salmon and Halibut on Vancouver Island and Trout on the Upper Pitt River. All of these fisheries are producing great results.

This Monster sturgeon measured 9ft7 and was caught just 100 meters from our dock in Mission yesterday July 6, what a beautiful fish.

With low snow back this season the river is already in great shape, we have started up our canyon fishing adventures one month early and fishing has been very good. August through to middle of November is peak timing for sturgeon fishing and with the predicted 16 million Pink salmon returning late summer, we should have another spectacular season on the water.

16 Million Pink Salmon and 6 million sockeye are expected to return to the Fraser river this summer, Summer & Fall Sturgeon fishing should be excellent with all this bait in the water. We still have some great dates available for both September and October so please give us a call if you would like to get out with us. The STS team is ready for the season and we look forward to another great year on the water.

Mission Best Western Discount Packages

All packages include accommodation, breakfast, catered lunch, full day of guided fishing, all fishing tackle and private guide and boat for each group. We do not mix groups so all packages include private guide.

• Private guide & jet boat
• All fishing tackle provided
• Breakfast & lunch
• 8 hours guided fishing each day

All Prices are per person in Canadian Dollars, Fishing License, 5% tax and Gratuities are not included. Gratuities are not mandatory but appreciated.

	2 anglers 1 boat / 1 room	3 anglers 1 boat / 1 room	3 anglers 1 boat / 2 rooms	4 anglers 1 boat / 2 rooms
2 Nights / 1 Day	$499.00	$375.00	$450.00	$345.00
2 Nights / 2 Days	$900.00	$665.00	$740.00	$575.00
3 Nights / 2 Days	$950.00	$715.00	$830.00	$640.00
4 Nights / 3 Days	$1350.00	$1040.00	$1190.00	$925.00
5 Nights / 4 Days	$1850.00	$1375.00	$1565.00	$1225.00
6 Nights / 5 Days	$2300.00	$1700.00	$1930.00	$1495.00
7 Nights / 6 Days	$2760.00	$2035.00	$2300.00	$1785.00

Our West Coast Salmon and Halibut Charters are already up and running, I just returned from 3 days and wow fishing is hot. Lots of Chinook, Coho, Ling Snapper and Halibut to be caught with generous limits for each angler. This fishery is best in July and early August, we still have 2 dates available for July if you can do a last minute trip. Shoots us an e-mail for available dates, best west coast rates in the region. If you can’t make it out this season, we are now taking booking for 2016.

All packages include accommodations at either Whales Reach Lodge or Kagoagh Lodge, breakfast, lunch & dinner, full days of guided fishing 10 hours per day, all fishing tackle and private guide and boat for each group. We do not mix groups so all packages include private guide.

• Private Guide & Saltwater Certified Boat
• All fishing tackle provided
• Catered lunch
• 10 hours guided fishing each day
• Transportation to and from Port Hardy

All Prices are per person in Canadian Dollars, Fishing License, 5% tax and Gratuities are not included. Gratuities are not mandatory but appreciated.

	2 anglers 1 boat / 1 room	3 anglers 1 boat / 2 rooms	4 anglers 1 boat / 2 rooms
2 Nights / 2 Days	$1750.00	$1455.00	$1175.00
3 Nights / 2 Days	$1950.00	$1655.00	$1375.00
4 Nights / 3 Days	$2750.00	$2300.00	$1925.00
5 Nights / 4 Days	$3575.00	$2985.00	$2500.00

This 28lb Chinook was caught a few days ago, Kagoagh Lodge deckhand Alister with his largest ever Chinook.

Yes I am still at it, although Thomas is doing most of our guiding on the West Coast, It’s my happy place so I would be thrilled to join you for a day or two.

The Upper Pitt River is still fishing very well, we expect this fishery to continue well into August. Water is low this season so a maximum of two anglers per boat will be implemented to allow for safe navigation of the river. This fishery is the only fly fishery in the region until the salmon fishery begin in August, lots of great fishing and wild life viewing opportunities.

Due to low water our Fraser Canyon Adventures and Hells Gate Tours has started up one month early. We have a few dates still available for weekends in July and some weekday trips in August and September. Come join us for another great year on the Water.

Have a great summer, hope we see you on the water.

Vic Carrao

STS Guiding.

Fishing has been good to excellent this past week, we have been fishing our usual haunts for June which are Upper Pitt River for sea-run trout, Gulf Islands for Chinook Salmon and Fraser River for Sturgeon, please see below for detailed report.

Pitt River is fishing well this past week for both fly fishing and light tackle spin fishing. Saturday was amazing with over 30 fish landed and released on fly and spoons. Water is dropping quite fast so navigation of the river is a bit more challenging than in past years. Water clarity is perfect for catching these beautiful trout, just look at above pic.

Garth holds just one of many trout caught on his guided trip by Thomas, streamer fly’s in grey, white and black are working well.

The Fraser River has cleared up nicely this past week and is starting to fish a bit better in the Mission area. Good numbers of fish are being caught between Agassiz and Mission with some larger fish showing up on the weekend. STS Guide Braeden landed his biggest of the weekend yesterday measuring 8ft 2 inches. Best bait has been lamprey, salmon bellies and Eulachon.

Vancouver and Gulf islands has been producing some good early Chinook, after battling the weather all week we got into some nice fish on Friday over at Thrasher. Trolling 119 to 140 feet seemed to produce some nice fish with high slack being the best bite of the day.

If you’re looking for a guided fishing trip give us a call, we would love to have you as our guest. Fathers Day is just around the corner and we are offering some great discounts on guided fishing charters, please call or e-mail for details.

Hope you have a great week.

We have been talking about how the Trout fishing season was about to get started, well it has started. Yesterday we had some amazing fishing with over 20 fish landed and released. Many of the trout were in the 2 to 5lb range with several fish over 5lbs. Sturgeon fishing remains challenging but we are seeing some nice fish, salmon fishing in Vancouver remains consistent.

The Pitt River offers excellent opportunity for both fly anglers and light tackle spin fishing with spoons. This river changes its path on just about every heavy rainfall making the Pitt River one of the more challenging river to navigate and fish. This season the river is extremely challenging for running jet boats but once your past all the obstacles the amount of fishable water is much greater than in past years.

STS Guide Thomas Rutschmann has been guiding the Pitt along with Vic Carrao for the better part of 15 years, by far this one of our favorite times of year to fish the Pitt.

Some of the techniques used to fish the Pitt are similar to steelhead but then again quite different. When casting flies the best method is a down and across presentation ensuring your fly is just tapping along the bottom or as close as you can get. The way to do this is to use a high density sink tip in the 3 to 4 rating. Once the fly touches bottom, just hold tight on the line for a second and fly will lift off again, a quick mend will send if back down placing the fly in the strike zone.

Bouncing spoons along the bottom is a technique that we have developed over the years that produces some of the larger Bull Trout in the River system. Similar to fly fishing we cast the spoons upstream allowing it to sink to the bottom, once you feel the spoon hit the bottom, take up any slack and try to keep the spoon bouncing near the bottom by lifting and dropping your rod tip.

The Spoon in the above pic is a Gibbs/Delta Croc Silver Hex, 2 1/4 inch, 3/8 oz. These along with gold or silver Ironhead spoons are some of the most productive spoons for Bull Trout but also salmon, cutthroat and rainbow trout. The key is choosing the right size for depth and speed of the water so that you’re not hitting bottom to quickly or not enough.

This is a look at Vic’s spoon box, pretty impressive selection of Gibbs/Delta Spoons. Ultra Lures, Ironhead and Crocs are the top producing spoons.

If you would like to get out with Vic or Thomas, please give us a call, we are offering Pitt River fly and light tackle spin fishing trips from now through until August 15 but now is the best time for the larger Bulls.

Give us a call, 604-671-3474 or sts@guidebc.com