Vancouver Salmon Fishing

Winter Chinook Fishing in the Vancouver Harbour area has been fair to good over the past couple weeks, lots of feeder springs in the 8 to 10 lb range being caught as well as some excellent crab and prawn fishing. The new Gibbs Guide Series flashers seem to be doing the job out there, lots of great reports coming in from anglers using the Lemon Lime, Bon Chovy and STS Highliner Flashers. Most of the guides are trolling spoons just off the bottom with best bite on the incoming tide.

Speaking of Saltwater Salmon Fishing, we are currently busy booking our summer Salmon / Halibut Charters for July/August over in Coal Harbour, Quatsino Sound. This area is one of the top producing salmon fishing grounds on the Island and offers world class fishing in protected calm waters. We start up last week in June and fish hard for 6 weeks. We offer day trips as well as 2,3,& 4 day packages with lodging and meals.

Vic will be heading over to the Island in late June to prepare for the peak Salmon & Halibut season, we are currently booking July 1 to August 15 so if you are looking for some great salmon fishing, Vic still has a few days available to fish with him so if you would like to join Vic, give us a call or e-mail.

River Fishing Steelhead

Steelhead season is well under way in the Fraser Valley, lots of anglers out on the water looking for that first fish of the year. Some of our guides have been out working the Vedder having some success but the season has been a bit slower than recent years. Seems to be lots more people out this year so maybe it’s just a bit more difficult to find fresh fish.

STS guide Breaden Szlabon with Vedder River Steelhead

Water conditions on both the Vedder and Chehalis are low and clear, with this cold weather the afternoon bite is probably your best bet. We find that when we get clear /cold weather, 10am to 2pm can produce the best bite. Most of our guides are using cured salmon eggs and shrimp fished under a float with a bit of yarn, during this conditions chucking a Ironhead Spoon or running a Colorado blade under your float is not a bad choice, especially if you are fishing those larger deeper runs.

Upcoming Seminars

We have two upcoming seminars in April, our very popular Sturgeon Seminar & River Jet Boat Seminar. Both these seminars are ( on the water) where you will spend the day with Vic Carrao of STS.

Seminar dates: Sturgeon Seminar – April 12 or 20, Jet Boat Seminar – April 13 or 19

Please e-mail us or visit our website for more information.

Fraser River Sturgeon

The Fraser is in great shape, low clear water conditions are the norm for this time of year and this season is no exception. We have not been out targeting sturgeon but have received a few reports from local anglers who have been out. Not a lot of action but a few nice fish being caught on each trip. Best bait in winter months is Salmon eggs and lamprey eel, either bait should produce a few fish.

Spring Sturgeon Special – we will once again be offering our "Fill The Boat" spring special, this is a great fishery for sturgeon with peak fishing from April 1 to May 15 but good fishing can last well into June before the high water hits.

Special Rate – 6 hours guided sturgeon fishing, up to 4 anglers, for only $560 ( savings of $120)

– 8 hours guided sturgeon fishing, up to 4 anglers, for only $700 ( savings of $120)

Winter Trout Fishing

There is some good winter trout fishing available on the Fraser & Harrison Rivers during winter months, most of the fish are Cutthroat Trout with the occassional Dolly Varden. We also intercept the odd steelhead so you should try to use heavy enough leader to tackle one of these just in case. I would recommend using 8 to 10lb Berkley floricarbon for best results. Salmon fry won’t be hatching yet but using minnow patterns still work well, also there is a prolific winter stonefly hatch on the Fraser so carrying a few of these fly’s would be useful.

We have over 140 fly patterns on our website with full tieing instructions – www.guidebc.com/flypatterns.asp

Hells Gate Jet Boat Tours

For the 2014 Season we are offering 3 options to experience the Fraser Canyon, you can do our 2 hour Hope to Sailor Bar tour for $99, 4 hour hope to Hells Gate for $129 and our full day Tour with Sturgeon Fishing for $275.00. If you woulkd like more information on these tours, please feel free to call or e-mail us.

BC Boat & Sportsman Show Special – The BC Boat & Sportman Show is coming up in the middle of March, STS will be at the show as well as Hells Gate Jet Boat Tours, our booth is in the same location as past years so please drop by and say hello. We will be offering several show specials, we will post on this blog so keep coming back as we get closer.

Book our 2 hour or 4 hour Hells Gate Tour at the show and get one person half price.

FREE DRAW – Enter to WIN FREE VIP Tickets to BC Boat & Sportsman Show, just send us an e-mail and we will enter you to win.

Red Deer Sportsman Show – We are heading to Red Deer for the fishing show at the end of February, if any of our clients from Red Deer would like tickets to the show, please e-mail me and we will be happy to send you a few.

If your looking to get out salmon or sturgeon fishing over the next few months, our boats will be back in the water March 1. Please feel free to call or e-mail us for information, pricing or to book your next guided fishing trip.

Next Peak Fishing Period – Steelhead – March 1 to April 31 ( fly only from May 1 to May 31)

– Sturgeon – April 1 to May 15

We will be posting information on show specials,new products you will see at the upcoming shows and sponored products such as Fenwick, Penn, GibbsDelta & Humminbird so drop back or join our blog and receive automatic updates.

Have a great week.

Celebrating 20 years of Guiding Fishing Adventures 1994-2014

Fraser River is in great shape, not much to report as we are taking a winter break from sturgeon fishing. As I have mentioned before if you are looking to get out we would be happy to go out and target sturgeon for the mark recapture study. This means that we would scan and tag all fish caught and focus on some of the know areas that produce good results.

For those of you that are interested in sturgeon on the Fraser and fish sturgeon yourselves, there are some new proposed sturgeon angling regulations that are currently being discussed through the new SCAAT group ( South Coast Angling Advisory Team) which I have a seat on and represent angling guides. If you would like to comment on them, I would be happy to receive your e-mails. below I have included 3 new proposed regulation changes for region 2 sturgeon angling.

1- Night closure: currently there is no night fishing for salmon permitted, this would extend to sturgeon as well. Rational is that most of the poaching that occurs on sturgeon is at night time.

2- Extending use of finfish parts (e.g. headless finfish) as bait into other waters in lower mainland (e.g. Pitt and Harrison Rivers): also needs

more discussion, rational is that we currently are allowed to use headless finfish in the Fraser but soon as you cross into Harrison or Pitt, regulations change. We are fishing for same fish so makes no sense to have different regulation, also simplifies regulations.

3- Lifting of large sturgeon out of the water. Similar regulations in effect in other jurisdictions that do not allow this. Rational is that currently the Best Handling Practices is being used by DFO and MOE as a guideline for sturgeon handling, this would make it law and a chargeable offense.

Looking forward to reading your comments and opinions.

Vedder River Steelhead fishing has improved over the past week, Oliver was out several days with good success and has provided us with this report.

After a full week of slow fishing, this week has really picked up. I have hooked fish from lickman to osbourne rd, todays fish was the biggest at about 12 lbs. River conditions have been great with good visibility up to today. The rain forecasted will likely color the river for the worse but that should be good for fishing next week as the weekend crowd will most likely struggle with water conditions. The system will have fresh fish all the to the upper river now so it should provide consistent fishing throughout the river. Best baits have been spawn sacks and roe fished under a float. Cheers Oliver.

Vancouver Saltwater fishing for winter Chinook has remained steady, good reports coming from several areas around Vancouver Harbour. Most of the fish are between 3 to 8 lbs with the odd fish in the 10-12lb range, crab and prawn fishing remains excellent. Weather looks like it will clear after Wednesday and forecast is for sun for the rest of the week and weekend. Tides are favorable so might be a good weekend for some salmon fishing.

Trade Show season is getting close with Vancouver Boat Show coming up at the end of January. Although I will not be at the show this year I will be at the BC Boat & Sportsman Show in Middle of March. We will also be at several shows in Alberta so stay tuned for upcoming shows and dates. I will also try to keep you up to date on what new products you can expect to see at the show this year.

Looking forward to seeing you all at the shows this season.

Have a great week.

Celebrating 20 years of Guiding Fishing Adventures 1994-2014

Fraser Valley Fishing Report

The Fraser River is in great shape with low clear conditions, although there are not any salmon running up the river at this time, there is some winter cutthroat fishing available. With low clear conditions you can fish the main stem river or side channels with fly or light spin tackle. If you choose to fish with a fly, try using a winter stone fly pattern, small streamer or egg pattern. For spin fishing, try using the Gibbs 3/8 or 1/4 Sterling Silver Ultra lure, they come in just sterling silver or sterling with blue or green 1/2 1/2. Either way try using small presentation with a cross current retrieve for best results.

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Vedder River Steelhead

The Vedder River was in great shape but blew out yesterday and is on the mend as I write this report,. The annual boxing day derby weighed in 7 steelhead which is a bit on the low side but I also heard that there was a lower attendance this year so that may explain the low numbers of fish weighed in. Oliver has been out several times over the past week and has had some good success using roe, shrimp and spin n glos. This combination works really well for fresh fish that have just entered the river.

With the Vedder coming into shape we should see a push of fresh steelhead into the lower river so might be some good fishing this New Years weekend. If you plan on heading out, I would stick to the lower river near Lickman, Bergman or canal area but if the crowds are too great, try fishing just below Vedder Crossing as there is some great holding water in this area and this is one of the release sites for juvinile steelhead.

Vancouver Saltwater Salmon

The winter Chinook fishery out of Vancouver has started with a strong week, lots of undersized and keeper Chinooks being caught in the Vancouver Harbour area. This area is best fished utilizing the tides with high slack producing the best bites. We usually try to get out 2 or 3 hours before high tide and fish through the change. Our friends at Gibbs/Delta have produced some killer flashers that have both Ultra Violet and the new Moon Jelly tape which makes these flashers like no other. The talk on the water is that these new Guide Series flashers will dominate the water in 2014.

The new Highliner Guide Series Flashers produced by Gibbs/Delta were inspired by the Pro Staff Team at Gibbs/Delta, STS is honored to have what I think will be one of the top producers named after our Company. The new STS Glow – MJ is going to be hot this season and I can’t wait to get out on the water and put them to work. Thanks to Rob, Syd and all the staff at Gibbs/Delta.

Fraser Sturgeon Fishing

We have not been on the water for sturgeon since ending our peak season in late November, although we don’t do alot of winter sturgeon fishing,we can still offer guests visiting the area and opportunity to catch a sturgeon while focusing on tagging juvinile sturgeon. This is important work as juviniles are easier to catch in winter months than mature fish. We don’t get too many fish over 5ft but it still can be a great day on the water while helping collect important data.

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Hope you all have a great New Years Eve and please stay safe.

Vic Carrao

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