Salmon Fishing Tips - How to Make the Most of your Vancouver Island Fishing Adventure

If you want to know what makes salmon really bite, we've got some great salmon fishing tips to share from seasoned, experienced Vancouver Island guides and local anglers.

Whether you'll join a guided charter or decide to strike it out on your own, our salmon fishing tips will help you reel in the big ones on your Vancouver Island fishing adventure!

And while you're here, you can find out a little more about other fish found in our local waters.

Vancouver Island Salmon

• Chinook
• Coho
• Sockeye
• Chum
• Pink

Chinook can be caught all year, while Coho are found from late Spring until Fall.

The other three salmon species spend much of their lives in the open ocean and can be found as they pass through in returning to their spawning grounds in Island rivers.

Runs of sockeye salmon start in late June, with overlapping runs of pink and then chum salmon until early November.

Once the salmon start to swim upstream, they genetically start to disintegrate. Usually by the time they finish spawning, they are almost dead.

Fishing Styles for Vancouver Island Salmon

Our local Island guides have say they prefer single action "knuckle-buster" reels with 20-25 lbs monofilament line.

Salmon Fishing Tips and Techniques

Chinooks are present year-round, however migrations start moving into the area in earnest during late spring. By June fishing for springs is good. Peak time is mid-August (some grow as large as 50 lbs!) and then it starts tapering off until mid-September when they start moving into their home streams to spawn.

Chinook top the angler's desirability list for two reasons:

• They are the largest Pacific salmon.
• They are the only salmon to be found in coastal waters twelve months of the year.

Depth is always a consideration when fishing for chinook. Strongly light sensitive, their relative level in the water column varies greatly during the day.

Generally, resident, winter chinook reside in deeper water than summer fish. While fishing depths vary, winter chinook can be located between 100 to 250 feet. Rarely do winter fish rise above these levels.

The key to catching chinook is to remember that they are carnivores. They hunt smaller fish particularly injured and dying members of the school. Accordingly, bait - usually anchovy or herring strip - over the long run catches more chinook in more areas.

We heard a great salmon fishing tip from some of the local guides here on the Island: if properly rigged, a cut plug and barbless hook produce an irresistible spiral effect that imitates a wounded herring! This is a setup to definitely try!

COHO Salmon Fishing Tips

The second largest of the Pacific salmon, coho (also known as bluebacks and silvers) attain adult weights of 10 - 20 pounds.

Coho start arriving during the summer months and peak in September. Large northerns are best from late September through mid-October.

Coho prefer trolled bait - the most commonly used is anchovy in a teaserhead, cutplug herring and herring strip.

Winter Bait: Silver or green spoons work well.

Summer Bait: Red spoons are best used in late summer when the infrared spectrum begins to dominate the sky. Any of the lead drift fishing lures produce in summer.

Our salmon fishing tip when fishing for coho is to use shortish 20 to 30 inch leaders for hootchies. Something else to keep in mind: Flashers tend to outfish dodgers. Tackle boxes should contain a white and grey buzz bomb and a green stingsilda. Euphasid shrimp appear pink, so lean towards lures with pink shading. Trolling with bucktail flies, plugs, spoons, plug-cut herring, or mooching, drift fishing with live herring have a fairly good success catch rate.

On Vancouver Island, there have been conservation concerns with Coho. Check with your fishing lodge or local guides before pursuing these fish.

PINK, CHUM and SOCKEYE

Pink, Chum and Sockeye make their appearance in Vancouver Island waters during late summer and fishing remains good right through October.

PINK Salmon Fishing Tips

The smallest of the five Pacific species, pink salmon reach spawning weights of 5 - 11 pounds in their second summer.

Much to the fisher's delight, pink have no schedule!

You'll find them biting at the crack of dawn, an hour later, on and off tide changes, an hour before lunch and after lunch, at dusk and after dusk, and any old other time that takes their fancy.

The lure of choice may change daily, and recommendations should be sought at the local marina on the day of pursuit; however, our salmon fishing tip for luring pinks is to use the pink hootchie. Other lures to consider: pink plugs, Apexes, Krippled Ks, and a variety of squirts and hootchies.

Successful patterns include the blue baron, irish mist, mint tulip, fiesta, day-glo orange, pink and white stripe and bubble gum.

Being true omnivores, pink occasionally prefer bait, usually anchovy. Leaders of 30 - 40 inches and a minimum of 25 pound test accurately convey snap from flashers.

One final note: It's not IF you'll catch pinks (and there's lots!), it's how many...

Extra TIP! Take care when netting, as their mouths rip easily.

CHUM Salmon Fishing Tips

While managing to evade the sports fisher, chum do their best to annoy them.

During October, schools of hundreds and thousands ripen in saltwater bays close to estuaries. As with the other migratory salmon, it is rare to catch a chum under the 12 inch (30 cm) size restriction limit. Indeed it is rare to catch one at all.

Plankton feeders by nature, living off jellyfish and minute crustaceans, chum very rarely bite on sport fishing lures.

Chum can be found on the spawning beds often within sight of the ocean. However, as soon as they enter freshwater - even prior to spawning - chum salmon begin to disintegrate. On rare occasions chum will bite an anchovy, perhaps out of pre-spawning irritation.

It's possible that chum will take slowly trolled lures. The best salmon fishing tip we've heard for catching chum is use a small and clear lure, with a tinge of red.

Chum eat plankton, the predominant colours of which are pink with bits of black on a clear background, so try something like that.

Extra TIP! Here's another hot salmon fishing tip from one of the fishing lodges on northern Vancouver Island: When the chum are running, strip a pink hootchie of all but three strands. Rig with a 3' to 5' leader and a green flasher. They seem to go just crazy for this!

SOCKEYE Salmon Fishing Tips

Five to 12 pounds at maturity, sockeye are bright red fish. Behaviourally, sockeye share characteristics with coho and pink.

Sometimes sockeye will be taken as deep as 125 feet, but this is not common. Look for sockeye to be bunched in tidelines.

One of the salmon fishing tips for sockeye is to consider any red lure, even a hook painted red or a red bead on a hook. With sockeye, less is definitely more!

Rip out at least every second frond of a hootchie. True herbivores, sockeye target plankton and krill (euphasiid shrimp) and this probably accounts for the preference for pink and for small lures.

For some reason, sockeye are far more stimulated by flashing light than other salmon, so here's a good rule to remember: get as many flashers in the water as possible!

Here's how to do it: Tie 10 feet of leader to a flasher and attach it to the downrigger ball and then your fishing line 10 feet higher. Alternatively, stack more than one fishing line per downrigger. Just get those flashers in the water!

Sockeye are great followers, passively floating along behind lures for great distances without biting. Along with their herbivorous nature, this may help to explain why virtually all sockeye are caught on trolled lures.

You can also trigger strikes by changing lure action: crank tight turns every few hundred yards; take the boat out of gear every now and then; and, when fishing with slip weights, pull 2 feet of line, hold it for a second and let it go. When the rod tip dips, sometimes a sockeye will strike.

Put this salmon fishing tip into action for sockeye. It's a simple technique and you'll be amazed to see how the fish take it!

Extra TIP! We got this from our local anglers: Try using single hooks instead of trebles. It's easier to release and causes a lot less stress and injury to the fish.

Other Great Vancouver Island Fishing!

Depending on the location and the season, you will find halibut, lingcod and a variety of rockfish including yelloweye (red snapper).

Many of these varieties can be jigged from small boats, piers or rocky shores. If you're after trophy-sized bottom fish, it's best to contact a local Vancouver Island guide to take you out to deeper waters.

Fishing techniques for finfish vary according to species, but usually you'll want to fish with bait or lure just above or on the ocean floor.

Lingcod and halibut can grow to a large size and strength, so check in with your fishing lodge or with a local tackle shop to ensure you've got the best gear to haul it in!

On Vancouver Island, 50 lb halibut are very common. However, every year, local fishing guides are reporting catches of halibut over 200 lbs!

If you're coming to the Island to fish on your own, make sure you check first with local fishing guides, or the BC Tidal Waters Sport Fishing Guide.

If you have some of your own salmon fishing tips to share, let us know! We'll be keeping our ear to the ground for updates on new techniques Vancouver Island anglers are using throughout the season.

Vancouver Island Fishing / Salmon Fishing Tips