I had consistently been fishing Grande through Whalebone, and it had been providing good action, until it slowed on March 27th. Barney Rubble and I fished Thrasher on the 29th, and I wish I would have tried that sooner. It was just alive with Chinook, we averaged 7 to 8 hookups per hour for 5 hours straight. It is amazing how many fish are just under the legal size limit. We ended up keeping a couple of fish in the 7 to 9 pound range, but released so many others! These were taken fishing the old proven tack from the Thrasher marker to the green can in 160 to 240 feet of water. We were running Killy MaGee spoons at 180 feet.
Chinook non retention started April 1st, and knowing just how many Chinook are in our waters, and the fact that about 80% of them presently are of hatchery origin makes this closure even more difficult to swallow. We intercept the troubled Upper Fraser stocks at about 1.5% locally, and obviously there are some very healthy stocks migrating through our waters. I don’t know what it will take to get D.F.O. to look at this rationally, because they are very adept at ignoring science!
Ling and Rockfish don’t open until May 1st, so I might take a trip out and chase some sole on light jigs. They are delicious to eat, but very painful to fillet.
Prawning is again open on April 1st, so we’ll see how the numbers look for the “sea bugs”.
Good fishing!