This past year was a great salmon fishing season for me. A big part of this was my ability to get out every Friday in October. That may not even sound like much but 4 times in a month with my current family situation (2 young boys) is a lot. This journal is a summary of a number of different fishing trips I did through the salmon season. I’ll outline where I fished, what baits/lures worked well and talk a little bit about local salmon fishery.

Quick Summary

In the heart of the salmon run we were often hitting our limits particularily for Coho. Coho fishing seemed to be on fire for many this year. With the constant doom and gloom news of our fisheries around BC, Coho seem to be holding strong in the our local rivers. 

Chinook this year were also in abundance. Starting in the salt they had one of the best seasons in 15-20 years! Sadly many of these fishing and industry opportunities were missed because the DFO shut this fishery down. If you follow me on Facebook you may have seen a few posts and videos I did on this outlinging the mismangagement of our fisheries by DFO… It was a disgrace.

Anyway, the Chinook fishery was not only strong in the salt but it also provided for some great fishing once those fish moved into the fresh water rivers! The Chinook fish I found in deep pools were schooling up in fairly large numbers. In fact, you can see some underwater footage of them schooling in my “Camping & Fishing on Vedder River” video lower down in this post.  

My general Salmon Rod & Reel Setups

My typical salmon float fishing setup is a 10’6 Shimano casting rod with a Abu Garia C4 baitcaster reel. I use 30# PowerPro braid as a mainline and 10#-15# Seaguar fluorocarbon leader line.

When tossing twitching jigs, spoons or spinners I like to use a 8′ spinning rod and 3000 Shimano Stradic Ci4+ spinnng reel. I’ll often a 20#-30# braided mainline with a longer leader line (bumper line) that is typically 12#-15# Seaguar fluorocarbon leader line.

Coho lures and gear

Coho fishing is one of my favorite when it comes to salmon fishing. I have 2 ways in which I target these fish: Float fishing and Twitching Jigs. I guess there is a third option of throwing a spinner or spoon on a similar setup to the twitching jig setup, but the initial 2 are my favorite. 

On the float fishing setup, I primarily toss with cured salmon roe. I like to cure my own roe and add some additional scents in the curing process that give it an edge. I’ve found often times these scents will out fish many other guys tossing roe beside me. The hooks I like to use when fishing roe are Gamakatsu Octopus hooks in sizes 2 or 1.

For twitching jigs, I like to tie my own! I like to start with a 3/8 oz jig head with a blue and chartreuse combo of rabbit fur and/or malibu feathers. I like to have a longer strip of rabbit fur to make up the tail. See next photo of an example. This jig caught me a number of Coho this season! When the roe bite slowed down, I would toss this right away. 

Chinook go to baits and best change up lure

I had the most success (and most popular) for Chinook using cured roe under a float fishing setup. However, if you don’t have or want to use roe (as it can be tough to keep on the hook and is extremely messy), I found small silver colorado blades to be an absolute game changer! When I say “small” the blades that were best were a little larger than my thumbnail. Thinks tiny! I would fish the silver blades under a float just like the roe and it ended up being the best change up to roe. 

My Salmon Fishing videos on YouTube – Please Subscribe for more!

From the trips I’ve outlined above these are some of my favorite videos. This do NOT include all the videos from this past Salmon season so if you haven’t already, please check out my channel and subscribe. Also, I read and respond to all comments and love connecting on this platform. Check out the BCFJ YouTube Channel.

Multi-Species fishing with Underwater Camera

This video footage includes a few trips to a small river system in the Fraser Valley area. I got to experiment float fishing this underwater camera called a GoFish Cam. This video provides some pretty cool perspectives of Coho, Chum, Rainbows and a number of smaller species. It’s really helpful to see the Coho subtle bites in this video, no wonder they’re so elusive at times!

Buy GoFish Cam here. Save $15 use Promo Code: STMARS

Hot Coho Bite with a Catch and Cook

This was one of those hot Coho bite days! My dad and I got into a number of Salmon in short order. I then took some home and outline the cleaning process and one of my favorite Coho Salmon recipes! If you like eating Coho, you definitley need to check out this salmon recipe. 

Camping and Fishing on the famous Vedder River near Chilliwack BC

This was a great camping trip with my good buddy Will. We had a blast at the Vedder River Campground sitting around a fire eating steak, complaining about overpriced potatoe salad and catching Chinook Salmon. In this video I get into a beauty Chinook doe! I also go into a few lures that were working for Coho, Pink & Chinook later on. 

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