Phenomenal Fathers Day Salmon Kayak Fishing
It’s Father’s Day June 15, 2025 and my wife has graciously given me the gift of additional fishing time! After church I began packing up the kayak and headed to Nanoose Bay and launching off the beach of Nuttal Bay. This area is one of my favorite local fishing areas here on Central Vancouver Island. There is plenty of structure and islands to find both bottom fish and salmon year round.
In this Journal I’m targeting Coho (Silver) salmon which opened up June 1, we can keep 2 hatchery fish per day. Lingcod and Rockfish are open, but those won’t be my focus for today, as I’m primarily focused on Salmon today… and it was a banger!
Weather and Tide Conditions
The wind was great with a max of 6 knots when I got onto the water around 1:30pm and it was only going to drop as the day went forward. I had a low slack tide at 3:00 pm, but the bite was hot from start to finish on this trip.
Trip Details
I planned on paddling out beyond the reef and fishing the drop. I call this area the “salmon highway”, it’s essentially the big drop off all along the Georgia Strait and Vancouver Island. As I was paddling over the reef I noticed schools of salmon in 30-50 feet of water and the reef itself was no deeper than 60 feet below me. Of course, seeing this activity on my Garmin Striker fish finder, it stopped me in my tracks and I got my vertical jigging setup. I dropped a Lil Nib jig and immediately was getting into salmon! Aggressive little Feeder Chinooks (immature Chinooks) and Coho were biting.
I had a terrible landing ratio vertical jigging these guys! I think my drag was too tight, because it was so shallow I brought them to the surface so quickly and they’d go berserk and get off. After I hooked them, I should have loosened my drag so they could go on longer runs. All that said, I did land some wild Coho, 1 Lingcod and one massive surprise was a really decent adult Chinook (King) salmon.
The adult Chinook was easily the best fight of the day! Vertical jigging these fish is so fun, especially in a kayak. You can’t be it. At first this guy came up the surface pretty quickly but then went on a handful of long runs with jumps that I thought for sure it was a giant Coho! But it turned out to be a decent adult Chinook! You can see this full fight in the video at the bottom of this Journal (YouTube video).
Trolling around Reefs
After my arms were exhausted from vertical jigging I figured it was time to get my legs in gear and start doing some trolling. I paddled out past the reef where its roughly around 100 feet deep and dropped my cannon ball down to 65′. It wasn’t long before I starting into fish. This was some of the best salmon fishing I’ve ever experienced in the kayak, if I wasn’t getting a bite within 5 minutes of dropping the spoon down something was wrong. There were schools of Coho & Chinook all over the place. It truly was an incredible day to be out there!
I lost count of how many wild Coho I got into, all safely released! I got my 2 hatchery Coho which were immediately bonked! They weren’t giants as its still early in the season, as we get closer to Fall these guys start putting on the pounds.
Almost tipped my Kayak
The trip wasn’t all laughs though, there was one point where after I was fighting and lost a fish, I didn’t realize how close I was to the reef and my downrigger cannon ball got caught in the reef and the wind/waves were pulling my boat down and starting to tip me. I reacted really quickly and grabbed my safety knife on my chest and cut the downrigger line! I might have been able to save it by padding backwards but it was a call that had to be made really quickly and I’m glad I did that. I end up talking about this incident in my video as well, as it could have gotten bad for me.
Trolling a Flasher and Spoon for Coho
My favorite setup for targeting Coho (and Chinook for that matter) is trolling a Gibbs “Lemon Lime” flasher followed by a Gibbs Skinny G “No Bananas” spoon. I use 5.5′ mono leader between the two, you can see that setup on the image below.
I’ll use this setup in any month of the year and in many different depths and lighting scenarios. It’s a versatile trolling setup that is a continual producer for me. Of course I love using hoochies as well, but this is my mostly used setup.
Vertical Jigging a Lil Nib Night Stalker
On this trip I was vertical jigging a Lil Nib “Night Stalker (Gold)” jig. These jigs are deadly and this pattern has been my favorite this season.
- Number one in fishing sports
- Gibbs Delta Skinny G Spoon - Irish Cream
- Made of the highest quality material
- Number one in fishing sports
- Gibbs Highliner Flasher Guide - Lemon Lime
- Made of the highest quality material
Video from this Journal
This is the video of my Father’s Day fishing trip. It’s action packed with plenty of Coho, Chinook & Jellyfish. What a gift from the ocean for Father’s Day this was! If you check it out, please leave me a comment or question, I respond to them all. Also consider subscribing to the channel if you haven’t already. Blessings! Jesse