I went fishing recently with some great friends of mine in Canada for some late Coho fishing on the famous Vedder River. It was a rough one as coming into town to visit old friends often leads to a great dinner and even better wine, but when you love fishing as much as I do it's as simple as setting the alarm to make your first light spot before anyone else heading out for the weekend does - and there is always lot's!
I'm constantly reminded of the importance of gear on infrequent trips like these. I had problems with some of my gear and missed the all important first light because of the dreaded "rats nest!"
"Always carry a backup reel" I preach! "Make sure you do this and do that so you don't get a rat's nest or your gear doesn't fail."
Well I was humbled this weekend, but as always it's great to see old friends that you love to spend time with on one of the best fisheries in the world - the one and only Vedder.
My friend, who is a great Coho angler, recently asked me;
"I'd really like to learn how to read the river better, water
conditions, temperature, moon etc and to know where and why the fish
hold/move through the rivers."
His concern is the changing river system and salmon numbers due to the ever changing environmental effects such as rain, residential or commercial development and maybe even global warming! I think we all have these questions at one point or another and I'm going to try and help us all out by covering these topics in future articles at www.gosalmonfishing.com
First off though, we need to understand that this year was definitely different than others on the West Coast as the summer was quite wet and the Fraser River saw record high water levels and a closed Sockeye Fishery. Even Spring salmon and Chum were few and far between in the river systems from reports but that could be due to sports fishing populations being down from previous years.
With that said, the Coho have been very abundant and Ryan along with others have caught more fish this year than in other years! Is it because of the lower amounts of anglers due to unfishable waters? Is it the absence of fish like Chum and Springs, that Coho are usually afraid to hang out with, the reason they are more active and less shy? Is it the low pressures of the angling community due to bad weather? Or are the numbers just up this year?
We'll have a look at these topics and get to the bottom of them as best we can. In the mean time, don't forget to check out some of go salmon fishing's tips and techniques for more answers to your questions as well as recipes, tackle and species information to name just a couple of topics!
http://www.gosalmonfishing.com
http://www.rifles-n-rods.com
I'm constantly reminded of the importance of gear on infrequent trips like these. I had problems with some of my gear and missed the all important first light because of the dreaded "rats nest!"
"Always carry a backup reel" I preach! "Make sure you do this and do that so you don't get a rat's nest or your gear doesn't fail."
Well I was humbled this weekend, but as always it's great to see old friends that you love to spend time with on one of the best fisheries in the world - the one and only Vedder.
My friend, who is a great Coho angler, recently asked me;
"I'd really like to learn how to read the river better, water
conditions, temperature, moon etc and to know where and why the fish
hold/move through the rivers."
His concern is the changing river system and salmon numbers due to the ever changing environmental effects such as rain, residential or commercial development and maybe even global warming! I think we all have these questions at one point or another and I'm going to try and help us all out by covering these topics in future articles at www.gosalmonfishing.com
First off though, we need to understand that this year was definitely different than others on the West Coast as the summer was quite wet and the Fraser River saw record high water levels and a closed Sockeye Fishery. Even Spring salmon and Chum were few and far between in the river systems from reports but that could be due to sports fishing populations being down from previous years.
With that said, the Coho have been very abundant and Ryan along with others have caught more fish this year than in other years! Is it because of the lower amounts of anglers due to unfishable waters? Is it the absence of fish like Chum and Springs, that Coho are usually afraid to hang out with, the reason they are more active and less shy? Is it the low pressures of the angling community due to bad weather? Or are the numbers just up this year?
We'll have a look at these topics and get to the bottom of them as best we can. In the mean time, don't forget to check out some of go salmon fishing's tips and techniques for more answers to your questions as well as recipes, tackle and species information to name just a couple of topics!
http://www.gosalmonfishing.com
http://www.rifles-n-rods.com