Archive for July, 2011

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Tracey John Hittel reports.  The past few weeks have produced a variety of catches. Halibut and Salmon are putting smiles on our guests faces. The fellas from Ireland put on a clinic the past few days, with a 43lb Kalum Chinook and many Kitimat Chum, using fly and light tackle with 50lb braid. Saltwater Coho fishing on the Douglas Channel has been hot, hot, hot! Our foursome from Amsterdam and Kamloops had a great day with 16 Coho and a nice feed of Crab. Also attached are the fellas from Morgan Heavy Lift. The fellas from Morgan are in town working, they get one day off each week and as you can see in the pic we had a fun day: lots of fish, a few cold beers at days end, and mountain of Kitimat Pizzarama Pizza. These fellas not only move heavy equipment, they also lift into heavy Skeena Chinooks!

The Skeena is in perfect condition, as the last week of Chinook retention is closing upon us fast. Also attached is a great Chinook taken by the young Electrician, Mathias, from Red Deer, Alberta, who spent the day with his family, celebrating his parents 25th Wedding Anniversary. Last but not least are the boys from Contech with their 80lb and 60lb halibuts. Arriving guests are from Italy, Alberta, and Germany.

 

If you would like to book a guided fishing trip with Tracey John Hittel, you can reach him at, www.steelheadheaven.ca .

Weather cloudy with light rain. River levels continue to drop. Fishing conditions, right now, are near perfect! So get out there and try your luck. There should be good numbers of Chinook (King) Salmon migrating up river to spawn in their native waters. The fishing guides report excellent catches of Chinook and Sockeye. Mind you, my guides really know their stuff.  One guide even reported a very bright Steelhead landed.  The Steelhead had lots of sea lice which indicate the fish was not long out of salt water. They were so anxious to get the fish back into the water and released they forgot to take a pic. Reg: all wild Steelhead everywhere in British Columbia are catch and release. Forecast: The Chinook run, so far, is a little smaller than last years.  See graph below.  There are lots of jet boats in town to fish. The boat ramps are filling up. Govt. launch is mostly full, the one across the Kalum River has space. Fact: this is the west week to be on the Skeena fishing for BIG Chinook. How to: back bouncing from a jet boat is by far the best way to get a hook up. How to: This is a good river to float fish a Pink Worm or Gooey Bob.  I suggest the fishing rod be a 10’6” MED-HEAVY Moderate Action rod matched with a medium-heavy action baitcasting reel filled with 20lb test Sufix mono.  Gibbs  makes some great floats. Be sure to use a Gamakatsu hook. Where: Anglers have started to fish a local spot called “Cottonwoods”.  Sockeye fishing has begun. Where: There are anglers fishing at Ferry Island. Sockeye is the main target but some of the plunkers are hoping for a big Chinook or even a small “Jack” Spring.  All the fish will be bright silver so get out there and try your luck. More and more people are coming to our area to enjoy this fishery. News: The Sockeye run on the Skeena is predicted to be low this year but chart below shows a little above average run has come-in so far. Reg: Sockeye limit: 2 per day. 0 per day from a boundary sign on the north bank of the Skeena River 100m upstream of the confluence with the Kitwanga River downstream to Mill Creek.

If you would like to book a guided fishing trip with Noel, you can contact him at, www.noelgyger.ca .

Wayne Sheridan reports: River and lake levels continue to drop due to lack of rain in southern Ontario. We hope to get a good rain Thursday and Friday this week. Trout are now primarily feeding at dawn to dust and holding in deep pools during the day. Bass are down deep and look for them in cooler sections of the lake. Here is a picture of Ron with a pike that he caught at the Ayton dam.

River Flow Rates: low and dropping. Visibility clearing at 5 ft. light tan colored

 

River Levels: Saugeen River (Durham) dropping at 1.155M, Saugeen River (Walkerton) steady at 9.32M, Saugeen at Port Elgin dropping at 7.5M, Sauble River (Sauble Falls) dropping at 0.815M, Sydenham River (Owen Sound) dropping at 4.911M, Maitland River (above Wingham) up at 9.827M, French River at Woseley Bay at 186.32M, Bronte Creek near Zimmerman down at 5.823M, Credit River at Streetsville up at 4.488M, Credit River at Orangeville down at 11.193M, Grand River (Doon), down at 4.06M (below Shand dam) rising at 1.588M, Rideau River at Ottawa rising at 2.70M, Ottawa River at Britannia at 58.014M

 

Prime Fishing Times: Saturday July 30th, 2011: 11:43am to 2:45pm (moon overhead). Midnight to 2:22am (moon underneath)

 

Flyfishing: Hex, iso, various caddis, trico, yellow stonefly, crayfish, bloodworms, worms and minnows for larger trout.

 

Great Lakes Fishing: Best lures are purple/black Lyman’s with silver specks and Lucky Strike spoons.

 

Always Fish Safely

 

Wayne Sheridan

 

Don’t forget to check our news articles and lunar times at www.canadianangling.com .

Just got back from cranking Rapala Tail Dancers #9, in the “hot-chub” color on the Bay of Quinte, ON.  I was accompanied by Roger Cannon and Glen & Dean who had traveled quite a distance to fish for salmon & trout in Lake Ontario and than to join me and fish for trophy walleye on the Bay of Quinte.  Glen is from Atikokan, ON, and Dean is from Iowa.  They had just fished out of Port Credit for big Chinooks, Rainbow and Atlantic Salmon on Saturday and joined me yesterday for some walleye crankbait-fishing.

Unfortunately the weather forecast was not in our favor.  They were calling for thunderstorms, rain and strong winds and suprisingly, they were right!!  When we got up early Sunday morning it was indeed raining and we decided to trailer our G3/Yamaha 115hp rig to Baycrest Marina  on Big Island.  Knowing that the winds were going to pick-up, we thought this might be strategically better than launching on the Belleville, ON side and running across Big Bay in “big-waves”.  Well as soon as we hit the water the winds started to pick-up.  We fished two open-water weedlines with not success and decided we should pull the boat our and launch in Picton, ON.

The decision was good.  It was much more protected fishing the west-side of the Bay right in Picton Bay, and within minutes we had the first, chunky 4-5 lb. walleye which hit the Rapala Tail Dancer #9 crankbait.  In a short time we had to get our rain suits on and enjoyed a torrential down-pour!  The winds picked-up even stronger and we decided to run north and fish more protected shorelines.  We hooked a couple more walleye, one jumbo perch and a Glen caught his first largemouth bass which turned out to be a solid 4 lb. fish!

We all used the Rapala Shift, TS2 & R-Type spinning outfits loaded with Sufix 832 braid and Sufix Fluorocarbon leaders.  All of the fish were caught on the very prductive Rapala Tail Dancer #9.

Wei Lin reports. Last Sunday we fished some of our favorite shallow-water sports on Lake Simcoe. First thing we noticed was that perch were everywhere in the shallow water and a lot were jumbos!

Smallmouth bass hitting well.  We caught quite a few bass in the 2-3 lb. range and a couple in the 4-5 lb. size.  To our surprise, we also caught a nice largemouth bass fishing one of our smallmouth bass areas.  We fished 4-12 feet of mixed rocks & weeds in open-water.  We caught our fish dragging 4″ tubes and also by casting crankbaits.

I haven’t had a chance in the past two weeks to get out fishing, however I did find a few hours to get away onto the Grand River above the Caledonia dam this past Sunday.  The humidity was not as bad as this past week, air temp was 25 * C and the water was very warm at 30 * C.
 Using Rapala Finesse line, a tried and tested Rapala Jointed Shad Rap at a known walleye producing spot at the mouth of a feeder creek, I managed to land a very nice personal best walleye measuring 21.5″ and weighing just shy of 4 lbs.  The Rapala Jointed Shad Rap in the fire crawdad
colour with bright red belly has always been a go to / well producing lure for me on the Grand River!
 ……………
?
Ben

http://www.hamiltonwaterfront.com/

Wei Lin reports. We caught about 30 largemouth bass in half a day fishing shoreline weeds and weedbeds in 3-6’ of water in Rice Lake, ON. We also caught a couple of smallmouth bass trolling.  Most of the shoreline area we fished was sand and weeds combinations. We caught most of our fish fishing soft-plastic baits just below the surface.

Tracey John Hittel reports. The yard stick will have to be used for these Kitimat Chinooks as Janelle, Carolia and Kathlyn hold their catches.

Also attached are first timers, a group from Costa Rica and a man from France, I think, as communication was like using sign language. They booked us during a one nite stay and asked for 3 hrs of fishing and as you can see from the photo, the international language of happy faces and fresh Salmon says it all as Ariel produced a fresh bar of silver.

I also added a pic of Hunter and Dan with a sea run, and our finale is a pic of the finest, most flawless Chinook all season, what a healthy animal and a fight like non other.

The Skeena River is warming up and today we fished day one and the numbers of Salmon running thru the Skeena system is outstanding, anglers are standing at their rods as we are into the summer season.

Arriving guests are from San Francisco, South Africa, Whitecourt Alberta, Australia and New Zealand, Medicine Hat Alberta.

If you would like to book a guided trip with Tracy John, you can contact him at, www.steelheadheaven.ca .