“The Heart of the Fraser is in peril…” My good friend Dr Marvin Rosenau sent this to me and has urged me to share it with my followers. All of you who fish the Lower Fraser River and tributaries from Mission to Hope, already understand the ecological importance of this stretch. Salmon either spawn here or travel through as a corridor, cutthroat trout fishing can be pretty awesome, sturgeon fishing is also productive year round. Eagles, bears and other wildlife depend on these fish, so it makes sense to protect and enhance it right? Well, as unbelievable as it sounds, developers have applied f ..read more

A couple of months ago, we published an alert notice on the presence of smallmouth bass in Cultus Lake when the northern pikeminnow capture crew encountered a couple during the program in the spring. There was surprisingly fair amount of skepticism of this news even though the notice came from BC’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy. This morning, I accompanied Region 2 biologist Colin Schwindt, and Martina Beck from Ministry’s invasive fauna unit head who spent the day sampling the lake for specimens. Several smallmouth bass were captured, including both juveniles (1 year old ..read more

The non-tidal portion of the Fraser River is closed to sockeye salmon fishing after today. This year’s opening was almost a month long, so I hope everyone has had a chance to bring home some of the finest eating salmon. The good news is that the river will remain open for two salmon species – Chinook and chum salmon. Traditionally, the Lower Fraser River is closed to all salmon fishing throughout September, so several vulnerable runs, including Interior coho salmon and steelhead, can be protected. To still have some salmon recreational fishing opportunities available on the Fraser River this m ..read more

In the past several winters, I have been doing more and more ice fishing. What started out as part of my work with the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC to promote winter fishing opportunities, has turned into one of our family’s favourite pastimes. Last February, we gave Tunkwa Lake a go in February. While others caught some fish, I was unsuccessful so I was quite determined to return and redeem myself. Contrary to what most people think, ice fishing is in fact quite challenging and physically demanding. You are limited by what little daylight you have in the winter. It is often a guessing ..read more

Can you fulfill my Christmas wish this year? Around a month ago, I talked about the current demise of the Interior Fraser River steelhead populations (Thompson and Chilcotin Rivers) and asked you to sign a petition so the angling community can come together to do something about it. That particular petition has gained tremendous amount of media attention in the past four weeks. It is bitter sweet. On one hand, it’s fantastic to finally see the public being concerned about a species that really don’t have a whole lot of value to human beside sportfishing. On the other hand, it is sad that we ha ..read more

By now if you do some kind of recreational fishing in British Columbia, you must have heard about the predicted return numbers for this year’s Interior Fraser River steelhead, which are pretty dismal. The expected number of steelhead returning to the Thompson River is 145 fish, while Chilcotin River’s return is expected to be 45 fish. The number of fish spawning in the spring will most likely be even lower than that once overwintering mortality is taken into account. The Thompson River returns, just one decade ago, were still in the thousands. Lets pause for a minute and think about the rate ..read more

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GAJlPH7ZlU Check out the latest episode of Gibbs Delta TV which we have just published. This episode features Okanagan Lake’s rainbow trout and kokanee fisheries, which can be done almost year round. We joined pro-staff Rodney Hennig from Rodney’s Reel Outdoors who is an expert in the Okanagan region. Also joining us is special guest Sem Hilverink, who is a very avid young angler from Kelowna ..read more

Throwback Thursday! Exactly two years ago, Junior experienced his first pink salmon outing on the Fraser River. His job at the time was to net the fish. This fish he is ready to graduate to actually bring one in with a rod and reel. Once every two years, many families like ours, have the privilege to enjoy this wonderful fishery for a couple of weeks. It is the perfect salmon species for young anglers. They are plentiful, eager to bite and easy to manage once on your fishing line. I’m sure many of you are frustrated (actually that is an understatement, livid might be the appropriate term) as ..read more

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ3Nb1dy3SU We are giving away a beautiful Moby Net! To enter, leave a comment in this video, or on our Instagram or Facebook by telling us, what are the favourite things you’ve seen or what have you learned from the 550 videos which we’ve put out in the last ten years? We will randomly draw a entry and announce the winner on August 9th during an YouTube livestream event ..read more

Fisheries and Oceans Canada has released a couple of fishery notices on rockfish and lingcod regulations for this season. The first one summarizes the daily quota for rockfish. http://www-ops2.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fns-sap/index-eng.cfm… Second notice summarizes the quotas for lingcod in Areas 12, 13 to 19, 20 and 29. http://www-ops2.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fns-sap/index-eng.cfm… Please note that Areas 28 and 29 (except subarea 29-5) remain closed for lingcod and rockfish fishing (this includes catching and releasing) because abundance is simply not high enough for any harvest. Third notice summarizes ..read more