This year there was no fishing for sockeye in the Victoria area because the relevant Fraser River runs were not deemed high enough for a sport opening, although aboriginal fishing was allowed in-river. You will note this is the pattern, I have said, that the DFO is going through to manage runs down to museum levels whence it does not have to do anything anymore. It simply ratchets down the fishery of steadily decreasing numbers of fish. What it should be doing is the habitat and enhancement work required to bring the numbers up.
Perhaps the Cohen Commission report, due by Sept. 30, on Fraser sockeye collapse will address these obvious solutions. But let me address some actual fishing technique that Lloyd Erickson asked me about. He asks: "Having read your comment about using a flasher for hootchies, what about flashers for plankton hootchies for sockeye? Since you troll slowly, the usual Hot Spot flasher dodges side to side. Then, the enigma is, we use the same sockeye gear (small pink hootchy) for springs in Alberni Inlet. Should we be fishing these faster and on a longer leader?"
Yes, to using flashers for hootchies/squirts/plankon squirts for sockeye. Yes, to using a 34-inch leader before a flasher for pink hootchies for Alberni Inlet springs, and moving a bit quicker. The reason for a pink hootchy is, I surmise, that the Inlet has brownish water, presumably from algae that grows in a prettymuch non-flushing body of water - the Somass, after all, is clear, not tinged teacolour from peat. Typically pink, and purple with white, work better in brown water. Also, consider using scented products as terminal fish bite index is declining, and so use anything that increases your chances of a hook up.
The original rig for sockeye was a red Gibbs flasher on as short as 18-inch leaders then a red hootchy. These were fished, as I said: short, straight and slow. This meant that the flasher, was moving like a dodger from side to side and occasionally rotating. Sockeye gear has evolved from its origins.
In Alberni, you can use typical drift jigs like Buzz Bombs and Stingsildas, 10-to 20-feet above the schools you read on your depthsounder. And over the years, taking a trick from commercial trollers who believe that sockeye want flash above all else, they showed schools forming behind their stacked gear, then at some point the fish start biting, particularly if they put their Blackboxes at .7 volts. Now, sport fishers also stack flashers, two dummies, one on the ball and one 10 feet above the gear. So for every fishing line, you would use a dummy above and below.
Sockeye will take bait, but your most reliable lures are the local hot plastic colours, Bubblegum here, Day-glo orange there, and so on, including the sockeye spoons from Radiant, and the venerable Krippled K in red. The Inlet is different from fishing Juan de Fuca as the Strait water is moving. I have found that sockeye are taken in greater numbers when surrounded by coho and pink salmon, i.e., an odd year.
dcreid@catchsalmonbc.com
