The fall Coho season is now happening with lots of action on each trip. It is common to have multiple doubles and even triples with the numbers of fish migrating through Sooke waters at this time. Most are between 6-10 pounds but there are larger ones as the photo above proves. Out largest over the years topped 23 pounds! Coho will continue to run into the 3rd week of October. Daily limits until Sept 30th is 2 hatchery Coho plus 2 Chinook (most likely winter Chinook at this time) As of October 1st the Coho limits increase to 1 wild and 3 hatchery per person.

Chinook salmon fishing has been excellent this spring and nearly summer. For the 3rd year now we are under non-retention rules for Chinook salmon and they must be released. We are averaging 10-12 Chinook landed and released on each 4 hour outing. The largest we have taken so far in Sooke was caught on June 1st and went 28 pounds. We also took a 27 pound Chinook on May 7th in Sidney area waters. Most of the fish have been in the 8-17 pound range. While disappointing to have to release all the Chinook we land I explain to my customers....given a choice would you prefer to fish a hot spot and have it to yourself, have lots of action and time on the rods and release the fish...or go out in a big crowd of boats when you can keep fish but have no action at all? Right now we have my favorite spots to ourselves, all the fish there are available to us and clients are on the rods multiple times on each outing. Crabbing has been fair lately. We aregetting crab but not big numbers this past week or so. Todays largest Chinook would have gone 18 pounds.