nooks and crannies. With the steep gradient, mature chinook can easily dart out to attack dense schools of baitfish and other prey when these appear between the 20-metre and 30-metre bottom contour lines, which lie a short and fairly constant distance away from shore. These favoured contours start at Owen Point, at the entrance to Port San Juan, and run all the way northwest past Nitinat Narrows. As the bottom is fairly sandy between the two contour lines, the main inshore fishing area — from Owen Point to Logan Creek, about halfway to the Carmanah Lighthouse — is known as the “Beach.” Some anglers motor-mooch cut-plug herring, or use jigs (Buzz Bombs, Zzingers, Zeldas, Deadly Dicks, Riptide Strikers or Gibbs Minnows) around backeddies near the reef that comes out from Owen Point, and off the kelp beds around Camper Bay, a few kilometres to the northwest. Cut-plugging is also favoured for catching huge tyee in the Nitinat Narrows during late August. Most anglers are content though, to troll lures and baits off downriggers. Start trolling just inside the 20-metre contour, with your inshore bait or lure set at a depth of 10 or 11 metres, and the offshore bait at 12 to 16 metres. Work as deep as the 30-metre contour. Chinook, on their way to spawn, try to expend very little energy when feeding. During big tides, fish only an hour on each side of slack water. However, it is certainly possible to fish during an entire long, slow tide. Whenever possible, troll with the tide. Use an anchovy in a UV Purple
Haze Anchovy Special teaser head, bent slightly to roll about once per second. Troll this bait dead slow, about two to three metres behind a full-sized UV Purple Haze flasher from O’Ki or Hot Spot. Other good flashers to try are the standby red or green flashers with plain silver mylar, O’Ki’s silver- or gold-plated
metallic-finish Betsys, or Hot Spot’s new Silver Fever or Gold Fever. Chrome or glow anchovy teaser heads also produce well. Sticking an adhesive chartreuse or red eye on the teaser head seems to make them even more attractive. Large or jumbo herring in a teaser head are also very effective when trolled either on their own, or at least two metres behind a flasher. If dogfish, coho, or pink salmon show up in large numbers (pink salmon numbers peak in odd- numbered years like 2007), it will be more cost-effective to use hootchies, squirts, or small spoons one to two metres behind a flasher. Hootchies or squirts in army truck, purple haze, green-and-white, oil slick, or tiger prawn patterns are proven lures. Smaller Luhr Jensen Coyote, Gibbs Gator, Gibbs Gypsy, or Tomic Road Runner spoons in police car, glow green-and-white, holographic, watermelon, or pearlescent glow finishes are also excellent chinook lures. Bigger lures can be trolled on their own without a flasher. Use spoons like the #6 or #7 Gibbs Clendon Stewarts or Gators, five- or six-inch Luhr Jensen Coyotes, 5.5- to 6.5-inch Tomic Road Runners, Blue Fox Matrix, or O’Ki Titans, or heavy 2.25-ounce Williams Sal-Ts. Good finishes include gold, silver, 50/50 nickel and brass, police car, pearlescent, watermelon, holographic, or glow green-and- white. Five-, six- or seven-inch Tomic plugs in colours #500, #602, #212, #530, #49, #722, or the new #404pi also work well, as do big laminated- glass Firefish lures. Be sure to set these big lures well back from the downrigger clip (up to 25 metres), and troll at a much faster speed (up to 4 knots). If there is an opening for sport- caught sockeye salmon, or if you want to target late-season chum salmon, use hot pink, orange, lime- green, or fluorescent red plankton hootchies. Tie the hootchies with short 20- to 30-cm leaders behind a
full-sized red flasher. Troll this set- up slowly with the current at depths between 15 and 40 metres, out along the first or second tidelines, further offshore. These schooling fish like lots of flash and attraction, so clip additional dummy flashers (like Delta In-Lines or Kone Zones) just above the downrigger weight with three metres of heavy 125-pound test monofilament.
Pink salmon love to strike small pink plankton hootchies, too. When pink salmon are around in good numbers, they are perfect for first- time or younger salmon fishers. Being willing to switch your gear to “pink” can often save a slow day for chinook. While not the usual lure to catch chinook, more than a few tyee have surprised anglers who are targetting pink salmon. Slow-troll for pink salmon at shallower depths between 10 and 20 metres. From late August through
October, trophy coho salmon up to 10 kilograms in weight return to the San Juan River, at the head of Port San Juan Inlet. To protect endangered Thompson River stocks, anglers usually cannot retain any coho in waters outside of the inlet, but can keep a coho caught inside. Still, consider taking a photo of your prize, then releasing those really big fish so that they can reproduce. The can buoy marking the entrance to Port San Juan is the best spot to catch these acrobatic battlers. High-action 5.5-inch #3 Apex Hot Spot trolling lures, big brushed silver-and-green, Matrix, Coyote or Gator spoons, gold Williams Sal-Ts, big or small Firefish, 5-inch Tomic Tubby Tyee plugs, or spinner and bucktails will all take these San Juan trophies. Troll lures quickly just below the surface before and right after sunrise, then down to 10 metres in full daylight.
Continued on page 90 Enter to win a trip from Charlotte Queen Adventures at
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