BC fishing report

The Skeena river is now on the drop and fishing is hot.  There are Chinook Salmon, Steelhead & Sockeye in the system at the moment. We are guiding almost every day with just a few openings available for any of you last minute fishers.

Our guided area covers most rivers of Northern British Columbia, Canada including Kalum River, Skeena River and tributaries, Nass River and tributaries also Rainbow trout fishing, remote lakes and other coastal rivers including the Kitimat River and Salt Water charters out of the ports of Kitimat and Prince Rupert. Our fishing packages are the most diverse fishing adventures you will find in the business, we have over 15 years experience on these Northern rivers, unlike some of the local booking agents in the Terrace area, we do not sit in our basement booking trips for others, we get out on the water daily to collect real fishing reports to give you the most accurate information me can provide.

Babine river Rainbow alley catch !

There is a rod day cap on most region 6 waters for guides only, this restricts some guides to access certain waters, however we have guide friends we will hook you up with the best in the business. We also have more working knowledge of the unclassified rivers in the Skeena region than any other in the business and for good reason, we only guide on unclassified  uncrowded water. Most classified rivers in BC are flowing through more urban areas or they are accessible by motor vehicle, they may have great Steelhead fishing, however they are also very crowded during the peak times of the season. At Westcoast Fishing Adventures we look for new water to find solitude for our guests to enjoy a special spot in Northern BC.  We look forward to helping you plan your next fishing vacation.


In addition to booking a guided fishing trip to the Terrace and Kitimat BC area, we also book exclusive helicopter fishing and helicopter adventure along the whole west coast of British Columbia. These trips include heli fishing, helicopter sport fishing, helicopter fly fishing, helicopter spey fishing and helicopter family adventure, luxury fishing vacations, luxury family vacations, wilderness vacations, corporate retreat all based out of a luxury adventure, wilderness resorts. Investigate the great bear rain forest. Lunch is served on top of the world on our beautiful glaciers.
Here is a list of waters that I book guided fishing trips on:

    Above is a photo taken By Mandi McDougal  of a rare Kermode Bear also known as the Spirit Bear.




North Coast:
Skeena River (all four sections 1-2-3-4), Kalum River (upper and lower sections), Zymoetz (Copper) River, Exstew River, Zymacord (Zymagotitz) River, Kasiks River, Exchamsiks River, Ecstall River, Kitimat River, Giltoyees Creek, Kemano River, Kildala River, Kitlope River, Nass River, Cranberry River, Kiteen River, Ishkheenickh River, Kincolith River, Meziadin River, Bell-Irving River and Kwinamass River. I will book other rivers by request such as Babine River, Kispiox River, Bulkley River and Morice River or any other river in BC. I book both classified rivers and non-classified rivers. Prince Rupert ocean fishing and Kitimat (Douglas Channel) ocean charters for Halibut, Bottom Fish and Dungeness Crab.

If you have found this site and read this you are half way to an Adventure of a life time. 
Tight Lines Gill McKean


Our fishing packages  www.westcoastfishing.ca
www.skeenariversteelhead.com

Babine Rainbow Alley update / Skeena river report

Hello all.  I just returned from Rainbow Alley, what a trip, this place never disapoints.  We had steady action in the evening & early mornings, and I mean early-3:00 am.  It's light and the fish are on the bight. 
This spring was late coming, so the Rainbows are still feeding on the Sockeye salmon fry; they hit on a fast swing so this means a down river mend, drop your tip and hang on.  Much like the Sockeye flossing technique on the Skeena river in August, except we are using dry lines weight 5/6 rods, 12 ft leader tapered to 4 pound test.  There has been a small stone fly hatch when we had a little warmer weather, but that was short lived.  However, we will get some sunny days and look out, this spot is like no other, it comes alive with Beautiful rainbow trout!  Average size 1 pound up to 3 pounds, I know their are bigger as I have been broke off  : (

Had an opportunity to hang our with Cory from Webflyz, great guy, with a passion for tying flies as his creativety changes the industry, bringing some very cool patterns for Halibut, please feel free to visit his site and place your order at www.webflyz.com great prices for quality flies.


Also the Skeena river , Kitimat river , Nass river  Rivers are all on the drop, and starting to fish.  The Cranberry river is getting some great fish as well, float fishing eggs is most productive. The Skeena is now fishing well using a variety of methods Back bouncing, Plunking, Kwick fish, Hot shots, Jet divers lur Jensen make all this possible.

The Kitimat river has been incredible, the water is perfect for swinging a fly we have been enjoying 20 to 30 pound fish, this being the average size Chinook Salmon with some tipping the scales at 50 plus.  It is early, the Big Boys will be in the Skeena river starting Mid July Through August.

If you are looking for a professional fishing guide we still have a few open dates please feel free to contact us to reserve your spot.
www.skeenariversteelhead.com
www.westcoastfishing.ca
www.webflyz.com

1-866-578-8552 toll free
Tight Lines
Gill McKean

Babine Rainbow Alley update / Halibut on the Douglas Channel

Darren & Missy with a steelhead on the Kalum river.

Darren & Missy with a halibut on the Douglas Channel.

 Hello all…

A couple of nice photo forwards from Stan Hislop who was on hand to help this cripple and do some fishing too!  If fact Stan is my angler hero…here he is helping out while at home he and his wife, Glenda, have their 30th wedding anniversary apart…we did visit my Uncle Bill and use his radio phone to call Glenda, sing her the song, etc., but there’s more…while Stan missed the anniversary, he also missed the birth of his latest grandchild…both of these things knowingly.  Angler priorities…got to love it.

Jesse is on hand and seems more interested in fishing this season so the second photo shows him with his catch…Jesse has also hooked two fish off the lodge dock, patiently casting and sometimes just sitting there waiting for the strike.

Darren and Missy visited as well and Missy still have the mojo for catching the biggest fish…trout this time instead of steelhead.  But you should have seen the look on her face when she and both Riley (new guide) and Chris (new Trout Lodge housekeeper) all added a healthy amount of DaBomb hot sauce to their hot dogs…now I know of only two humans who can eat this hot sauce without so much as a flinch but all others are in tears, look very uncomfortable and often have to leave the table to have that personal moment of suffering….so  all three had their moments but Missy looked like she had seen her last cast.

Flooding, well yes we are still in flood stage…as of a few days ago Babine Lake was four inches below the highest water level I have witnessed since 1985 and still rising slightly per day.  I haven’t visited the camp in two weeks so I don’t know what’s going on there but I assume some flooding there and hopefully not too much for her to take.  Some of our cabins at the lodge have water just about to the doorstep so like the 1997 season, it will be a high water season.  1997 was a great season for catching fish so we hope for the same this season as well.  Our first guests for the Trout Lodge arrive June 16th and the river, although high, is clean on the upper end including Nilkitkwa Lake and the lower river until you reach Nichyeskwa Creek so we will have almost our full angling area ready to go for opening day and we are lucky to have that.

Some yellow stoneflies have been on the upper river so the dry fly season has just begun, and there is still salmon fry and smolt migrating through the upper river as well.  The weather luckily has been cool and no rain so the water clarity for our trout season is good.  Safe boating will be a key concern around the weir this season as our anchors or any anchors will not hold in that area, but the fish will be there and so will we.

Had a good check up with my knee surgeon so all is well and I am good to go…full recovery is still in the future but the future looks brighter every week…by this fall I should be my reckless crazy self again, sorry! Ha!

Pierce

PS  Forgot to mention a brilliant idea Stan came up with…smoked morel mushrooms.  While Anita, I and our full staff were still yet to arrive at the lodge, Stan picked a five gallon bucket of morels, smoked them in our smokehouse and then Anita made this morel mushroom soup with the smoked morels added in.  That was the best mushroom soup ever and combine that with smoked sockeye salmon from the Fraser River provided by Stan, fresh halibut and crab from Prince Rupert provided by Darren and Missy, and Anita’s fine cooking…well there is only one Babine and one goodwill effort like that!  Stacy Barto is the only other one in this department…

Babine / Nilkitkwa trout fishing upate !

Hello all…

Been working hard to set up my Mom’s cabin and begin setting up the Trout Lodge, but with help from friends, Stan Hislop (photo attached) and Jack DeVries plus a short visit from our son, Julius, and then a few days with our new Trout Lodge housekeeper, Chris George.  Talk about weather…rain on snow…major flooding on the Bulkley River and Babine Lake’s tributaries are running full with a rare report of flooding at Pinkut Creek, a Salmon Enhancement Project feeding Babine Lake.  This could be a rival to 1997 and 2007 since so much snow pack is still in the mountains and some lower sections of the valleys too.  The latest weather forecast is much better with sunny warm skies but that warmth could also produce snowmelt at just the wrong time for the Bulkley and our Steelhead Camp.

The fishing on Rainbow Alley is picking up nicely with Stan, Julius, Chris and I enjoying some nice catches of which some went straight to the frying pan…I think the best tasting trout anywhere.  From my Mom’s cabin we could see daily improvement in the number of feeding fish plus the largest trout are starting to move in as well.  The fry are hatching so it’s great to use a floating fly line with a salmon fry pattern and that’s all you need for a good time.  We are very fortunate to have the 110 mile long Babine Lake to stabilize the water clarity and flows, otherwise there wouldn’t be any fishing at all.  So far the creeks are holding in terms of putting out clean water rather than dirty so we are also lucky there…the rain has been light and steady but on the Bulkley watershed, steady and harder so many homeowners are being evacuated as of yesterday.

Another positive Babine note is the mushroom (Morel) production from all the rains…they will be and are popping up everywhere so we added that delicacy in with our fresh trout and of course Molson Canadian beer and Crown Royal.  Stan is staying at the Trout Lodge now, enjoying the solitude, our dog Sawsha, great fishing and he has plans to not only smoke some fish in our smokehouse, but also morels!  June 1st we will have full staff and lots of projects to do for our first guests arriving June 16th…we still have one full service package open June 16-22 so don’t let the weather and flooding reports stop you from experiencing the Babine on any day…we will be there enjoying the fruits of an incredible watershed that provides opportunities like no other…plus with Anita’s fine cooking and the charm of living in a log lodge and cabins built before I was born, well, it doesn’t get any better…”There is only one Babine.”

www.westcoastfishing.ca        

www.skeenariversteelhead.com

Pierce

Steelhead fishing another view of QWS & the changes that havent been made.

Steelhead fishing On the Skeena ,Kitimat,Nass rivers Quality waters looking for answers for a better experience for all.
? How can we achieve this please feel free to comment.
It appears it has finally came to surface that it is not only the Classified waters that boast quality Steelhead & Salmon fishing the amount of remote rivers in the Skeena,Kitmat,Nass water sheds are endless, however it appears everyone in the world has realized that we have the Best Steelhead fishing in the world. Lets try to keep it this way for our experience while we live and our future generations.

One of the Many sought after fly caught fish in the world Steelhead on the Skeena,Kitimat,Nass Rivers.

 Tight Lines ..Gill Mckean



 Not good news for sure…my mind went back many years to the beginning of all this quality waters turning into the classified system in 1990…the view back then was from residents who felt the guiding was getting out of control on the Bulkley…so the guides were capped or grandfathered by the honour system which some felt wasn’t so honourable…I think for the most part it was honourable with few exceptions…anyway the cap and later the escalating costs and now we still have all the other categories of angler un-capped.

Then there are the non quality waters which are really quality too but left to become more pressured as time goes on to the point where we have over crowding and perhaps some over guiding on those streams too.  Sadly the Kitimat, Skeena and Nass watersheds have quickly become the last great area of wild steelhead stocks, much written about and on the internet, so the anglers are coming in great numbers for the last kick at the cat.  It’s big money for the economy but big headaches for fishery management or the lack thereof.

During the QWS workshop years it was agreed that the non resident angler category needed management in order to protect the resident and guide categories.  There was also concern for illegal guiding even though the legislation in support of the CO’s was and still is poor.  In the recent QWS for the Skeena watershed we witnessed a huge push back by the non residents plus more recently the business community.  So the original intent of the QWS to manage non residents has backfired and so we still have no caps on any category of angler except the guides…the residents were to be the last to be restricted according to the original QWS workshop sessions.

The issue of guides flocking to un-classified waters simply comes from the economic opportunities that un-classified waters represent…the classified waters are capped but the un-classified waters are not.  We now see young new entrepreneurial guides trying to get into the business and they only have the un-classified waters to this purpose unless they buy into the more expensive classified waters system if there are rod day sales available.  So you are right, the residents are now witnessing a new round of guided growth in areas left alone for many years.

Added to this the dangerous precedent of First Nations being able to issue their own rod day allocations outside of the Provincial QWS…even though the Nisga lands may be unique in terms of the settlement with government, does this now mean that other hereditary chiefs in other First Nation territories can now do the same?  We need leadership from government on this before this can of worms gets out of control.

Sadly I don’t think government has the stomach nor leadership support from cabinet and the voters to implement and monitor effective fisheries management to address over crowding and illegal guiding…this was the central issues supported by any independent facilitated workshops of which I participated.  The larger resident NGO’s like the BCWF and others were in this driver seat of supporting the QWS to maintain controls on guides plus initiate new controls on non residents.  It is time that the resident NGO’s once again rise up and express their concern about over crowding on the finest steelhead streams left…if they do not, I don’t think the guides can do that as government does not support the guide view that the QWS is unfinished business worthy of a much more professional and supported effort.  In the face of the recent QWS Skeena package and the record amount of money spent on it, I think government has no stomach to open it up again in order to do a much better job…they didn’t listen to the warnings given about the flaws in the renewed process, and I am not sure they are capable of listening without full cabinet support…and let’s face it, fish and wildlife as a Provincial budget priority is not on the radar screen of the people of BC and thus the government.

Even though the steelhead fishery tourism sector, both resident and non resident, is a huge economic contributor for our region, that doesn’t seem to be enough to warrant a stronger fishery management strategy that is both dynamic to change, and have directed funding.  I am glad that the Province is making some gains to biologically protect steelhead and that is a great credit to our local fishery biologists, but we need a whole new category of fishery manager that has the supported tools to manage the sociology of angling which means carrying capacity or reasonable caps for all categories of anglers.  I have always felt that any un-capped category would some day cause over crowding…and now we see that any un-capped steelhead bearing stream will also some day be over crowded which goes against the whole purposed of the QWS.

I guess whether it’s the Annual Allowable Cut or the Angling Management Plan…they both overstate the resource and over use the quality until there is no quality left.  This is our legacy and status quo of doing business.  Only if the people in large enough numbers make some real noise will we get the attention of government.  Apathy rules the day for fish whether it’s the fish farm issue, so called selective gillnetting or resource extraction leading to mill and mine shut downs that leave a mess or a very depressed community.  The sustainable benefits from fish and wildlife with some good industrial projects is an opportunity still waiting to be demonstrated…I still remain idealistic and hopeful that we can continue to advocate for a better status quo for the Skeena watershed.  There are many good efforts pending and we still have the opportunity to do it differently.

I sure appreciate your efforts to communicate with Dana and Mark…it is appropriate to start at that level and let them articulate our concerns to the higher levels.  It may also be necessary to take this whole mess once again to the Victoria levels as well.  Who will stand up and be counted in this way?  For some reason the business community just got the ear of cabinet so I think it is appropriate for them to make a serious effort to talk some sense in support of a sustainable economic strategy for fish and wildlife.  And bottom line, the QWS must continue to move forward and not become a laughing stalk of planning like the LRMP’s are fast becoming.

Pierce

Trout lodge Babine report By Pierce Clegg

 Hello all…

Launched the Silver Loon at Tukii yesterday…Chris George, our new summer housekeeper helped this new knee cripple out and so we set out for the lodge.  It wasn’t long before we encountered lake ice…mostly rotten with patches of thicker harder stuff.  I was surprised since the dates are way late for that type of ice to still be around.  So we crushed through it for about nine miles and then the last seven miles to the lodge was clear.  It was a rainy breezy day…the lodge was basically awash in water running everywhere…the creek was huge…lots of snow around and unfortunately our boat house collapsed possibly totalling two of our wooden river boats.  Everything else was fine but so much water around.

I will return to work on my Mom’s cabin with Stan Hislop and Jack DeVries this weekend, and then after the week end back to the lodge to begin opening her up.  The 2011 season adventure has begun and it will be an interesting one for sure.  High water or low water seasons, makes no difference…they are both excellent in terms of the fishing and catching but this 2011 season will go down in memory as a rare late spring event with lots of snow pack causing flooding in parts of BC…already as of this am the news was announcing a flood warning for the Bulkley River by this afternoon.  I woke up this am to rain turning to snow!  Living in the north is not for the faint of heart.

Yesterday’s drive to Smithers Landing was touch and go with road wash outs nearly blocking the road in three places…water rushing everywhere with lots of snow yet to melt.  I was glad to get the Silver Loon in the water…next boat to launch will be at Fort Babine Lodge to travel down Rainbow Alley to my Mom’s cabin so after this weekend I can report on the fishing and send some pics.

Pierce

Canadian fishing guides!

Angling Guide Gordon Mckean with a Chromer

With the spring steelhead season over we will reflect on the seasons events and cruise into salmon season, There were many memorable moments from huge Chrome Steelhead to swims in the river to moose chasing guests out of the run. We are now booking for next years Spring dates so don't delay,we only take 6 guests per week this allows us to be mobile on uncrowded water. www.skeenariversteelhead.com to see more of what we do visit the link above and the link below.www.westcoastfishing.com We look forward to hearing from you.