2025 Nanaimo Reports

[Aces]

I agree. I’m starting to run plugs first now on both sides and only run a flasher setup if needed. Finding I don’t need to change.

Same unless I’m trying to catch cohos

 

[rutskin]

What color# plugs are you guys using? Haven’t had much action on plugs mostly small spoons and hoochies

 

[Squire]

What color# plugs are you guys using? Haven’t had much action on plugs mostly small spoons and hoochies

I’ve only been using the one (Tomic 602) but it’s been effective. This 80cm white (marbled) couldn’t resist it last week off Entrance.

 

[ebrench]

I thought there was no fishing in that zone?

There's an RCA in its own zone within the line but that's separate from what I'm referring to. The RCA does not cover the entire area in the picture.

There's a seperate note that just refers to Chinook salmon and that's what I'm referring to.

 

[Aces]

What color# plugs are you guys using? Haven’t had much action on plugs mostly small spoons and hoochies

I run 6 or 7 different colors depending on water color, light and depth I’m fishing. 500 and 700 series are very productive if you’re not fishing deeper than 100 feet or so. The insert ones can be deadly too.

Maybe try plugs when the bite is really on so you can find which ones work well as they don’t always do

 

[Tomfoolery]

What color# plugs are you guys using? Haven’t had much action on plugs mostly small spoons and hoochies

I have been using a combo of mostly white-ish plugs between Tomic and the WCFT Mother of Pearl glow plug with the rattle. I have caught fish on all of them but the one that has outfished them all by a wide margin is a 30 year old 602 5" tubby with the pins pulled. No Glow, no UV, no nothing except teeth marks. I catch fish on that thing at 240 feet where it SHOULD be invisible but yet it catches fish. So it must be the vibration or whatever other special sauce it has.

 

[Rain City]

I have been using a combo of mostly white-ish plugs between Tomic and the WCFT Mother of Pearl glow plug with the rattle. I have caught fish on all of them but the one that has outfished them all by a wide margin is a 30 year old 602 5" tubby with the pins pulled. No Glow, no UV, no nothing except teeth marks. I catch fish on that thing at 240 feet where it SHOULD be invisible but yet it catches fish. So it must be the vibration or whatever other special sauce it has.

It's your confidence in it. Also the reason most guys don't catch FA on plugs. No love for the plug.

 

[Blue Hewes]

Pretty much anything I’ve put down has caught fish. The 602 is the gold standard but I’ve tossed down some others in a bluish colour that have worked well. The 2 blue ones in the pic are RVP2 52ii and RVP2 645ii. I lost the striped one on the left which was a 180226.

 

[Tomfoolery]

It's your confidence in it. Also the reason most guys don't catch FA on plugs. No love for the plug.

So SO true! When I was a young whipper snapper guiding, it used to drive our boss (lodge owner) nuts that all we wanted to fish with was bait which over the course of a season cost him an arm and a leg. He swore by a plain white plug fished at 90 feet, but of course we were the experts and poo poohed that. Plus in the manual downrigger days that meant an extra almost 25 turns of the rigger to get it back up from our usual 49 ft magic depth. We did fish plugs of course but never to the degree we did bait. The funny thing is that the lodge near us that fished ONLY plugs almost invariably landed the largest fish of the year which was usually in the 50's, so there is something to be said for plugs for sure. My dad would come up on his boat to visit and only fished hootchies and white plugs and he would always get fish in the 30's and 40's and plenty of others.

There is no doubt that plugs are a potent weapon (look at commercial trollers) and I must confess that since I moved here in 2005, it has only been in recent years that I started to fish plugs again because prior to that I had no confidence in them around here. But as a fun way to fish out here they have all the advantages. You can fish them fast, cover lots of ground looking for bait, always have good action, and fighting a fish is primo with no flasher.

 

[Flywheel]

Awesome afternoon at entrance jigging. Boxed two coho on the smaller side and two springs 14 and 16lbs. Was jigging Mac deeps in about 100-150 feet of water. Released another few coho and 7 or 8 springs in the 12-20lbs range. Retained two that were bleeding. Get out there and enjoy it before they’re up the rivers!

 

[outbeen]

Lost my streak on Thursday but got in the groove again tonight.

Fished 715-830pm birthday cake plug and the tubby 602. 3.5-5mph. Fishing on structure. Big one was a hair shy of 37" x 24" girth.