2025 Nanaimo Reports

Wicked, that’s a good pull. Thanks for the report.

I’ve got 18” square bauers, each trap has 4lb in it (tuna can of lead) and then 8lbs cannon ball 40’ above the second… they always seem to work well.
Ya got about the same again today and the new trap had a dozen or so.

Couple hours at Thrasher this morning, 2 45ish cm on the white Hoochie, lots of small on a reddish WCTW spoon. No keepers.
 
Porlier Pass on Friday was loads of undersized Chinook and mostly unclipped Coho, but we did get 1 keeper clipped Coho. We’ll be over to Five Fingers or Entrance on Sunday.

As a 3 yr newbie, reading these reports at first I thought it was a typo but I’m seeing so many posts with “X feet down and X + 20” or more on the downriggers. Damn. You guys are dragging your balls on the bottom! 😀. No wonder I’m doing ok getting Coho and under size springs but can’t find a decent keeper Chinook. I don’t have the guts to drop the downriggers like that.
 
Porlier Pass on Friday was loads of undersized Chinook and mostly unclipped Coho, but we did get 1 keeper clipped Coho. We’ll be over to Five Fingers or Entrance on Sunday.

As a 3 yr newbie, reading these reports at first I thought it was a typo but I’m seeing so many posts with “X feet down and X + 20” or more on the downriggers. Damn. You guys are dragging your balls on the bottom! 😀. No wonder I’m doing ok getting Coho and under size springs but can’t find a decent keeper Chinook. I don’t have the guts to drop the downriggers like that.
Just do it, what's the worst that could happen? 😆
 
Porlier Pass on Friday was loads of undersized Chinook and mostly unclipped Coho, but we did get 1 keeper clipped Coho. We’ll be over to Five Fingers or Entrance on Sunday.

As a 3 yr newbie, reading these reports at first I thought it was a typo but I’m seeing so many posts with “X feet down and X + 20” or more on the downriggers. Damn. You guys are dragging your balls on the bottom! 😀. No wonder I’m doing ok getting Coho and under size springs but can’t find a decent keeper Chinook. I don’t have the guts to drop the downriggers like that.
I hit bottom at entrance all the time and haven’t lost a ball there. The herring are sitting deep. Find the bait find the fish. Good luck!
 
Fished entrance Friday and Saturday. 2 man limits on Springs and coho each day but took a long time to get those hatchery fish. Coho were 100ish and up and the springs were exact as per flywheels comment on bottom with plugs near the bait. I don’t have a lot of plug fishing experience but man do they work. We used both 5” tubby and 6” classic plugs. I found switching to 20lb balls helpful to limit the blowback when fishing deep like that. Yesterday evening was hot on the high tide, surprised to see only a half dozen or so boats out there and pretty much had the place to ourselves. Go get ‘em boys!
 

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Another shout out to @Flywheel and @Rain City for the advice about going deep and into the bait balls. We decided to skip any possible smoke at Fingers/Entrance and headed out to Porlier Pass again. Out by 7:15 and after a few hours of farting around with a few shakers at shallow depths, I decided to stop ignoring the large bait balls at 200+ feet near the mouth of the pass. Time to go big or go home (not quite dragging the bottom, but pretty damn close). Every time we went with the current and deep, about 1.8-2 knots we got a fish on the line. I’m more of a spoons guy but it didn’t seem to make a difference - cop car and blue coyote spoons were clearly attractive enough. I really appreciate the advice on this forum it’s made a big difference.
 

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Out yesterday for an afternoon fish. Started at Snake Island, marked lots of fish, not much bait, one wild coho on a white hootchie.
Next went to Entrance, not much going on, boats seemed everywhere looking, two wild coho on a spoon and 4” plug. Few shakers. Some bait and fish deep ( 160+), to deep for my 15lb balls.
Ran to the Fingers and it was steady on coho. Found fish and bait close to the island (120 fow). Tried bouncing bottom but no keeper springs just more coho. Found one hatchery and released 5 wilds. Spoons and apex worked. 65 and 115’ on the riggers.
In all a great 4 hours on the water.
 
Another shout out to @Flywheel and @Rain City for the advice about going deep and into the bait balls. We decided to skip any possible smoke at Fingers/Entrance and headed out to Porlier Pass again. Out by 7:15 and after a few hours of farting around with a few shakers at shallow depths, I decided to stop ignoring the large bait balls at 200+ feet near the mouth of the pass. Time to go big or go home (not quite dragging the bottom, but pretty damn close). Every time we went with the current and deep, about 1.8-2 knots we got a fish on the line. I’m more of a spoons guy but it didn’t seem to make a difference - cop car and blue coyote spoons were clearly attractive enough. I really appreciate the advice on this forum it’s made a big difference.
Yep, it's a great forum and there is a wealth of experience on here and really great that people will share their secrets so more people can be successful and enjoy their day on the water. There are lots of fish to go around and good karma always pays dividends.
 
Fished around the flat tops this morning for a couple hours. Took home 2 clipped coho, released a few wilds and 2 springs, one under and one over at 82cm. 50/50 white hootchie and cop car spoon, 150&170 for all.

Two others I talked to today were into many many more coho than Chinook.
 
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