nitnat_junkie
Active Member
Fish the canyon and stoltz area today, no chrome today , nice weather otherwise 
Cowichan River
- Thread starter fishtime
- Start date
R
reel addiction
Guest
where have all the cowie chrome gone? 3 drifts nothing but trout!!)
R
reel addiction
Guest
where have all the cowie chrome gone? 3 drifts nothing but trout!!)
The run of Steelhead on the Cowichan appears to be poor to very poor. My partner and I have been out a number of times at various water levels with much lower success rates than we have experienced in the past.
We can't even blame it on excessive pressure as most days we have been out the pressure has been quite light. It appears the East Coast Vancouver Island sickness has made its way to the Cowichan.
Maybe the run is late but I doubt it.
We can't even blame it on excessive pressure as most days we have been out the pressure has been quite light. It appears the East Coast Vancouver Island sickness has made its way to the Cowichan.
Maybe the run is late but I doubt it.
The run of Steelhead on the Cowichan appears to be poor to very poor. My partner and I have been out a number of times at various water levels with much lower success rates than we have experienced in the past.
We can't even blame it on excessive pressure as most days we have been out the pressure has been quite light. It appears the East Coast Vancouver Island sickness has made its way to the Cowichan.
Maybe the run is late but I doubt it.
We can't even blame it on excessive pressure as most days we have been out the pressure has been quite light. It appears the East Coast Vancouver Island sickness has made its way to the Cowichan.
Maybe the run is late but I doubt it.
Fins -n- Skins
Well-Known Member
Addiction you have to know where they live
Reports have been some good days and some slow days.
Reports have been some good days and some slow days.steeliehead
Active Member
A 3 fish day may seem pretty good, and 10 fish hooked by a dozen bank anglers is ok, but compared to what it should be and when you compare it to what the Vedder produces for numbers even though the pressure there is 30-40 times worse. The Cowichan is not having a good year. In fact its been years since it has had a good year. Everybody I have talked to that knows the river and where the fish "live", has not had more than 6 hookups on a drift. A drift that is 6 - 10km long should have more than .5-1 fish per km. Not that there aren't fish in transit between the lies that they hold in. But for it to be good it should have at least 10-20 fish per km. I know, as most do, that the Cowichan needs desperate help for its salmon and steelhead stocks, they have been declining steadily for the last 10-20 years. The hatchery program needs some updates I'm sure and the steelhead program needs to be reinstated, hopefully it will one day while they can still get wild Cowichan fish as brood stock.
I used to steelhead a lot in the 1970's and early eighties. Every year I would get the survey results for steelhead success results and the Cowichan would always have one of the lowest success rates. It averaged around 1 steelhead caught for every 10 angler days. Also, there weren't many drift boats back then and most fishing was done from the bank. When the hatchery program started up it really improved but now that that program is done, the river will probably drop back to lower success rates.
Blackleech
Member
No doubt the Cowichan is a challenging river to catch steelhead from. Lots of top rods get skunked on a regular basis. MK from Robinson's fished 20 days in peak season a couple of years ago and didn't touch a fish. We're talking about a run of maybe 500 fish that trickle in all winter and are spread out over 60 km of river. Many of the early fish shoot right through in a couple of weeks to the fly only section, and then there's supposedly a trickle in March that spawn in the lower section Silver bridge down. Some people say the March run is no longer.
Now we have angler use at an all time high and a parade of drift boats most seasons from Stoltz to Sandy to Vimy. 30 boats per day pounding the same lies over and over again in succession, with the bank guys cleaning up the leftovers. So if Steeliehead's estimate is accurate we have 0.5 - 1 fish per km to share between hundreds of anglers.
Still a beautiful river to lay down a line and there are some hogs for the lucky few
Charter Tofino
Well-Known Member
Blackleech
Member
Maybe not all the time, but at peak season during good water conditions I would say at least that many boats.
The steelhead escapement for the Cowichan is estimated to be between 500 and 800 fish. I would say this is high. I would be surprised if there were more than 500.
R
reel addiction
Guest
I have never seen more than 10 boats on the river ever! Three at each launch is the most i saw last season when we were having 10 fish days.
This year three boats is a busy day.
They(we) need to help this river there is no reason why it cant hold 25 fish per KM this is a beautiful system that needs help!
This year three boats is a busy day.
They(we) need to help this river there is no reason why it cant hold 25 fish per KM this is a beautiful system that needs help!
Blackleech
Member
I have seen the entire parking lot at Stoltz full of boat trailers. In the winter of 2007 there were at least 30 boats drifting the middle section on weekends. CO's and user groups were discussing possible strategies to reduce the pressure in this section. Not an issue now because there have been fewer fish the last couple of years. Guides drifting this section with clients and only catching a couple of 10" trout reduces boat traffic in a hurry!
H
HOOTEY
Guest
yo sounds like a country tune....
ITS OUR PASSION TO FISH AND GET OUT OF DOORS...PLEASE...FISH LEGAL OR GET OFF THE RIVER!
ITS OUR PASSION TO FISH AND GET OUT OF DOORS...PLEASE...FISH LEGAL OR GET OFF THE RIVER!
Blackleech
Member
LOL ? If there are 15 trailers at Stoltz, and another 15 at Sandy, then yeah, that would make 30... [:0] And if it's really only 20, does this make a difference? The point was, too many anglers for too few fish...
