Fishing for Chinook on the Skeena River

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FISHING COUNTRY — Skeena Country Chinook

Chinook salmon as heavy as 107-lbs. have been taken in the Skeena River. Just because no angler has ever managed to land one of that size, it hasn’t been for lack of trying. Hundreds flock to the Skeena each summer hoping to test the outer limits of what can be achieved by rod, reel and monofilament. Understand, we’re talking dolphin-sized fish here. The river record, held by Heinz Wickman of Terrace, stands at 92.5-lbs. The chances of hooking fish in the 70 to 80-lb. class are good to excellent, depending on water conditions. Hanging on long enough to bring one to the beach is something else again.

Seasoned Skeena-country river fishers regularly pack heavy-duty leather work gloves as part of their fishing kit. Even so, jamming a gloved thumb into the swirling spool of an Ambassadeur 7000 reel has its perils. Attach an 80-lb. panic-driven Chinook salmon to 40-lb. test line, add an average current speed of 10 km/hr and even work-glove leather will smoke. With the reel’s drag snugged down as tight as line test will permit, merely hanging on to the rod can be challenge enough. Add the fact that 90 per cent of Chinook coming to the Skeena system are wild fish, and we enter the realm of angling legend.

As often as not, the uneven contest is over long before the bemused angler even realizes a possible world-record fish was within grasp. Here’s seasoned Skeena River guide Noel Gyger recounting his first real chance to beach a record fish: "I started fishing at 5:00 a.m. had a few hits, then at 6:00 a.m. set the hook on a possible world-record Chinook.

The 40-lb.-test line streamed off my level-wind reel as I tried to slow the fish down. It was a big fish and I was in trouble. I yelled across the river where two other fishermen had a river boat, hoping they would bring the boat over and we could chase the fish down stream. They said they couldn’t help me as they did not have enough gas.

"A minute later, with only a few turns of line left on the spool, I tightened the drag, thumbed the spool until it stopped losing line and hung on. Snap, the line broke, rupturing the 40-lb test and leaving it frayed and stretched. From that moment on I knew you needed a plan to land those big fish. The big one always gets away."

The following year, Noel returned to the Kitsumkalum River, a major Skeena tributary, with three friends and a river boat. Following a hair-raising chase up and down the river, often at near-full throttle speeds, they managed to land a new record for the river - 83.5-lbs. - too big for the full-sized salmon net they had brought along. That record was later broken by an 85-lb. Kalum River fish. Like the main Skeena itself, fish weighing more than 100-lbs. have been recorded in the Kalum, so it is only a matter of time before the new record is broken as well.

Until last summer I had never fished for Chinook salmon in fresh water. Years back I had seen large Chinook caught in the Nass River system just to the north of the Skeena. The fish were taken on the spawning grounds in August and were either spawned out or actively spawning. That fishery, now mercifully closed, was the antitheses of everything I believed in as an angler. So I had more than a few qualms about heading north to the Terrace area to test the now world-renowned Skeena River Chinook fishery.

Noel prepared us for the fishing trip by dropping off about six hours worth of video-taped Chinook-fishing mayhem, most of it featuring the Skeena and its tributaries. What we saw was mind-boggling. Most of the fish pictured were silver-bright, fresh-run fish and all of them were huge. I don’t think I saw one fish as "small" as my personal best, at 46.6-lb. Kingcome Inlet Chinook. Despite the non-stop fishing action, it was the release scenes which had the biggest impact. Picture an angler walking into the river beside a Chinook salmon so large that its back is level with the angler’s knees. They seem too big to fish, I don’t think there’s a landing net made that will contain them.

Timing, as every fisherman knows, is everything when it comes to fishing rivers and we were either too late or too early to fish the Skeena Chinook run. June is the worst month on the Skeena as the river is high and dirty with spring snow melt. The fish enter the river as early as April, but the fishing season normally starts in May with most of the action centered on the Kalum River run. June is virtually unfishable, but the Skeena begins to clear in July. The best two weeks of the year, both in terms of water clarity and fish size, are the last two weeks of July and the first week of August (remember, we’re talking only about Chinook salmon; Coho and Steelhead times are different). Fortunately for us, the nearby Kitimat River was in good shape and reports were that a fresh run of fish had just entered the river.

Unlike the Skeena system, the Kitimat River runs consists almost entirely of hatchery fish. The $10 million Salmonid Enhancement Program hatchery on the river pumps in so many fish that locals boast the Kitimat holds more fish than any other river of its size in the world. Chinook first enter the river in June with numbers increasing steadily through July. Mid to late July is probably the best bet in terms of numbers of fish. Early August is still considered good, but the fish will be darker in color and a few fresh fish will be entering the river.

We caught the early stages of the run and all the fish we saw were uniformly bright and obviously just in from tidewater. The Kitimat is an easy river to drift with no rapids and many long pools in the stretch most used by anglers. Boat angler were vastly out-numbered by bank fishers, with most of the effort concentrated in the immediate vicinity of Kitimat.

Bank fishing is many times more difficult than fishing the river from a boat, something which also holds true for the Skeena on most rivers in general. All river bank areas with ready access will be crowded with anglers. Rods are normally set side by side in holders along the bank. It is nothing to see 35 or 40 rods in a row covering a good pool. When a fish hits, everyone jumps into position and begin reeling like mad to clear their lines and give the lucky angler a chance to do battle unimpeded. As might be expected in such shoulder-to-shoulder angling conditions, tempers tend to flare and co-operation is often stretched to the breaking point. Since the majority of anglers are local folks who know each other, there’s a genuine feeling of camaraderie and landing fish is most often a co-operative effort.

Drifting is definitely the way to go though, if at all possible. During our two day-long drifts down the Kitimat River we saw everything from top-of-the-line river drift boats to battered tin boats, inflatables and canoes. And people everywhere were catching fish, mostly in the 40 to 50-lb. range. Kitimat Chinook are smaller than Skeena River fish, with the average sizes slightly better than 30-lbs. Good numbers in the 50-lb. - plus range are taken each year and that’s what I was hoping for as we began working the first good pool.

Noel’s favourite method for taking river Chinook is a technique know as pulling plugs. This method has not been well received in B.C. since we tend to fish our rivers by wading from the bank. Pulling plugs consists of sweeping through a run trolling Hot Shot plugs downstream ahead of the boat. By rowing against the river’s current, enough tension is maintained on the lines to keep the plugs bouncing along the bottom. By sweeping the boat back and forth across the current, every inch of the run is covered. It’s an obviously effective method, but the only person in the boat who is actively fishing is the person on the oars. Everyone else sits back and waits for the fish to take hold. It’s great for guides since they control the entire process, deciding which pools to fish, where to fish them and how long to linger. For those used to doing their own fishing, it can be disconcerting. For bank fishers who have spent the entire morning hiking into a favourite pool only to find a boat load of "sports" diligently trolling every nook and cranny, it can be downright infuriating.

All the best guides, Noel among them, realize they have a huge advantage over shore-bound anglers and go out of their way to avoid confrontation. To Noel’s credit, any pool being worked by shore anglers was given a wide berth or avoided altogether. As it happened, we were on a lonely stretch of river accessible only by boat when my rod doubled over and the old single-action reel screamed its protest. The next few minutes remain a blur. I know I was standing, rod in hand, palming the reel and the boat careening down-river, the shoreline trees a vague blur. Then the fish jumped, three times in succession. The big silver fish seemed out of all proportion to the size of the river.

Noel beached the boat at the top of a long, calm pool and I leaped out to continue the give-and-take tussle from firmer footing. Noel had warned that big Chinook will hug bottom and just sit there, defying any effort to budge them more than an inch or two. True to form, following several line-peeling runs, the fish dogged it on the bottom. The combination of heavy fish and river current is alone enough to out-power standard fishing gear. I could do little but maintain as much pressure as possible and hope the fish tired before the line parted. Had the fish been truly heavy, a 75 or 80-lb. Skeena River Chinook, I doubt the stand-off would have lasted very long. At 45-lbs., my standard saltwater tackle was just equal to the task of besting the fresh-run fish and we soon had it on the river’s edge. After a few quick photos, it was carefully released. We beached three fish that day and hit a total of six, most of which came unbuttoned immediately, almost as if they had merely taken a passing swipe at the annoying plug rattling against the river gravel.

For all its effectiveness, pulling plugs is not popular. Most other boat anglers we saw set anchor over likely looking water and cast heavy spoons such as the ever-popular Crocodiles. In fact, that 92.5 lb. Skeena record Chinook was taken on a Croc. fished in the approved bottom-bouncing manner. Heavy-duty saltwater spinning reels were favoured by both bank and boat anglers, although for plug-pulling a typical B.C. style mooching reel works well, even if the level winds are considered standard. Don’t contemplate anything smaller than an Ambassadeur 7000 for level winds or full-size moochers for sing-action reels. My reel was spooled with 20-pound test line which, in retrospect, seemed far to light. Pack your reel with all the 40-lb. line it will hold. Chances are you’ll wish you had more line capacity, especially if fishing from shore where following a fish for any distance is virtually impossible.

Unless you know your way around the Skeena, including its many tributaries and neighbouring rivers such as the Kitimat, a guide makes sense, even for one outing. The guides fish every day of the season, know the river and it holding spots intimately and give good value for the money. Guides are not needed for bank fishing, but make a point of visiting one or more several excellent tackle shops in Terrace. I did not know they made spin and glows that big - about the size of a large man’s fist - until I visited a Terrace tackle shop. Bank fishing for Chinook salmon is a world unto itself and the place to start learning is a good tackle shop.

Area River Records...
For Chinook Salmon: Skeena River, 92.5-pounds;
Kalum River, 85-pounds;
Kitimat River , 74-pounds;
Steelhead: Skeena River, 45-pounds;
Coho Salmon: Skeena River, 27-pounds

Catch & Release formula...Chinook: girth squared x length x 1.54 divided by 1000.
Steelhead: Girth squared x length x 1.33 divided by 1000 (inches)

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Fishing Country – Skeena Country Chinook

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