Continuing Chris Tucker’s quest for Pacific salmon on Vancouver Island ….
23 August 2026
Well, we are on the move again. Kali and I were unexpectedly presented with the opportunity to move to Campbell River, and we jumped at it. The wife is delighted at being closer to family, and I will have one of the best salmon fishing rivers on my doorstep! Win-win.
Unfortunately, the move has landed right in the middle of the pink and Chinook run, so evenings and weekends have been spent packing and painting, rather than wetting a line.
Rather than trust the moving company with my rod collection, I decided to drive them up to the in-laws house for safe storage.
However, I just couldn’t resist a little detour before dropping them off… The river was just too tempting.
I lined up my 8WT spey rod and grabbed a couple of my ‘three-ingredient’ needle flies: fur, marabou and a piece of flash. I have learned that it doesn’t need to be anymore complicated than that.
My usual run was lined up with anglers so I decided to head a little up river to find some space. I fished for about 2 hours with not so much as a piece of weed. It was a pleasant temperature with some lovely fly water, so I wasn’t too bothered. With my trip to the Conuma River coming up, it didn’t really matter to me whether I caught or not.
Just when I thought I really should be getting back to help pack up the crockery, I felt that unmistakable thud.
The fish roared up river and ripped off line. After about a 10 minute battle, it accepted its fate and slipped in the net. A Chinook of about 20lbs. As ridiculous as this may sound to many, it’s one of the babies. Still, I didn’t care.
19th October
In case you were wondering where all the fly fishing reports are, there hasn’t been much to report!
We arrived at the Conuma to find very low water levels. We found a few small pockets of slightly deeper water with holding fish. One of them obliged when I put a three ingredient needle fly in front of them, a coloured up chinook of about 8lbs.
However, we felt that it was best not to disturb these fish in difficult conditions, and called it a day. On the second day, we opted to hire a boat and take it on the ocean. We enjoyed some good sport right at the estuary using spoons, hooking two 9lb chrome coho and a chinook of similar size. We even did a bit of jigging and caught some lingcod in deeper water.
I spent the next 6 weeks targeting coho on the beach while I waited for the rain to come. Plenty of anglers on the beaches but not a lot of fish being caught. All I had to show was two tales of hooked and lost fish.October came and the beaches remained quiet. They must all be in the river, right? I headed to the Campbell last weekend expecting some action but alas no. All I found were old pinks on their last legs. I decided to throw a spoon to some sections of the river I couldn’t reach with the fly rod. A bonus sea run cutthroat came out from hiding and smashed it.
This past weekend I headed back to the Campbell hoping some fish had finally shown up. I initially showed poor judgment however, heading down to the river on my own before the sun was fully up. I walked down the wooded trail and cut through an opening in the trees to towards the river. However, a bear had had the same idea, and we gave each other a tremendous fright. I quickly turned and headed back to the car, and waited for it to move on.
After 20 mins of waiting, I was able to fish. I saw a few fish jumping this time so I was more optimistic. I only had to run a spey shrimp down the river a few times before it was met with a thud. After a short battle, a chum of about 8lbs came to the bank. Strangely, it was quite coloured up (not photo worthy), as if it had been in the river a while. It didn’t make sense. Usually early October is the start of the run.
After a fruitless couple of hours of casting, I decided to pick up the 5wt and see what else might be patrolling these runs. The cutthroat and rainbows love to sit behind the spawning salmon and gorge on eggs. I threw a few casts behind some holding fish and hooked a lovely fat cutthroat. I was just as happy catching this fish as I was a fresh salmon. They don’t all need to be 30lbs to be enjoyed.
