Sockeye madness hits the Fraser

Fuelled by the promise of a run numbering as many as 11 million fish and condoned by the first unconditional season opening in many years, sockeye madness has gripped British Columbia’s lower Fraser River from its mouth all the way inland to Hope, 150 kilometres away. At the most popular road accessible fishing bars, anglers cast shoulder to shoulder and even the secondary spots tend to be crowded. Bars accessible only by boat are no less crowded with guided charter boats as well as private boats ranging from cruisers to car toppers.

And they’re catching fish. At many of the bars, the more proficient—and sometimes lucky—participants can boast of taking their limits of two sockeye in as many casts, while others limit out in less than half an hour when the schools are moving through. In addition to the sockeye salmon, some also hook into chinook salmon which might weigh anywhere between about 14 and 40-some-odd pounds. When these big chinook are on the move, there are intermittent hook-ups, though the bigger ones quickly burn off the line and break lose.

But is it fishing? Well, it really depends on your definition and your conscience. Though some participants convince themselves that, because many of the fish are caught by the mouth, it is indeed a sporting activity. However, the technique calls for casting a round lead weight—callled a bouncing betty—weighing an ounce or two, depending on the current, with a light monofilament leader 12 to 14 feet long extending out beyond it. At the end or the leader is a single, number two barbless hook, and sometimes a Spin-N-Glo or Corky, but mostly just a shank of colour yarn to comply with regulations. The rig is cast out into the murky flow of the river and the weight bounces along the bottom with the leader being carried downstream until it slides into the mouth of a finning fish. At the hesitation, the caster hauls back on the rod and, if properly executed, hooks the fish by the mouth.

It’s aptly called flossing and is regarded as nothing better than snagging by one faction. The other faction maintains that it’s the only way to catch sockeye in water where the visibility is typically less than a foot. Then there’s a small group of participants who have convinced themselves that the fish are not snagged but rather hit the offering of their own accord. They’re convinced of it to a degree where they adhere to closely guarded guidelines for choosing the colour of the yarn in relation to water turbidity, current and weather.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada tacitly condones the practice, defending it with the same argument suggesting that it is the only way to catch sockeye in rivers as murky as the lower Fraser. Yet no matter what its stand on flossing, chances are good that it will keep the season on sockeye open at least until the beginning of September when the coho salmon come into the Fraser. Water temperatures are rising to critical levels at the start of week two of the season, but there cool weather and even rain in the forecast which should cool the water once more. During the last brood year, 2006, the sockeye season remained open to September 10. With literally tens of millions of the fish in the river, chances are good we’ll have another long season.