Canada Fishing vs Alaska Fishing
Alaska has gotten quite a bit of publicity over the years with shows such as Deadliest Catch, Palin’s Alaska, Alaska Wing men and many Discovery Channel features. Alaska is part of a country that has three hundred million people and therefore automatically gets more press. Of course all the extreme weather helps a bit! But the fishing isn’t necessarily better in places that get more press. I believe that Ucluelet has the best ocean Chinook (King) salmon fishing in world right now. I will explain why.
The largest river runs in Alaska come from the Yukon river and 2011 Chinook numbers totaled just over 100,000. The popular Kenai had almost 50,000. The largest river supporting Ucluelet is the Columbia with 2011 numbers of around 700,000. When you add the Fraser river (reports haven’t been filed yet, but probably around 200,000) and all the rivers around Vancouver Island you have over 1 million Chinook heading past Ucluelet during the summer. I believe this number far exceeds any place in Alaska. Also, for some reason numbers of Chinook returning have been declining in Alaska and are about half of what they were in 2002 for many rivers. The Columbia river Chinook numbers are as strong as any time since 1950.
Feed:
One of the reasons that Ucluelet attracts so many fish is the large amounts of feed that frequent the area. There are a few major banks right in front of Ucluelet which seem to hold the bait fish. Bait fish here include herring, krill, pilchards, anchovies and squid. The Chinook won’t stop unless there is feed to attract them.
Length of Time:
One more reason that I like Ucluelet over any other place is that you don’t have to come in a 2 week span in order to get good fishing. You can come from March to September and get good Chinook fishing. Because we don’t rely on just one river source for our Chinook, we are able to have good fishing spread all the way through the summer. Check our picture blog for a reference. I haven’t seen anyone on the coast record catches with dates and pictures. We believe good fishing, experienced guides and great weather
Coho Fishing:
I didn’t mention Coho since Chinook are the most desired salmon to catch. Both Alaska and Ucluelet have great Coho fishing. But since most serious fisherman don’t just come for Coho, I didn’t include the Coho numbers.
Weather:
Ucluelet is blessed to not get all the rain and wind that the north coast gets. It seems that once you get north of the half-way point on Vancouver Island, you start to get more wind and rain. Ucluelet gets very little rain from June 15-Sept 15 and this makes any holiday a little nicer. The average day here also sees much lighter winds than north and south of us.
