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Saltwater Fly Fishing in B.C.

By Scott Richmond

Coho salmon, ling cod and other bottom fish, sea-run cutthroat--Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver's west side has a variety of fly fishing opportunities. And there's more . . .

ometimes the best part of fly fishing is getting distracted. That's one of the reasons I enjoyed a recent trip to Tofino, on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

I was stripping in a fly when an otter distracted me. I lost focus on the otter as I began to admire the scenery. Then a bald eagle flew into view. And my attention shifted back to the water when a sea-run cutthroat grabbed my fly. Those are the kinds of distractions I can live with.

Clayoquot Sound and Tofino

Tofino is on Clayoquot Sound. Clayoquot (pronounced CLA-KWAT, where the "a" is soft, like in "clack," and the first "o" is dropped altogether) is one of six sounds or inland waterways on Vancouver Island's west side. Tofino is about 3.5 hours driving time from Nanaimo on a good, albeit twisty, road.

This is beautiful country, where mountains come down to the sea. Wolves inhabit some islands, and deer and black bear are common, as are many other forms of wildlife.

Tofino was a sleepy village until the road was paved between here and Port Alberni in the 1970s. Now Tofino is a major tourist destination with over a million visitors in the summer months. Few of those visitors are anglers, however, and most of them stay in toney resorts along the coast.

The Tofino area is the only part of British Columbia where you can take a paved road and reach the Pacific Ocean with nothing between you and Japan. I had to study a map before I could accept that fact, but it's true.

The other geography lesson I got is that it's not very far north. Despite being almost half-way up the island, it's at about the same latitude as Vancouver.

What makes Clayoquot Sound attractive to fly fishers is that much of it is shallow. Of the island's six sounds, Clayoquot is uniquely suited for saltwater fly fishing. There's an abundance of fish, and you can easily reach them with normal fly gear.

Weigh West Resort

Shawn Bennett came here in 1996 to see if the area had potential as a destination fishery. What he found was an abundance of coho salmon that flood Clayoquot Sound from July through October, gorging on needlefish, herring, and other baitfish. And those coho just loved to grab flies.

Shawn developed and promoted the fishery for Weigh West Resort, and they've had hundreds of happy visitors since then.

The Fishery

I had a writer's conference in Nanaimo the first week of May, so my wife and went early and stayed at Weigh West. That's not the main part of the season at Weigh West, so when I met Shawn on a Monday morning he was a little dubious. "I'm not sure what we'll find, he told me. "I don't usually fish this early in the year." I figure that the key to being a happy angler is to have a low expectations, so we set out anyway.

Weigh West uses 17-foot Stingers from Fibre-Pro. These center-console boats are powered by 60hp Yamahas and are perfect for this sheltered inland waterway. Like a flats boat, they are open and everything can be stowed out of the way. They have higher sides than a flats boat, however, so they can handle rougher weather.

As we motored up-Sound, Shawn talked about the fishery. "This area is called the Cat's Face," he said, pointing ahead to a mountain with a distinctly feline profile. "That tide-rip is called the Cat's Face Rip. It was one of the first places we started fishing. It's still a superb coho fishery, but we've since found many other spots that are as good or better."

We skirted some obviously shallow water and I commented on how boaters would have to be careful here.

"There are sudden shoals and sandbars," Shawn said, "often next to deeper water. That's one of the features that make this such a great fly fishery. Our guests run the boats themselves, but they follow a "Fish Master"--one of our guides--so they won't have problems. The Fish Master leads them to the best places. We keep in radio and visual contact, so when the Fish Master finds a school of feeding fish, he tells all the anglers and they come to where he is."

We stopped near the mouth of the Cypre River and started casting chum salmon fry patterns on six-weight rods with a clear sinking lines. Most salmon fry stay in freshwater until they smolt, but chum fry migrate to saltwater in the spring when they're about two-inches long. Sea-run cutthroat leave their spawning rivers at the same time and find an abundance of chum fry in the estuaries. We soon had hook-ups of fat sea-runs.

That afternoon my wife and I went on a whale watching trip (successful for both gray and humpback whales), and the next day Shawn and I used high-density shooting heads to catch black rockfish off one of the reefs. Then we moved farther into the estuary and fished for "bluebacks." It seems like every region has a species they call "bluebacks." Here, the term refers to immature coho salmon of about 15-16 inches. "In a few months they'll be five to six pounds or more," Shawn said.

That coho fishery is Weigh West's claim to fame. Anglers can expect hookups with half a dozen or more each day. Fresh, well-fed coho in saltwater are superb sport on a fly rod. Weigh West uses two primary methods to fish for them: casting and retrieving needlefish (sand lance) patterns and "bucktailing," or trolling flies.

A semi-vertical retrieve works best with the former tactic, Shawn says, because a needlefish often heads for the surface when it's threatened. Bucktailing is more straightforward, but more effective. Coho will aggressively grab a fly even ten or less feet from the boat.

The coho fishery kicks off in June, with 1-5 pound fish available. By July, the bigger coho are in the Sound. As you might expect, late July through early September is Weigh West's busiest period, and they are often fully-booked two years in advance for that time. The coho fishing holds up through mid-October, but the weather is not as reliable later in the season.

Other than the coho, there are chinook salmon in June (a bait fishery, not a fly possibility) and bottomfish from May on, depending on the weather. Freshwater opportunities can also be found. And of course there are those sea-runs, not to mention the other distractions.

Packages and Do-It-Yourself Possibilities

Weigh West has package deals that are very attractive, especially when you realize that the US dollar is worth about $1.40 in Canadian dollars. For $1,218 each (about $730 US) two anglers can stay four nights and fish for three days. There are also packages for two or four days of fishing. See their website for details.

Considering that includes a boat and, essentially, guided fishing, that's a good deal. There's a good restaurant at Weigh West and diners will be well cared for.

So what if you want to trailer your own boat up here, stay in a campground, and fish on your own? Well, you could do it. But think about the cost of taking your boat on the ferry to Vancouver Island, the price of gas for the boat, the fact that it might break down, and the ever-present possibility that you just might not know where to go and what to do. Throw in the inconvenience of camping and cooking for yourself. Compare that to Weigh West's package deals and you have to wonder if it's worth it.

This is a good facility and a well-run program. I enjoyed it here, and the accommodations are nice enough to please my wife. (She's a better critic of lodging than I am; I usually sleep in the back of my truck and consider Motel 6 to be heedless extravagance.) I have not experienced the summer/fall coho fishery, but I know other anglers who have; they speak highly of it.

Scott Richmond is Westfly's creator and Executive Director. He is the author of eight books on Oregon fly fishing, including Fishing Oregon's Deschutes River (second edition).

Uploaded 06/04/2003.

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Sea-run cutthroat in spring.

Weigh West's boats are perfect for saltwater fly fishing.

Mountains meet the sea in sheltered inland waters of Clayoquot Sound

Shawn Bennett with a fly-caught black rockfish.

Coho salmon are the prize in summer and fall (photo courtesy Weigh West)