River fishing salmon

[The Great White Hype]

What kind of gear am I looking at here?? I want to go for big salmon in the bc river system.... Baitcast preffered. What ideas do you guys have for me. I am needing rod, reel, line and tackle.

[James Henry]

My son and I went a few years ago to fish the Vedder/Chilliwak rivers and went into Fred's Bait and Tackle store. The owner asked us to bring in our fresh water rods and and looked over the Crap Tire 6' Shimano rod and reels, shortly thereafter they were spooled w/20lb mono. My son caught a 20lb Spring salmon with no issues other than some extra play time.

[Joe Fehr]

For a rod you'll want 10-12' bait cast rod that has some fairly good backbone to cast the weight you'll be using. Reel an Abu Garcia 7000 will do the trick. Line depends if you like braid or mono braid you can go higher strength mono 25-40 lb will be the range you want.

Some heavy 3 way swivels, 40-50lb leader material for your spin n glos, you will want some beads etc and some leader material for your weight which you want lighter then your main line so it breaks instead of your mainline. Weights pyramid or wedges 6-14 oz depending on where you are and the current your fishing.

This is a typical set up to bar fish for spring salmon.

A good jet boat is a great help to get away from the crowds :fighting0074:
Then comes in the jet divers, hotshots etc etc. If you want some more info let me know and I will see what I can do for you.

[cleson]

For springs in the river, you will want a 10 foot rod rated to at least 30 lb. Abu Garcia 7000. The red one works fine, no need to get a c3 or higher end reel. lots of three way swivles, pencil lead of different weights, beads, spin and glows and rubber hoochies. Springs also go for big spoons. Gibbs Coho 55 and 65. I like blue, but I'm sure different colors work. Roe sacks (egg balls) are always great, but check your egs for bait bans. In Kitimat, the preffered method by the locals is now jigging. You need a shorter heavy rod. 7 feet or so. Tie a jig on and toss it slightly upstream. let the jig drop to the bottom, jerk up on the rod and retrieve line, the key is to keep the slack out of the line on retrieve. Often they strike while the jig is falling and it is quite subtle. This method covers a lot of water compared to drift fishing. The whole goal is to present the gear in the areas where the salmon hang out for the longest period of time. I find that jigging is very successful. It does require a shorder stiffer rod.

[cleson]

Forgot to mention, if you are boat fishing, then pulling plugs is the way to go. Get hot shots and divers and let them do the work.