“You don’t have to stare at your rod tip Landry – they’ll hammer it!” That was the voice of my guide, friend, and mountain of a man Dustin Kovacvich. We were sitting on anchor in tidewater in the Terrace area, 15 minutes into the first day of my trip. Two rods hung out the sides of the boat. On the business end of the lines were two sardine wrapped K16 Kwikfish.
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| Sardine Wrapped Flatfish |
No sooner had Dustin spoke and my rod tip was buried! I picked up the St.Croix and was fast to a bullet mid twenties Chinook salmon. Line ripped from the big Abu as the fish thrashed on the surface, threatening to jump. Ten minutes later the big buck was in the boat and a slimy handshake was exchanged. There were a couple of first for me with this fish; my first tidewater Chinook and my first Chinook on a plug. This was going to be a great trip.
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| Ocean Bright Chinook Salmon |
It was the last week in June and I was up at Nicholas Dean Lodge for four days fishing the Terrace area. The plan was to fish a number of river systems including the main stem Skeena - if it came into shape. The Skeena was still high and dirty, though, so we decided to try a new fishery that Dustin and a few other guides had fished the year prior.
The tactic is to fish big plugs either on anchor or under power. Depending on the speed of the current, we were either sitting on anchor with the plugs 30 feet behind the boat or slowly working them downstream under power. The plugs used were K16’s or large Flatfish. These plugs dive, no weight is added. We were getting fish in 4-10’ of water.
The river is skinny in places and a jet boat is a great asset. The ideal boat for this type of fishing is a 16-18’, welded flat bottom, tiller jet.
This fishery is incredibly exciting for a couple reasons. The fish are fresh from the salt chuck and bullet chrome. The takedowns are vicious – sometimes the rod is buried so hard it is near impossible to get the rod out of the holder. The fish jump – yes Chinooks that jump – due to the fact that they are in such shallow water. They can’t sound like the typical Chinook fight so they come up to the surface and in many cases jump. We had one fish that thought it was a steelhead – a 25# bullet Chinook jumping repeatedly at the boat is pure mayhem. To top it all off this fishery doesn’t receive a lot of pressure. We fished in and around 4-6 boats a day, most of them local guides.
We hooked numerous fish up to 33#s over the next few days. A typical day would see the rods get bit 10-14 times. About half the time the fish would stick and we would put 4-6 fish to the boat a day. Good Chinook fishing by anyone’s standards.
If you get a chance to fish with Dustin Kovacvich or one of his guides at Nicholas Dean Lodge, do it. These guys flat out produce fish and are a blast to fish with. Dustin has tons of rod days on numerous systems and is a great fly fisherman to boot; ask him what a 28-30# steelhead on the fly looks like and he’ll show you a couple. Furthermore Dustin and his team are passionate about the resource and the area. You will come away a better angler.
For more info on fishing with Nicholas Dean Lodge:
Nicholas Dean Outdoors Inc.
4917 Kalum Lake Drive
PO Box 434,
Terrace, British Columbia, Canada
V8G 4B1
