2025 BC Salmon Forecast: South Coast

Pink Salmon (Photo: Eiko Jones Photography)

Despite the extensive Chinook non-retention zones and times—and, to a lesser extent, the inability to retain wild coho for the most part—salmon fishing in southern BC has been remarkably productive for much of the past two summers. Based on the DFO’s Salmon Outlook released earlier this year, there’s every reason to think 2025 might provide more of the same.

Chinook

The Salmon Outlook takes major stock groupings (e.g., WCVI coho) and provides a ranking from 1 (poor) to 4 (abundant). Although there are some 1 or 2 rankings in the mix, the good news is that all the main hatchery stocks of Chinook on both the east and west coasts of Vancouver Island are ranked a 3 or a 4. Additionally, the principal hatchery Chinook stocks in the lower Fraser River area have an Outlook ranking of 4.

More good news comes from a number of unenhanced (wild) Chinook stocks in the region, such as the Cowichan, Harrison, or the South Thompson summer-run fish. In recent years all three of these important Chinook stocks have been returning at levels well above their escapement targets. This is especially so for Cowichan River fish, which have gone from being the south coast’s problem child to gold star performers in a remarkably short period of time—the 2024 escapement of approximately 23,000 adult fish (age 3+) with another 15,000 age 2 jacks would have seemed like a fantasy only 15 years ago. In combination with continued large hatchery production in the Puget Sound and Columbia River areas, this means that Chinook fishing all around the southern BC coast in summer 2025 should be productive.

This isn’t to say that Chinook stocks everywhere in southern BC are doing well, and there are some stocks that have failed to show signs of sustained growth. On the island, the summer-run Chinook from the Nanaimo and Puntledge Rivers (the latter stock especially) continue to struggle, as do the stream-type Chinook from the upper Fraser and Thompson Rivers. The persistent low escapement of these stocks is driving the extensive times and areas of Chinook non-retention around much of southern BC, a management regime that can be expected to continue for the foreseeable future.

Coho

For coho, there are two factors to consider when looking to the season ahead. The first is overall survival, and the second is where they might be found. Encouragingly, after multiple decades of very poor marine survival (<2%), in recent years there has been a sustained run of something a little higher for most coho from SBC rivers, between 2% and 5% depending on the stock. And following several decades of persistent outside distribution, the juvenile coho originating from Georgia Basin rivers at the end of their first summer at sea have decided to remain in inside waters through the succeeding winter and into their final summer. The main contributing hatchery stocks are all ranked as a category 3 or 4, so there should be a fair number of adipose fin-clipped fish available for harvest. Also click here for our article, “Why so many coho?”.

As anglers fishing in the Strait of Georgia know, the past two summers have seen numbers of coho on the fishing grounds not seen since the past century. Recent mid-winter reports of strong abundances of juvenile coho (“bluebacks” in old coastal lingo) from Nanaimo provide an encouraging signal that coho fishing in the Strait should be productive for the third summer in a row. And consistent with recent years, the WCVI stock grouping for coho has been assessed as a category 3, which should mean retention of wild coho inside the DFO management surfline. Outside the surfline, retention will be limited to hatchery-origin fish only because of the presence of coho stocks of concern from elsewhere.

Sockeye, Pink, & Chum

Sockeye have become much less available to anglers than in the past, but once again there should be opportunity in the Port Alberni area where the aggregate Stamp River stock has been assessed as a category 3 for 2025. A couple of the larger individual sockeye stocks in the Fraser River aggregate have been assessed as a category 4 for 2025, so there could be an opportunity to fish for them; there’s considerable uncertainty—time will tell.

Being an odd-numbered year, pinks will be returning to the Fraser River and, following the overall strong performance in recent years of most south coast pink stocks, the Fraser forecast is 27 million, the highest ever. The 2024 chum return to southern BC was an unexpected and positive surprise, so hopes are up for a continuation of the rebuilding trend this coming year, with fishing to match in places like Campbell River.

Be sure to get all the details of the pink salmon in the July 2025 Issue…subscribe today (limited quantities).

 

Halibut

After all this generally positive news for the season ahead, I regret to have to finish on a less welcome note. The International Pacific Halibut Commission finished its annual meeting at the end of January, and the halibut resource is continuing on a downward trend yet again. The Total Allowable Catch (TAC) for Canada has been lowered to 5.45 million pounds (all fisheries), a 16% reduction from last year’s already fairly small TAC. Capped at a 15% share of the combined commercial and recreational harvest, it was inevitable that size and daily/ possession limits in the sport fishery had to be scaled back to meet the poundage requirement.

Note: It was decided to reduce the maximum size of halibut to 102 cm to stretch out the recreational catch and season.

This article first appeared in Island Fisherman magazine. Never miss another issue—subscribe today!