Fish Facts
Well if you have never fished the Pacific Ocean at the end of North America you are in for a treat.
Fish for Salmon, Ling Cod, Halibut and Red Snapper are all great catches in the Ucluelet and Tofino area.
Pacific Salmon
What makes a Pacific salmon a Pacific Salmon?
Most Pacific salmon are anadromous: they are born in fresh water, spend their adult lives in the saltwater oceans and return to their natal rivers, or lakes, to spawn. They are also semelparous, meaning they die after they spawn.
How many species of Pacific salmon are there?
There are seven species of Pacific salmon, plus two freshwater species. Five species are found in B.C. waters; Sockeye; Pink; Chum, Coho, and Chinook.The rainbow trout, steelhead and cutthroat, are part of the Oncorhynchus genus, but are primarily a freshwater fish.
What are the stages of a salmon’s life cycle?
There are six stages of a salmon’s life cycle: eggs, alevin, fry, smolt, adult, and spawners.
The salmon life cycle begins, and ends, as the spawning process in fresh water. The female chooses a site for her nest(s), called a redd, and builds one to several nests in the gravel with her tail. She then deposits her eggs into the nest and one or more males fertilize the eggs. The female then covers the eggs with gravel and repeats the process. Adult salmon guard the redd site until their death.
In late winter, eggs hatch from the redds. Young alevin in the gravel live off the nutritious yolk sac that hangs off their undersides for up to four months. Then they swim up from the gravel to start feeding on live prey. Some species head straight to the ocean as fry, while others remain in the stream for another year.
Next, the smolt stage occurs. The juvenile salmon swim downstream and undergoes major physiological changes (smolting) while adapting to salt water in estuaries, where freshwater rivers meet the saltwater seas.
Once in the ocean, Pacific salmon migrate to the North Pacific Ocean, travelling in schools. After one to seven years, depending on the type of salmon, they return to their home rivers to spawn where they had hatched.
What physical changes occur with spawning salmon?
Physical changes vary between the species of salmon and are dependent on the amount of time between a salmon’s entry into fresh water and spawning.
The sleek and silvery body maintains its shape, but the female swells in the abdominal area and her snout slightly elongates. The male develops a prominent fleshy hump by the dorsal fin, the snout becomes longer and hooked, and the upper jaw elongates. Colour changes occur but they differ between species. For example, the backs of the sockeye salmon change to a brilliant, red colour.
How many eggs do salmon lay?
Female salmon carry 2,500 to 7,500 eggs, depending on the species and size of the individual salmon. Each nest has between 500 and 1,200 eggs, and each female salmon has four or five nests.
Which B.C. rivers are salmon commonly found in?
Salmon are common in most B.C. rivers, but the largest runs occur in the Fraser, Skeena, Nass, Somass, Thompson and Adams rivers.
Pacific Halibut
Pacific Halibut are recognized by their elongate, slender, compressed bodies. The mouth is large and has well developed teeth on both sides of the jaws. The pacific halibut is dark brown on its eyed side and irregularly blotched with a lighter white on its blind side. The maximum length of the male is 4 feet 7 inches; the female, 8 feet 9 inches.
Halibut are very abundant along the Pacific shores of Canada and ranges from Southern California to the Bering Sea, occurring from very shallow waters to up to 600 fathoms.
Spawning of Pacific Halibut takes place from November to January in depths of 150 to 225 fathoms. A large female of 140 pounds may lay as many as 2,700,000 eggs which will drift into shallower waters where the young fish will settle in bays and inshore banks. The main food consists of fish, crabs, clams, squids and other invertebrates.
Pacific Ling Cod
Lingcod fishing along the Pacific Ocean’s West Coast can be awesome, if you know where to fish for lingcod and know what lure or bait to use. Lingcod live throughout the West Coast, from Alaska’s Aleutian Islands and throughout British Columbia.
Female lingcod can reach weights exceeding 100 pounds, while male lingcod seldom reach weights over 15 pounds. Tagging studies show that lingcod are largely non migratory and colonize or “recruit” in localized areas. Lingcod live on the bottom, but may feed throughout the water column. And unlike many other bottom fish species like rockfish, lingcod do not have an air bladder, which enables them to freely swim up and down the water column without injury.
Sport or commercial anglers can haul lingcod from depths of 500-feet or more to the surface and release them unharmed. During fall months lingcod move from their rocky, often times steep bottom areas to near shore areas to spawn. Males migrate first, and establish a site with strong currents and rocky crevices, ledges or rock outcropping. Spawning takes place sometime between December and March, depending area and water temperatures. After depositing their eggs in a sticky mass in a rocky crevice near bottom, the females leave the area immediately, leaving male lingcod to guard the nest. When guarding the lingcod egg nest, the male lingcod will attack anything, including lures that invade their territory. The lingcod eggs will hatch in early March through late April or early May, depending on area and when the female lingcod laid her eggs.
In late May through early June juvenile lingcod settle to the bottom, near eel grass beds. Eventually they will move to non-typical areas for older lingcod, usually flat, sandy areas. They remain in these flat, sandy areas for up to three years before “recruiting” to typical lingcod habitat consisting of pinnacles, rocky outcroppings, steep ledges or other areas with “underwater hydraulic relief zones.” These areas have current that sweeps over them, along with unsuspecting baitfish and rockfish. The relief zone is the area on the back side of the rock or ledge, where lingcod wait to ambush their prey.
When feeding, lingcod attack their prey and especially enjoy chasing anything that flees from their rows of sharp teeth. In the underwater world of lingcod, it is an “eat or be eaten” world. Lingcod will even eat their young.
Anyone who’s fished for lingcod will experience a “ride along” “hitch hiker” “cling-on” or “tight face.” This happens when you or someone else on your boat hooks a fish and then a lingcod grabs it and hangs on, all the way to the boat. Once at the boat, wise anglers leave the lingcod underwater and do not lift their head out of the water before netting or gaffing them. If you raise their head out of the water they will release their prey. However, if they do let go, send the bait back down, often times the lingcod will grab it again.
Female lingcod can live for dozens of years, while male lingcod live a maximum of just 14 years.
The Pacific Red Snapper
This is the largest of the scorpion fishes of Canada’s west coast sometimes attaining a length of 1 meter and a weight of 23 kilograms.
“Pacific red snapper” is a market name confined to the West Coast and the fish should not be confused with the authentic red snapper found in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Pacific red snapper or yellow eye rockfish is in fact a Scorpaenidae, with orange-yellow coloring washed with pink on the back and sides with paler undersides. Yellow eye are caught by most harvesting methods and are available year round in a variety of product forms.