There are still reports of decent salmon and halibut fishing around Sooke. It's typical Fall weather...meaning it changes every 5 minutes. However, the last couple of days have been BEAUTIFUL....sunny, calm seas, warm midday...perfect fishing weather.

For salmon, the winter springs are still the main target, and it's consistent from the Sooke Bluffs to the trailer park. Bounce the bottom with purple haze or glow hootchies, and catch your fill of 6-12 lb feeder springs. There's reports of chum being caught too, whether on land by the Sooke River or out in the deeper water. [just for fun, here's a September fishing picture, sent in by Ryan at Fresh Fishing Charters]

For halibut, people are chasing them right off the Sooke Bluffs, or out towards Jordan River or Constance Bank.

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The Sooke News Mirror reports the following this week: (reported by Kiwi Magic)

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DC Reid reports on chum fishing around Sooke in the Victoria Times Colonist today:

It's that time again: making chums of chums. The fish of great numbers that return this time of year in so voluminous schools that they are hard to believe, are here. Sooke River has turned on, the Nitinat has so many it's hard not to tread upon them, and for saltwater guys, try Seymour Narrows north of Campbell River.

For saltwater trolling, try hootchies before a blade. Many different hootchies do the trick, including: the Googly Eyed Wild Thing, a local concoction that you can buy in Campbell River, and shades of purple, pink with white spots, pink and blue, blue, pink, bubble gum and the coastwide rage: Purple Haze. Plankton sizes in pink and purple are consistent backups. Leaders should be 33 inches. Flasher choices include blue and purple and Purple Haze. Because the waters are ultra-clear this late in the season, Plaid flashers with their 3-D effect make sense.

What you are looking for, surprisingly, is a bright sunshine, blue sky, high-pressure system day. These chum bite more frequently on high pressure days on a flooding tide.

Closer to Victoria, in the Sooke Basin, on foot fishing can be had at Billing's Spit. It is a good place for gear chuckers to cast Buzz Bombs, Stingsilda's and other lead-weight lures that are retrieved: lift, drop and reel, lift. Find the most jumpers and cast among them. The rising tide is better than a falling tide, but both will pick the fish up and deposit them on the opposite, or 'downstream' side in a back eddy. Where you see the most fish is where to fish.

Above the silver bridge on the Sooke River is considered freshwater and retention is not allowed. You must also fish with fly rods, etc. The All Sooke Day's Park has open fishing, as in a spacious lawn, and you are looking for mornings, late, and any time in-between when the estuarial fish come on in their bite. At the bottom of the lawn is a mud reef. Stand back from the water, making the fish zone only about two- feet deep -- resist that temptation to walk right in as it pushes the fish out; then up at De Mamial Creek where fish taste the water and stop.

On high tide days, follow the fish up as they will be lifted right at the head of the tide. A medium, nine-foot (2.9 metres) tide will lift them a half mile more. Access this from the trail and parking spot up from the De Mamiel bridge. And on higher days, keep on trucking up with the fish, all the way to the cliff corner, run up stream and Martin's pool just above.

Good colours this year have included purple and egg-sucking leeches (even a small blob of pink yarn on the hook of your fly will induce a bite) -- any peaty river makes pink and purple standouts.

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There's fun to be had! Get out there and enjoy it, before the winter rains come!