Spring is finally here on the west coast and so are the salmon. During our latest Nanaimo fishing charters, we've had tons of action from both chinook and coho salmon. One of our trips we had over 40 bites in a three and a half hour period! To say the action was non stop is an understatement! The chinook right now are generally smaller as the winter runs tend to be. The early timed Fraser river spring runs will be starting to show up in our waters in the next few weeks. These are very plentiful runs with a larger average size than the winter runs. Another good sign for the season is we are already seeing a good number of hatchery coho around the local Nanaimo waters. Most are in the smaller 1-2 pound range but with how fast they will grow, no doubt in a few months they will be close to double that and perfect for the dinner table. Coho typically open June 1st so we're hoping this is a great sign for the upcoming season for the stocks. As of April 1st, chinook salmon will be catch and release only until most likely July 15th. Although the fishing in April and May is catch and release only for salmon, you can still have a blast fishing in Nanaimo with the early spring runs as well as dropping a crab trap or 2 to get some fresh dungenous crab for the dinner table.