About this site

Who writes it, where the facts come from, and what it is not · Burnaby, BC

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These pages are not the regulations. They are a plain-English map of them, written to get a beginner to the water without a ticket. The DFO fishery notices and the current BC synopsis are always the last word. Every guide says this at the foot, and it is worth repeating here: if this site and a fishery notice disagree, the notice is right and this site is out of date.

Why it exists

Fishing around Vancouver is not hard. Finding out whether you are allowed to fish somewhere is hard.

The information exists, but it is scattered across a federal department, a provincial ministry, a regional synopsis PDF, waterbody-specific exceptions buried in that PDF, in-season variation orders that override all of it, and a municipal parks page that decides whether you can actually park. A first-timer standing on the Capilano does not know that the CN Railway Bridge is the line between two different governments with two different licences, and that buying the wrong one is the most common way to get a fine on that river. Nobody tells you. You are expected to have assembled it yourself.

So these pages assemble it. One place per water: where to park, which licence, what the local rule is that differs from the regional one, what is running this month, and what to tie on. Written for the bank and the beach, because that is where you start.

Who writes it

The short version

I am Filipe. I live in Burnaby and I fish the Lower Mainland — trout, salmon and kokanee, mostly from shore, sometimes from a small inflatable with an electric motor on the back.

I am not a guide, not a biologist, and I do not work for DFO or the Province. What I am is someone who went through the confusing part recently enough to remember exactly which bits were confusing, and who got tired of re-deriving the same answers every time a season opened. These guides are the notes I wanted to find and could not.

That is the whole credential. Take the regulations from the sources linked on every page; take the “where do I actually stand” part from me.

How a guide gets made

Primary sources only

Every regulatory claim traces to the DFO tidal tables, the DFO fishery notices, the BC Freshwater Fishing Synopsis for Region 2, the Freshwater Fisheries Society stocking records, or the municipality that owns the parking lot. Each guide names its sources at the foot.

Where a number comes from an angling estimate rather than a regulation — peak run timing, for instance — the page says so on the spot.

Dated, and visibly so

Every guide carries the date its regulations were last re-checked, not the date it was last edited. Fixing a typo does not refresh that date; sitting down with the synopsis does.

Any guide reviewed more than six months ago flags itself amber on the front page. A stale page that admits it is stale is more useful than one that quietly rots.

What this site is not

Not a guiding service. Nothing here is for sale and there is no trip to book.
Not affiliated with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Province of British Columbia, CIRA, or any tackle shop or manufacturer.
Not a substitute for the notices. DFO changes salmon rules in-season by variation order, sometimes with a day’s notice. Check notices.dfo-mpo.gc.ca or call 1-866-431-3474 the morning you fish.
Not a secret-spot list. Everything here is public access, published in public documents, and reachable without a boat.

Tell me where I am wrong

Regulations change and closures move. If a page here is out of date, or a parking lot has reopened, or a rule reads differently in the current synopsis than it does here, that is worth an email — it is the single most useful thing anyone sends me. How to get in touch.