🎣 Fishing Conditions
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📅 7-Day Forecast
📊 Historical Data
Finlayson Arm fishing & marine conditions
Finlayson Arm is the long, narrow, steep-sided head of Saanich Inlet, a fjord-like arm reaching well inland from the Saanich Peninsula. It is deep, sheltered from open-water swell, and has a character entirely unlike the exposed coast a short distance south - more mountain lake than ocean on a calm day.
What runs here, and when
Saanich Inlet holds resident chinook through the winter months, and the arm sees fish move in and out with the seasons. Prawn and crab are taken in the inlet, subject to the openings and closures that change through the year. The inlet's depth and restricted circulation give it a different seasonal rhythm from the open water outside.
Finlayson Arm salmon fishing — runs, limits & season
Local hazards
The steep valley walls funnel and accelerate wind along the axis of the arm, so a modest regional forecast can produce a strong, gusty breeze blowing straight up or down the inlet with little warning. The arm is deep with steep sides and few gradual beaches, which limits places to land in difficulty. There is a shallow sill at the mouth of the inlet.
Tides, current and sea state
Saanich Inlet is a sill fjord: a shallow ridge at its entrance restricts exchange with the outside water, so the deep water inside turns over only occasionally rather than continuously. That gives the inlet unusual oxygen and temperature behaviour at depth. Tidal currents inside the arm are modest compared with the passes east of the peninsula.
Live data on this page
Conditions above are for 48.520°N, 123.520°W. Wind, wave and pressure data come from Open-Meteo and refresh every three hours; tide predictions come from the Canadian Hydrographic Service. The fishing score combines wind, wave height, barometric trend, moon phase, tide movement and time of day.
Marine forecast & warnings
Finlayson Arm lies in Environment and Climate Change Canada's Haro Strait marine forecast zone.
No marine warnings are in effect for this zone.
ECCC reissues the forecast through the day and can post a warning at any hour, so the Marine Forecast panel above carries the current wind, visibility and multi-day outlook word for word. It describes the open water of the zone, not a particular bay inside it, and is no substitute for the VHF or weatheradio broadcast.
Regulations
Finlayson Arm lies in DFO Pacific Area 18. Openings, closures and limits change in-season and differ between subareas, so check the DFO Area 18 recreational fishing page before you go. Nothing on this page is a substitute for the current regulations, official charts, or the marine forecast.
As of September 17, 2026, seven closure areas are in effect in DFO Pacific Area 18, among them Southern Resident Killer Whale (SRKW) Recreational Salmon Fishing Closure, Cowichan Bay and Satellite Channel and Pender Island Vessel Restricted Zone. Salmon limits for the area: chinook 2 per day in 18-1 to 18-7 and 18-9 to 18-11, non retention in 18-8; chum 2 per day; coho 2 per day; pink 4 per day; sockeye non retention.
Read from the DFO Area 18 page, last updated 2026-09-11. See the full Area 18 regulations for every closure and limits table, or the Fishery Notices for changes newer than that date.
Nearby locations
- Victoria Harbour (Area 19)
- Victoria Harbour
- Beecher Bay to Trial Islands (Area 20)
- Sidney
- Otter Point to Secretary Island (Area 20)
- Sooke Basin