🎣 Fishing Conditions
📍 No location🌊 Current Conditions
📅 7-Day Forecast
📊 Historical Data
Steveston fishing & marine conditions
Steveston sits at the mouth of the Fraser's South Arm, the historic fishing port of the Lower Mainland and the gateway between the river and the Strait of Georgia. It is a working harbour with a strong commercial fleet, and the water outside the jetty is where the river meets the sea.
What runs here, and when
This is the front door of the Fraser. Sockeye return in summer with the largest runs on cycle years, pinks in odd-numbered years, chinook through much of the year, coho in autumn and chum late in the season. The timing of everything here is tied to river returns, and in-season regulation changes are frequent and specific.
Local hazards
The river mouth is the hazard. The South Arm jetty and the bar at the mouth produce steep, breaking water when an ebb runs against a westerly wind - this is the classic local danger and it catches out small boats every year. Freshet carries large debris and deadheads downriver in the melt season. Commercial fishing and tug traffic is heavy in the channel.
Tides, current and sea state
The Fraser discharges an enormous volume, and on an ebb the river current adds to the tidal stream to produce a strong seaward flow at the mouth. Meeting a westerly wind, that flow builds short, steep, breaking seas over the bar. Cross the bar on a flood or at slack where possible, and treat freshet conditions with particular caution.
Live data on this page
Conditions above are for 49.125°N, 123.180°W. Wind, wave and pressure data come from Open-Meteo and refresh every three hours; tide predictions come from the Canadian Hydrographic Service station 07607. The fishing score combines wind, wave height, barometric trend, moon phase, tide movement and time of day.
Marine forecast & warnings
Steveston lies in Environment and Climate Change Canada's Strait of Georgia 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
Steveston lies in DFO Pacific Area 29. Openings, closures and limits change in-season and differ between subareas, so check the DFO Area 29 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, six closure areas are in effect in DFO Pacific Area 29, among them Tidal portion of the Fraser River (in Area 29), Mouth of the Fraser River Salmon Closure and Tidal Portion of Fraser River (Area 29). Salmon limits for the area: in 29-1 to 29-5 and 29-8, chinook 2 per day, chum 2 per day, coho 2 per day, pink 4 per day, sockeye non retention; in 29-6, 29-7 and 29-9 to 29-17, all salmon closed.
Read from the DFO Area 29 page, last updated 2026-09-05. See the full Area 29 regulations for every closure and limits table, or the Fishery Notices for changes newer than that date.