2016 Bamfield and Barkley Sound Reports

I'll start. Don't have a fishing report yet because the boat is still in dry dock, but getting closer to launch time.

Of interest however is the Salmon Outlook for this season. The Chinook forecast is for 100,000+ fish returning to the river. This is a preliminary forecast and we are hearing the Alaskan's are suggesting this forecast could be light. This represents the best fishing we have seen in over a decade. Sharpen your hooks. :D

The other bonus is the main run will come in as age 4, so a lot of larger fish this season. We are already hearing of similar returns of Columbia River Chinook. The early fish seem to be larger, indicating a strong age 4 class return.

On the Sockeye front we are expecting 1 million fish to return with a high number of age 5 (larger fish) than in past years. This is due to the record return of fish as age 4 last season. So long as the river isn't still in run off mode due to the high snow pack the fishing should be great once the fish school up.

Get ready this is going to be an epic summer of fishing. See you on the water!
 
Ran out to ten mile from Clutesi last week. Not a cloud in the sky & flat water all the way. Fog as I went by Beale, but lifted about a mile offshore. Dropped lines in 200' water. Fished all of 20 minutes & had my 3 snapper, 1 Halibut limit, so pulled my lines and went looking for whales on the run back in. Doesn't get any better.
 
Area 11, 20* to 27 Limit 3 Apr 1 - Mar 31 Hook and line, spear Aggregate daily limit for all rockfish is 3; no more than 1 may be yelloweye.
 
Yup, there is a real down turn in the Yellow Eye abundance coast wide. Rec and Commercial fishers have been asked to dramatically cut back harvest and catch mortality. Yellow Eye is now only 1 per day; 2 possession.

Currently looking at barotrauma release mechanisms as a way to curb the rec catch & release mortality. As we all know when you pull up a fish from depth their swim bladder inflates making successful release impossible. In the US they are now endorsing use of barotrauma release devices that auto release at a set depth. Research has shown that fish can be successfully returned to the depth they were caught and they actually adjust back and the gasses are re-absorbed successfully. These fish have been tracked post release and in most cases appear to survive with no ill effects.

Here's a link if you are interested:

 
Heading out to Bamfield today for the weekend. I'll post our progress as time permits. Planning on doing some prawning as well although the reports are not sounding promising. Hoping to get offshore at least once during the trip weather pending. If anyone has recent reports from the area, please post. Thanks!
 
fish are still around Vernon , Swale to Howard pt , bam ta sarita slow ,ship to pill slow , had alot of wind to deal with
spoons- anchovies 80-140 , lost a gooder at the boat , allen pt , well over 20 , yank fish id guess
prawning mediocre for most , commys open may 15 apparently , hopin they let this recover for a year , commercially overfished past few years imo,
road in was good , there grading hard , get ur toys in any time , alot at the nook already

cheers

felix
 
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Fished the Bamfield area from Friday through Sunday. Offshore conditions were very good on Friday so that's where we spent our day. Focused on Halibut - pulled up one within 5 minutes just under 83cm. Then nothing for the balance of the day. We were at 7 mile. Mostly jigging with salmon bellies but also bottom bounced for a while trolling a turd and an anchovy. We were the only boat out there and didn't see much sign of bait or other activity.
Saturday we fished inshore given the swells/wind. Found good amounts of bait at Whittlestone Point down to Bamfield. Picked up one 12lb and a 10lb on anchovies at 110 feet. Lost a nice one on a white hoochie at the boat - hooked that one at 80'. Had a few more hits all within the range of 80-110'. Found large herring (~8" long) in each fish along with a squid in one. Winds were howling on Sunday but we battled the conditions and fished along Whittlestone again - bait was no longer showing up on the sounder and only hooked a few small undersize fish on anchovy so I guess we timed it just right the prior day. Prawning was overall quite slow - we ended up with ~130 prawns but that was after 3 days of multiple sets per day across 8 traps in total.
 
Thanks for the report Saratoga :). Nice to see some people venturing offshore. Thank you for the offshore reports.
 
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Kinda surprised that there's no Great Bear, Alley, Mara or Sail Rock?! Also, Once you get out the base Google Earth map has amazing bottom detail that they wash out closer to shore. Does anybody know if the imagery is available anywhere else? Somebody has to have it, curious if it is Coast Guard or the Hydrographic Service that doesn't want it available for free via Google Earth?

Cheers!

Ukee
 
Love Navionics web app but just doesn't compare to how cool the sea surface imagery is on Google Earth for the deep offshore areas. For some reason they blur it out for anything shallower than a certain depth contour. Must be some reason for it? Oh well, someday maybe. Sorry for the hijack!

Cheers!

Ukee
 
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