Sooke Reports - Spring and Summer 2011

[Tips Up]

Fished Posession for the first hour yesterday with only pinks so moved up to Otter for the rest of the morning.
Lots of pinks and had a rookie snap off the one spring we had on.
Crappy water made for some good laughs and good times on the pink tripple headers!
Good company made up for the poor (spring) fishing.

Tips

 

[Barbender]

Pro here is a quote that helped me when I lost my shepherd to cancer a few years ago. "Be thankful that dogs live such short lives for imagine your grief if they lived twice that long".

 

[sammyslabber]

Rollie,remember those were the best 3 years that you gave Nacho...R.I.P Nacho...sammy

 

[addicted]

So sorry to hear Rollie... I too have lost a young lab too early and know your pain... As for the trouble at Otter... Just consider the source and move on... although if you heard the language, froth, and fury coming out of my mouth during the bite me derby on Saturday afternoon vs a Cattamiran (sp?) off possession you might smile a bit....

 

[profisher]

Thanks again everyone for you kind words and thoughts. I'm sure he is buddying up with his 4 legged pals, chasing balls and swimming to his hearts content somewhere in the cosmos.
Fishing is picking up again, hit 6 this morning, landed 2. Landed 2 more this afternoon...all at the normal shallower depths. Rumour has it that during the recent 3 day downturn in spring catches that someone was out in 250 feet of water and down 150 on the rigger and landed 3 fish in the low thirties. Has me wondering if they just moved out of the beach and down in the basement for a few days for some reason.

 

[Rockfish]

Sorry to hear about your dog Rollie. I am sure when your family is ready they will be another good dog waiting to be adopted into a great family with the chance to stick their head out the window of a boat; that has got to be dog heaven.

We are going out tomorrow; There should be a Chinook bite in the mid morning when the flood flattens outs for a time before speeding up again. Like many we also got skunked in the Consultants Derby ( don’t count the Pinks). Sounds like there may be another run coming through from your report.

I also was thinking they may have been running very deep in the daytime for those few days for whatever reason, perhaps the full moon.

 

[Tailspin]

Out with the good luck pup yesterday with a not a care attitude, got caught with my hellys half on due to the downpour for the first one. Lost a screamer on a 7 inch 602 plug, pulled pin. Snaparoo, never floated up? All in a few hours at the Head. Thanks to Mike for pulling gear up as it ran through him. Nice scrappy fish. Sure hope its a sign of a fresh batch starting through.

 

[tubbed out]

nice work Justin

 

[Rockfish]

Great Day out there and flat all day with no fog. The three of us must have played well over 30 fish. The bad news is we lost the only two big Chinook (over 20) one threw the hook and we lost the other at the net - sigh . The good news – we kept 4 Chinook, 3 in the nine to 12 range and one around 6 that was bleeding bad and was also clipped. We also released a bunch of smaller Chinook in the 4 to 8 lb range including another hatchery. In addition picked up 2 clipped coho including a nice 8 lber and 2 sox’s one of which was about 9 lb. and then rounded out our limit with 4 pinks. Fished off the harbor from mid morning to early evening,- bait, spoons and plastic. The fishing is excellent and I do not recall so many feeder and Jack Springs around last year at this time. I did notice that a lot of the smaller Chinook were beat up like they had had an encounter with nets and escaped or released.

 

[wolf]

Yes was a good day yeterday got into 7 myself landed 4 and 2 soxs as well???? kinda weird at this time of year....
STILL waiting for the "BIG WHITES" to arrive???? wonder where those fish are???? maybe this week with these BIG floods

Good luck Wolf

 

[Aces]

They are still up our way - chewing.............. we will send them down in another week or so

 

[Rockfish]

Yes was a good day yeterday got into 7 myself landed 4 and 2 soxs as well???? kinda weird at this time of year....
STILL waiting for the "BIG WHITES" to arrive???? wonder where those fish are???? maybe this week with these BIG floods

Good luck Wolf

There were reports at the dock of a few in the high 20's yesterday and we did manage a 26 lb White last week but they do seem to be slow in arriving this year. Last year by this date we had 3 over thirty.

 

[chris73]

Sounds like a nice day, Rockfish! But are we getting a little sloppy, hm? 2 lost? Where is your famous efficiency ?

Will give it a whirl on Fri. BTW, we have seen the feeders move in as early as first week in Sept in the last few years - so it's not completely out of norm.

 

[newfie boy]

Hi chris to tell the truth rockfish did not have a hand in the two lost fish-one was lost at hook-up and the second was rushed due to a hungry seal chasing it . what a day on the water wow. finally starting to get the newfie roll towork cosistently. thanks for the fun time at the derby.

 

[chris73]

Pleasure to meet you, Don! We should go out together soon on Rick's boat!

 

[wolf]

WOW what a CRAP day today hopefully tommorow will be better didnt find a spring but sure found enough pinks LOL
not even in the tide lines and got a limit of them... EEEEERRRRR maybe tommorow

 

[Lipripper]

If you weren't wasting your time with pinks..... and utilizing The juice it would have been a better day

...

 

[Jockey]

First of all thanks to everyone who shares their reports. I do a lot of lurking and really appreciate it when people let others know whats going on out there.

Here is my fishing recap for the summer thus far. To sum it up in one word it has been an AWSOME year in sooke.

I got out on July 1st, friend lost a nice one and we picked up a 10lbr. Decent for early July when other years I have fished multiple trips without seeing a fish landed.

Did not fish sooke again until early august. First week of august I got out Monday evening and Tuesday and Wedneday morning. On the monday we fished beachy to the trap and got only a feeder spring and a pink. Tuesday and Wednesday morning went out to otter and did great! We had a limit of springs to 25 lbs both mornings by 9:30am! Prior to that I had not gotten a limit of springs in my boat so it was exciting.

After that I did not fish again until the bite me derby. I was at possesion both days and on saturday we landed 6 springs and lost a couple others. Nothing big for us (13-18lbs) but I did see both the winning and 4th or 5th place fish landed. Darn we were right there!

Sunday of the derby was a lot slower. It was the morning after the full moon and there was an absolute zoo of boats fishing at possesion. Had one on (felt like another teener) but lost it due to an amatuer mistake (bad knot). Oops live and learn I guess. I suppose I got skunked that day but just getting a fish on that morning felt like success because it was a lot slower and there was way too many boats trying to fish one spot.

This week I was out tuesday and wednesday. Both days were slow but I managed a 27 tuesday (my biggest spring to date) and got two yesterday (13 and 18lbs). It seemed to be picking up yesterday afternoon as we saw 6 other springs landed while on tuesday we only saw one. That said on tuesday we fished most of the day by ourselves after leaving otter due to seeing almost no bait and nothing decent caught. Oh ya I also got a sockeye each day this week in tight an excellent bonus!

What a great year so far, lets hope it continues for another couple of weeks!

 

[Rockfish]

Hi chris to tell the truth rockfish did not have a hand in the two lost fish-one was lost at hook-up and the second was rushed due to a hungry seal chasing it . what a day on the water wow. finally starting to get the newfie roll towork cosistently. thanks for the fun time at the derby.

Yea that 2nd one was a little too frisky at the net after being horsed in fast to keep him away from Mr. Whiskers who was showing way too much interest. I am never sure what to do in that situation, water ski them in fast or play them a little slower and hope you won’t be battling the seal. The seal population seems to be at what a DFO guy I once talked to called an Historical High, which means you can just about walk across the strait by stepping on their heads. We need a cull but unfortunately the cuteness factor and the large eyes in relation to the size of their heads seems to trigger the protective mammalian parenting instinct, especially in women, so the politicians are afraid to take on the issue. It does not look like their will be any increase in seal predation anytime soon unless the number of transient killer whales increases or the First Nations start to take an interest in them again.

 

[Rockfish]

Pleasure to meet you, Don! We should go out together soon on Rick's boat!

Will try and set that up Chris. Enjoyed having your wife on the boat for the Consultants Derby but was disappointed we could not get her into a Chinook, I know she wanted to beat you.