2016 Haida Gwaii

Thanks Capt_Ed. I am close to getting my 33ft Chris Craft up & going, so will fishing from that soon. Hippa/Langara might be on the list but at 65 y/o I can't take the beating like i used to do. Also between the Se Alaska & Area F trollers 500,000 Chinook are being caught in that area.
 
Fished at Engelfield from July 6th - 9th with WCR. Great trip. This was my 3rd trip to Engelfield and most productive for Springs. Caught and released probably 25 nice Springs at the boat and a bunch of long line releases over the course of the 3 1/2 days fishing. Not a lot of monsters but lots of fish in the teener to mid 20's category. Only 3 fish over 30 were caught in the lodge (2 were exactly 30) for the trip. Tons of bottom fish and the occasional exciting salmon shark fight while fishing for Springs. Too early for any Coho around but a very productive trip. Hopefully, these fish will continue south to WCVI.
 
Sounds good for my trip to Winter Harbour this weekend!
 
Back from my trip to Hippa and have to agree with @mikep and @ericl that the fishing is currently not at all what it has been in past years around this time. We had challenging weather to deal with 2-3 meter swells and 15-25 knot winds so it did make getting to our preferred fishing grounds more challenging than usual. In terms of springs I can safely say it was the worst fishing trip up there I have had in 10 years and I typically do 2-3 trips a year. I've been up in mid-July many times in the past and done very well with salmon but we were scratching for springs this time around.... typically getting only 2-10 spring hits in a 10-12 hour day. Mid-20's was the biggest spring which is the smallest on any of my past trips. However, there were some decent 10-14 lb coho around which was a nice change.

Hali fishing was quite good with the weather cooperated and there were good numbers of ling and yelloweye around as well.... though we were mainly targeting springs so the other stuff was mainly bycatch. I heard from a lot of the guides that the commercial troll fishery was having an impact as stated above. Still, I've been a huge promoter of the Hippa area for years and think it is the best salmon fishing in the world based on my own experience and that of the guides on the coast who have fished all over the place. This was the first time i've been up there and been disappointed with the number of springs around so I gotta call it as I see it. Hoping this 1-2 stretch was just an anomaly and that it picks up to usual levels soon.
 
Thanks for the details. What's the best spot for Chinook - I am going back August 21 .Here is the Area F troll fishery July 15th update:

CHINOOK
The 2016 Area F Troll Chinook TAC is 192,000 pieces, and will be managed to the
maximum 3.2% exploitation objective on WCVI Chinook using an Effort / Harvest
Relationship Management Tool. Approximately 100 vessels are currently
participating in the opening and CPUE has declined to 15 Chinook per vessel per
day over the last 5 days. The estimated total catch as of July 15 is 100,000
Chinook which is 52% of the 2016 Area F Troll TAC. The total catch validated
to date is 80,198 Chinook. The estimated harvest rate of WCVI chinook is 1.3%
as estimated by the Effort Harvest Management Tool.

The first genetic analysis of catch was completed this week. Stock proportions
of troll catch from DNA samples are as follows:

Sample #1
- from 351 fish (23 vessel landings) caught between June 21st and June 25th
- 45.7% Upper Columbia Summer/fall, 20.6% North & Central Oregon, 19.5% South
Thompson, 7.0% Snake River, 1.4% WCVI, 1.4% Skeena and 0.0% Nass"

The above report from July 15 2016 is almost identical to the July 14 2015 update as far as numbers of fish caught. The quota for 2016 is almost twice that of 2015 (because of the Pacific Salmon Council's "abundance index").
Last year at the July 15 report the fishery was projected to last thru July 31 but closed July 21 before reaching quota (too many WCVI Chinook???).

I'd say the troll fishery is not the whole story here. Based on the abundance index, there are supposed to be twice as many Chinook ad last year.
Catch has declined to 15 fish per vessel. It started out at 105 fish per vessel Per the June 29 2016 report.
 
Was at Hippa Aug 21-24. Best Chinook bite was 4 fish on, 4 in the boat in 2 hours, 18-26lb. Halibut were scarce & small. Coho 13-16, ling to 29.
Weather cooperated nicely; got a sunburn.
 
Sounds a bit anemic but then came the bit about the 13-16 lb Coho...
 
All the fish were eating the Pacific Sandfish talked about on another thread, and all were very plump fish with good oil content. All pulled extra-hard for their weight. Guides have resorted to using flashers.
 
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