Tofino & Ucluelet Reports - Spring-Summer 2012

[264winmag]

Sharphooks what was the water temp offshore last year if I remember right it was around 49 degrees F.
Rum Chum

[tdickenson]

Very helpful intel in terms of where the fish were in the water column. We'll try to put it to use.

[stratocaster]

We just returned yesterday from a 2 day/ 3 night trip.

I was lucky enough to get invited on a 26 ft Orca, where we ran 17 miles offshore for limits of Halibut. Nothing big, the perfect size for eating and it worked well with the new regs.

At the starfish we picked up most of our springs from mid teens to low 30's. Depth was 90-140 feet. The Chinook fished seemed slow from what I remembered in the past.

We did get our limits of Coho weeding through the wild ones.
Spend about 2 hours at swale early yesterday morning prior to heading out and never had hit.
A few boats were out at swale too and we never saw a salmon on.

I also got to try our those new high perfomance scotty riggers that were on the boat.
I will stick with my old ones on my boat.
One of the crew just touched the switch to bring it up a few more feet to grab the clip and popped off the ball....it happened that fast and that easy.
The red scotty plastic stops did not always work either.
Scotty needs to do some more work on those IMHO

Ditto on the new Scotties. I was out with Big Bear on Sunday. Decided to help out the guide by running the riggers. Man are those switches ever twitchy. Dropped a ball doing the same thing. Doesn't help that we were running braid. Guide said he's dropped lots of balls this year lol.

We were out at Starfish as well. Put 5 springs in the boat 15-22 lbs and hooked and released 7 wild coho. Managed to scare up a couple of small halis fishing 90 feet. PH hootchie the ticket in the morning with 5" green stripe coyote in the afternoon. Varying the depths all morning as both fish and bait were scattered. No real good bite, just picking off a fish here and there throughout the day. Whales put on a good show off in the distance.

oh well at least it was flat out there. Wife didn't even get seasick which was a bonus.

[oilslick]

Heading to Ukee on Aug 22 for 6 - 7 days, good to hear that the "bigger" Springs may be running late.
I don't want to beleive this but I've heard from a friend that the in-shore fishery closes on Aug 1st around WYA Point. Any truth to this?
Thanks for the help

[tubber]

springs have to be under 77cm at Wya and along that stretch as of today.

http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fm-gp/r...2012/23-ch.pdf

[oilslick]

Thanks for the info tubber

[Islandgirl]

springs have to be under 77cm at Wya and along that stretch as of today.

http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fm-gp/r...2012/23-ch.pdf

Thanks for pointing out the AUG 01 changes

One needs to fish offshore for 2 big springs and inside for 2 coho that are not marked

[J-GLOBAL]

Friday am - Portland - 2 Hali 20-25, some coho, only 1 Spring 15.

Saturday - Hyson - A Billion Coho. A few springs, nothing over 20. Maybe 2 Billion Coho.

Sunday - past Hysen, Springs early, limited & sent some back by 8am, and shallow, largest 28. + Lotsa Coho

Everything on Hootchies & Spoons. Too many Coho around & too busy to mess with bait.

[walleyes]

Got home last night from the trip to Ukee and all I can say is awesome.. According to the regulars of the area this was supposed to be a slow year, but as far as I was concerned it was great. Mind you I have been fishing Sooke for the last 9 years so this was a real treat. In all we easily came home with enough fish. We weren’t pigs about it we brought home only what we feel we can comfortably use. Of course we could always use more but we came home with plenty. In all we came home with 8 beauty Chinook and 7 Coho. The Chinook all ranged between 10 – 29#. The Coho were all nice fish at around 5 -6#. Not bad for 5 mornings of fishing and we threw many a smaller Chinook back in the 8 – 10# range and a boat load of wild Coho were released at the side of the boat.
The last day out I finally got a whopper. A friend of mine from Comox came out and we went out to Starfish, we went there one other day on the trip but mostly we stayed close to shore ( Turtle Head and Amphrite ). It was just the icing on the cake for me it really was, the fish hit hard and did a few nice runs and held to bottom hard, what a rush, its what I live for man it really is. We also managed a nice Hali one day. Got lucky on that one, just dropped the jig and not 2 min later,, wham it was on, a nice 35#er. Both days we went out to Starfish we were limited out with our 4 springs wihtin 2 hrs the last day were had them in an 1.5hr,, what a blast.
Yes it truly was one of the best Salmon fishing trips I have been on, I must say my son enjoyed it as well, never a complaint getting up with me at 5 every morning and just a real good companion to have on the water, he is turning in to be a real heck of a fisherman. We pretty much only fished until about noon every day and one day only until 11 because the boy and I went and tried surfing one afternoon so to catch our fish with the ease we did was a really treat. To all the folks we met at Ukee if you read this thx for the help and we will see you next year till then tight lines all. Here are a few pics.

Sam and his nice Hali.


And his 22# Chinook.


My biggest a 29#er


One of the mornings catches.

[Dogbreath]

Tasty lookin' Cabezons!