Thanks for the comments, Gents. hey saanauk---I'm a Johnny-Come-Lately up there---I've done the P. Hardy trip for a number of years but I only have two years under my belt for the the Spider/Cultus circuit and I have to be brutally honest--it's pretty busy up there, busy to the point where sometimes, it gets to be no fun.
Once you get into Hakkai, there are these HUGE mosquito fleets of Boston Whalers buzzing this way and that (Joes Salmon Resort, Hakkai Lodge, Ole's Salmon Resort etc etc)
They travel in large packs and when they show up, you're instantly surrounded up close and personal, like smelling what they had for breakfast personal. I was off Spider one night, all by my lonesome, enjoying the scenery and the solitude, when 20 of these guys show up. Most of them are crackers, totally oblivious of whether or not they're in your way and many times I got driven off my drift or shoved up on a ledge, just to keep from tangling their lines. Their leader drives back and forth barking comments at them on a bullhorn. A genuine party atmosphere. Of course they all give me stink-eye, like WTF am I doing there in THEIR salmon spot????
The lodge boats (the motor-mooching guys) steer clear of Cultus but on any given tide, there were at least 10 - 15 private boats on both side of the entrance. The Shearwater guides come down to fish it because for them, Cultus is probably way more quiet and calm then Cheney Point and just about the same driving distance. So yes, it is what I would call crowded. I had one morning in Cultus all by my lonesome -- this was good because I had several fish that took huge amounts of line and if it had been crowded they would have wrapped someone's DR cable for sure.
The trick is to keep moving around and find your spot---there's lots of water up there but really, only a few spots get pounded. I get waaay more satisfaction getting one fish out of a new spot then 5 fish out of a well known, well hammered, crowded hot-spot. I spent 5 days out at Mcinnes and Day Island and only saw one boat
I did talk to one of the guys who worked on the Edgewater Fortune. He told me he'd been fishing Cultus for 40 years and it wasn't too long ago that you wouldn't have seen any other boats on a given day---it's just been in the last 5 years that things have gone nuts.
I've chased steelhead all my life and that pretty much mirrors my steelhead experience--I've headed north to Skeena Country every October since the mid 70's and it's just been in the last 5 to 10 years that the "wilderness experience" thing has been yanked out of the equation---there are still lots of fish up there but now, huge numbers of people chasing them, to the point where it's not so much fun any more.
You can sum up the Skeena/Cultus/Cheney Point dynamic pretty easily--- internet and easy information (and pictures of big fish) .
