Winter Harbour Report

Hey Spring Fever, I have been fishing Winter Harbour area for a week or so every summer for the last 10 years and never heard of the "Anvil". Care to tell me where it is? I am headed up on the 8th and getting excited - thanks everyone for the reports!
The "anvil" is the point of the RCA where the line from the cove just north of Lippy intersects with the line to cape Palmeston-basically around that point-if you look at your charts you will see some structure around there-all be it deep-but I think this can sometimes hold bait and therefore fish---that is my theory and I'm sticking to it!!! LOL I don't often go there unless one of my guide buddies tells me it's on because I do lots of trips a year and watch the gas expenditures-wouldn't want anyone to figure out the cost per pound factor.
 
I was at WH with a friend last week. We spent one night on the boat and two nights in a floating cabin. Lots of fun, lots of fish. Limits on springs and Halibut. I fought the fish of my life in between Cains Island Vancouver Island( that narrow passage ) I lost it to a harbour seal. Apparently seals are not affected by choice words. We estimated the fish was 30-35lbs.
 
Back from three days fishing at WH, weather not so good and the swells just as bad. Should have listened to SF and paid more attention to swell watch. Fishing was great even though the water clarity was not, boated twenty three springs between 15-25 lbs and a couple of coho, unusual but could not get past the springs for the coho so gave up and went bottom fishing. Ninety % of the salmon were caught on spoons place of choice was the bay in the am and the gap at night.All but one were caught between 27-35 feet. Bottom fishing was great kept eight yellow eye, four rock cod, and nine lings. Coho starting to pickup with many limits staring to come in today, fish are moving down from Topknot. j.j.
 
Back from three days fishing at WH, weather not so good and the swells just as bad. Should have listened to SF and paid more attention to swell watch. Fishing was great even though the water clarity was not, boated twenty three springs between 15-25 lbs and a couple of coho, unusual but could not get past the springs for the coho so gave up and went bottom fishing. Ninety % of the salmon were caught on spoons place of choice was the bay in the am and the gap at night.All but one were caught between 27-35 feet. Bottom fishing was great kept eight yellow eye, four rock cod, and nine lings. Coho starting to pickup with many limits staring to come in today, fish are moving down from Topknot. j.j.

Sorry to hear about the weather-glad you had a good trip. Was the water clarity a rain thing or hopefully not a bloom like down south? Weather looks good for the first few days next week!!!:p:):cool:
 
I believe the water clarity was a rain thing, cleared up considerably yesterday, first thing I noticed when jigging just off the highway.Forgot to mention Commie opening yesterday for the troll fleet.......j.j.
 
I believe the water clarity was a rain thing, cleared up considerably yesterday, first thing I noticed when jigging just off the highway.Forgot to mention Commie opening yesterday for the troll fleet.......j.j.
The opening is plug only
 
The Spring Fever II Flying Circus andgong show will be off Kain Island by 1400 tomorrow until wed evening. Monitor ch 6 green and white Orca. We share info. Tight Lines!!
 
Spent the weekend out at Quatsino Sound and did well with bottom fish and coho, but the spring fishing was spotty for us. We picked up three in the high teens, offshore (top knot) and one off Lawn Point. We didn't see many other boats with the nets out. We fished between 30-150', and the springs came around the 130' mark. Cop car spoon and a glow splatterback white hooch worked well.

The water a few miles out was turquoise, and absolutely covered in Velella jellyfish. Every square meter would have a few of them on it. I've never seen them before, but apparently they're common. Pictures: https://www.google.com/search?q=vel...wL18YCICg&sqi=2&ved=0CDMQsAQ&biw=1086&bih=757
 
Fished Quatsino sound today with a known guide out of PA. Wanted to go for outside for halibut, but guide said too bouncy...So...we fished inside even though swell watch said 3' swells with longer intervals. We hooked two large springs right at cliffe point down 30' in 70'-80' of water with anchovy on a chartruese headgear. They both ran into the kelp...after the fish were lost, drags were too loose, guide could of steered us to open water quickly but didn't. I thought the guide treated us poorly for 7 hours of fishing. We only got the 2 bites all day!

How did others do today?... was the fishing better outside ?
 
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Two days of slow fishing at kains and grants bay for me, cliff area had more action. Anchovies were the only thing getting bit for our two boats ended up today with two under sized lings released and no salmon.
 
Just got back from Winter Harbour-weather forecast was a little off-Monday pm great, tues was more than a little sporty,. wed was great until noon. Fishing well-I've heard spotty-Probably a good way to put it-we got our Spring limit but you had to hunt for them. Coho were almost hot at times with some pretty good size to them for this time of year. Fishing has slowed down considerably behind Kains but we managed 2 behind there-one weighed 28lbs the other in the low 20's-My thinking on this is that Kains usually produces well at the top of the flood and if you looked at the floods they were nowhere near late evening or early morning- my favourite time to fish it. Obviously it hadn't produced for a few days as there were no boats there at late evening when we did our damage. Tried Grants bay very early tues and wed. Nothing-very little bait-extremely rough tues morning-so much so that I couldn't fish anchovy's-so I tried Nogs needle-no flasher 180ft in 200 ft of water off Lippy-over the course of 2 days "Mr Nog" as he is affectionately known produced the most and biggest fish. .By 10 am tues the seas had calmed to just pretty sporty . Lots of big coho 60 feet down 200 foot mark off Lippy-they were a problem if you were looking for springs all the way to the bottom. I might even call it hot in the coho department. Springs definitely were a trial-we picked up some shallow just outside of Kains amongst the pinnacles-but for the unwary it will cost you many a ball. The key was bait-find it you found Springs. In order of effectiveness. Nogs Needle, anchovy.3.5 cop car, Irish cream,LED cuttlefish white hootchy. For bottom fish I was working an extra large jughead with a 10 inch herring or double hooked salmon belly strip cut so it would ripple like regular strip. It was a good trip because I had to get out of the anchovy brine bucket and see if "Mr Nog" really worked or was so much hype. I have my order of 6-thanks for the loan FA few scars on him-tried and tested.
 

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Great report as always, however, need more info on the extra lg jug head !
I know from previous reports your crew like the bottom fish like I do, so
Fess up please. ......BB :))
 
Great report as always, however, need more info on the extra lg jug head !
I know from previous reports your crew like the bottom fish like I do, so
Fess up please. ......BB :))
Ok Bill didn't say much because I'm still working on this. Here are 2 pictures-in the one with no bait I was using a single hook but I think a double probably works better-also the bead has a double loop through it which can be made to travel and acts as a stop so you have the exact amount of line you need. Word of caution-if that bead is cheap plastic and you are using 40 lb mono or greater-if that bead shatters it cuts the line at the bead at less than its designed breaking strength. If the bead is glass , bakelite or brass and doesn't shatter at max breaking strength of the line then the line will go to it's designed strength. Still playing with this-done really well especially with the salmon Belly-bit of a bear to pierce the skin-I carry a sharpened nail to put a hole through and then put in the toothpick. I also load up 4 and freeze them and then take them fishing-they are tough-coho belly or pink works best because they have the smaller ventral fin. Have fun!!
 

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SF,

Does the front hook just hang free, or do you bury it in the skin also?

Thanks for the pics of the setup,

FishWish
 
SF,

Does the front hook just hang free, or do you bury it in the skin also?

Thanks for the pics of the setup,

FishWish

As I said to Bill I am still working on it-The picture with the belly does not have a bead that the line went through twice so it relies on the first hook as a stopper for the head. My thinking now is to double thread a SUITABLE bead and then you are free to bury the front hook and back hook. You want that belly to be free to ripple, the Jughead swims the bait-not rolls it so it must be loose. Because the salmon belly is so tough-when I come home from a trip and trim out my salmon and get the belly strip I am fully rigging 4 or 5 and freezing them pre-rigged. So much easier to do at home and you can fish bottom fish at a moments notice. I am fishing hali and lings with this rig but on 2 separate trips I have taken and released 2 large springs -so it does happen and then there is the barb thing to consider!!
 
Back from 9 days in the area last night. Fished mainly around Lippy and out on the inside edge of the highway. Nothing bionic except for some great spring fishing in on the beach in the morning in Grant Bay or off Lippy. Had 3 mornings in a row where we were releasing 20 lbers for an hour or so just fishing spoons in shallow water, 25' and 35'. Interesting to see very small bait on the beach (2" and look like a sand lance). Fishing patterns changed for us every couple of days. Weather has been interesting as lots of rain and SE. Last 2 days (Thurs and Fri) high pressure and the bigger westerly in the afternoon early which pushed us off the water. Spring limits were there but you had to work for them. As spring fever mentioned coho were almost hot at times and then spotty for a day or two. Bigger coho were further out for us. When the springs were good the coho were too. We had better fishing in the mornings on flood tides and the ebb was harder to catch fish on for us. Not a lot at Kains except for a couple nights where we had good fish in the gap on small spoons. The bait guys were doing better but we decided not to fish any bait. No success for us at Cliffe in the evening but we only were there one full night. No luck with plugs either(darn). Our best gear was spoons, 3" Irish cream glow, 3" Pal silver PC3, 3" Army Truck, 3" Wonderbread, and a glow octopus hootchy with slight green stripe which worked great trolling on bottom for either springs or halis. Jealous of bigger boats on many of the rolling days.

Leaving Sunday for 1 more week up there and could use a bit of advice on bottom fishing up there (some spots to work for jigging or drifting with spreader bars), don't want to anchor and decided not to travel any further north than Lippy or further south than Lawn. Lawn looked more interesting in terms of structure but by the time we got down there the wind made it hard for us to fish so we may need to be there earlier and forego the early morning spring fishing.

PS Not impressed with some of the Americans up there "processing" fish and clearly not following the regs. They were not happy when we told them of the 2 day limits. One group had a bunch of friends in Nootka fishing and both groups had pre written letters to ensure they could carry out more fish than their limit. Love to see them checked and tuned up by DFO.
 
Back from

PS Not impressed with some of the Americans up there "processing" fish and clearly not following the regs. They were not happy when we told them of the 2 day limits. One group had a bunch of friends in Nootka fishing and both groups had pre written letters to ensure they could carry out more fish than their limit. Love to see them checked and tuned up by DFO.
Glad you had a good trip-I agree with you on the above-although I don't think its only our southern neighbours doing bad things! We need some old fashioned road blocks-never mind riding around in big RIB's and showing the flag-stop vehicles and do a fish count, letters don't cut it anymore-too bad they think it does-fine the hell out of them and take their gear-tourist like that we don't need. You may or may not agree with RCA's but last time I was in Winter Harbour I saw 3 boats inshore in the RCA-they looked to be fishing-This was not a line thing-this was blatant-I for one am turning in boats that are clearly inside an RCA. While I'm on a rant here-some tourist comes on the radio and asks what area this is-that means no one on the boat knows-what's the chances they know the regs?? Last Wed. we got off the water at noon because of rising wind and whitecaps-2 hours later a radio call goes-asking where his buddy is-he needs one more halibut for his limit--oh he just took a wave over the stern!! I couldn't stand it and told him to get out-no halibut was worth drowning for! Different voice-I assume same boats says thanks-we're leaving!! Man!! the tourist silly season is here!!LOL
 
Glad you had a good trip-I agree with you on the above-although I don't think its only our southern neighbours doing bad things! We need some old fashioned road blocks-never mind riding around in big RIB's and showing the flag-stop vehicles and do a fish count, letters don't cut it anymore-too bad they think it does-fine the hell out of them and take their gear-tourist like that we don't need. You may or may not agree with RCA's but last time I was in Winter Harbour I saw 3 boats inshore in the RCA-they looked to be fishing-This was not a line thing-this was blatant-I for one am turning in boats that are clearly inside an RCA. While I'm on a rant here-some tourist comes on the radio and asks what area this is-that means no one on the boat knows-what's the chances they know the regs?? Last Wed. we got off the water at noon because of rising wind and whitecaps-2 hours later a radio call goes-asking where his buddy is-he needs one more halibut for his limit--oh he just took a wave over the stern!! I couldn't stand it and told him to get out-no halibut was worth drowning for! Different voice-I assume same boats says thanks-we're leaving!! Man!! the tourist silly season is here!!LOL

Spring....That tourist was right next to me, at the west end of Cliff, in a 15 foot Whaler, first time in there, doubled up, and one was a 41# spring. We did not have a fish close to that in a full week of pounding it inside and out. No justice there!
 
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