2016 Sooke Reports

Dragged bait and everything else in the tackle box for 7 hours yesterday as part of the Fish Bowl derby. Couple of hits and one decent Coho lost at the boat.
I am thinking it is time for me to pack it in for the year.
 
As the guys say above that is a bonito tuna and it is yet another very scary sign of climate change. There should be several parties e.g.Watershed Watch, PSF and others who would be very interested to hear of this catch.
 
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Was out thursday for 3 hours, had *maybe* one good hit. tried a bunch of different things. saw a good amount of humpbacks. Boats out today!
 
I was curious how rare Bonito catches are in BC waters. Google tells me that there have been historical catches way back to 1965. Even references Sooke. Interesting.

http://sogdatacentre.ca/bibtexbrowser.php?key=RefWorks:8762&bib=sog.bib

"Pacific bonito normally range from southern California to the northern end of Vancouver Island and are most abundant between Santa Barbara and Magdalena Bay. In warm anomalous years they may be numerous as far north as northern California, and occur northward to coastal waters of central Alaska. In British Columbia single specimens have been caught previously in Rivers Inlet and near Sooke in Juan de Fuca Strait. The present specimen not only represents the third record for British Columbia but is the first bonito from the Strait of Georgia."
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Reference:
Sarda lineolata (Girard), a Pacific bonito, in the Strait of Georgia, British Columbia (J I Manzer), In Journal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada, volume 22, 1965."
 
Interesting. However, the article implies the fish caught on 1965 was only the third specimen from BC ever (and 1st for Georgia Strait). So the question is how many have been caught in near shore waters since then. If Old Seadog's fish is only the fourth one ever, then possibly no cause for alarm. If this is one of many in the last 20 years, then climate change is the trigger. I believe this should be reported to someone who might know what the tally is......
 
I was curious how rare Bonito catches are in BC waters. Google tells me that there have been historical catches way back to 1965. Even references Sooke. Interesting.

http://sogdatacentre.ca/bibtexbrowser.php?key=RefWorks:8762&bib=sog.bib

"Pacific bonito normally range from southern California to the northern end of Vancouver Island and are most abundant between Santa Barbara and Magdalena Bay. In warm anomalous years they may be numerous as far north as northern California, and occur northward to coastal waters of central Alaska. In British Columbia single specimens have been caught previously in Rivers Inlet and near Sooke in Juan de Fuca Strait. The present specimen not only represents the third record for British Columbia but is the first bonito from the Strait of Georgia."
View PDF
Reference:
Sarda lineolata (Girard), a Pacific bonito, in the Strait of Georgia, British Columbia (J I Manzer), In Journal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada, volume 22, 1965."

That is basically the same research I came up with from a different source-pretty sure that it is a Pacific Bonito and my source says the same thing-it has a range as far north as the Gulf of Alaska. So worth noting but really not indicative of anything---Now if we caught a Dorado!!!!!
 
The fish Deewar shows is definitely a bonita (tuna) but the sooke fish does not have the tuna sawtooth along both sides of the tail so definitely not a
bonita. Had a closer look -maybe a bit of a sawtooth on the tail-maybe bonita!!

looks to me that the sooke fish has upper and lower sawtooth around the tail? My vote is Bonito
 
My customer was really so happy with the 5 1/2" 50/50 wonder spoon

Sept 20 2016
Hey Discus: Remember that spoon (along with others) I bought from you on Saturday ? Well it caught 4 cohos off the Head today. One we estimate at 16 pounds (wild so released).
Thanks———Cheers——J.
 
Are the folks still heading out in Sooke seeing many shakers (less than 12 inches)? and if so, where about are they showing up?

Thanks for the info
 
Out yesterday and today and there are plenty of small feeders around from the harbour mouth down to the trailer park. Most are an inch either side of the minimum size limit. We kept 5 fish with the largest going about 11 pounds. Anchovie worked the best in glow heads. Huge rafts of bull kelp everywhere of the bluffs Friday morning..thankfully the flood moved it off to the east and this morning it was o where to be seen.
 
BWD indicated a nice low wind window in the weather pattern today, so after 6 weeks off the water we decided to give the winters a try. Fished from 11:00am until 3:00pm as had to wait to clear overnight snow off the boat. Went looking for the “tons of fish” found by Last Chance last week, so we trolled from the harbour mouth all the way down to trailer park. Spent about an hour there and trolled all the way back, with zero hits to show for it and just one random shaker. We fished at 123’ on the rigger between 115-135’ contours. Think I will wait until January before giving is another try unless there is a very nice spell of weather. Today was sunny until just after noon then we were hit by a succession of squally sleet showers and it went very grey overhead. Sea was choppier than I expected too. Can’t say we did not give it a college try!!
 
Out yesterday and today and there are plenty of small feeders around from the harbour mouth down to the trailer park. Most are an inch either side of the minimum size limit. We kept 5 fish with the largest going about 11 pounds. Anchovie worked the best in glow heads. Huge rafts of bull kelp everywhere of the bluffs Friday morning..thankfully the flood moved it off to the east and this morning it was o where to be seen.

here today...gone tomorrow...that's fishing eh
Good on you for giving it a try
 
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