Went to Bamfield from the 23-27 with a couple a friends.
Day 1:
It was super rough so we stayed inside and spent all day at Cree. Crossing over to the broken group was a bit of a pounding, offshore would have been very uncomfortable. 5am-1pm and got our 6 chinooks (all between 15-20lb). It never seemed to turn on or off - a bite every hour/1.5 hours. Our landing ratio was oddly good - typically we go about 60-70%, but we didn't lose a single fish! super lucky!
Day 2:
Offshore! Hit a hali hole on the way out and got our limit in short order, while humpbacks were thrashing all around us feeding on the abundance of krill. Tried going for some sablefish but only managed one. Lots of sole around too. After bottomfishing we jetted to LaParouse where we managed 4 chinooks. The biggest one came while I was dropping the line. While descending, I typically keep the rod in one hand, while the other handles the rigger. On the way down, the pin aggressively pops, and the line goes slack! I immediately start reeling and it was game on! After about a 5 min fight we land our biggest chinook of the trip, approx 22lbs.
Day 3:
The day before was so productive that we went again. Seas were calmer. The wind was essentially 0 knt but the swells from the previous week still had some residual potential energy - i think they were about 1.3m or so.
Same deal, got our chicken hali's, and headed for lappy. Got our chinook limits for the trip, but it was pretty slow. Took about 4 hours or so to get a handful of bites. Since we still had a little time left in the day, we were keen to catch some seabass, but agreed that if we saw schooling coho on the way in we'd stop and try for them. Sure enough, at about 5 mile, we see a few jumping and slow the boat right down to an idle. A small flock of gulls were feeding on bait and upon closer inspection the coho were swarming. Literally finning, jumping and siwrling all around the same area the birds were feeding.. So we dropped the lines and all hell broke loose. While 2 people were trolling for them, I wanted to try something different, so I grabbed my spinning reels with 15lb test, and started casting buzz bombs in front of the boat and began jigging/retrieving. Needless to say, you could have thrown anything in the water and those rats would have smashed it.. But something about fighting a coho in the sea with light gear was SO fun! We got our limit in about 45 mins. It would have been quicker but we had to circle back to find the schools every so often. When we did, they lit up the sounder. When we were on them, it was one, two, triple headers almost immediately. Too fun!
We came back to the dock exhausted and ready to go home. But what a trip!!
The pic is of the 22lber.
Had a great time with family.
