2018 Nanoose Bay/French Creek Reports

[Che]

Active anger

He means Active ANGLER, that L means a lot, because nobody wants to go out with an Angry Cap'n!

I didn't see many reports of sockeye in the 2014 reports, were you guys able to catch any sockeye out front or near sangster in 201o or 2011?

IIRC the big run came in through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, not Johnstone. I think this year the number is something around 35-50% of the run coming through Johnstone? Which means a couple million fish swimming by? If you're out there, and see sockeye jumpin' its time to send down the dummy flashers and the pink squirts!

 

[bigdogg1]

Went out from 6 - 9 tonight. Winds and waves were up so tries shore side of Gerald. No bites and absolutely zero bait so ventured over to Ballenas. Ran all sorts of gear and depths with no luck. Again, could not find any bait. Maybe time to head to Blackfish sound

 

[tains]

Awesome night of fishing at the humps. Wind and waves were a pain but got our limit of coho and spring and must have released 20ish coho mostly wild. Purple haze Flasher with glo white hootchie 28in leader and dummy flasher with 4in sardine spoon. Coho mostly around 100ft but down as deep as 200. Found the two springs in 200ft of water down 290ft on the rigger with 15lb balls. Spring on same flasher and hootchie.

 

[Che]

did you happen to examine the bellies of the chinooks? Curious if they're full of adult or juvenile herring? Needle fish?

 

[tains]

did you happen to examine the bellies of the chinooks? Curious if they're full of adult or juvenile herring? Needle fish?

They were actually pretty empty. What was in wasn't recognizable.

 

[Che]

damn. trying to work out a hunch on the next thing i'm going to send down when i head out next. awesome night for you though!

 

[coyotespoon]

Fished for two hours off the north hump yesterday before my crew started chuming the water it was sloppy but fishing was hot as it has been all year. Managed to kill 4 hatch coho and an #18 spring. Also lost a bigger spring next to the boat. Typical setups... no bananas and hearing aid spoons as well as splatterback hootchie. Fish right down in the mud along the north east side of the hump. Long leaders trolled fast has been the ticket all year.

 

[Che]

Same question, what if anything was inside the chinook's belly?

 

[Jimmy]

Thank you to Big Dogg and Randy on the guide contacts.
Cheers
Jimmy

 

[coyotespoon]

Che the coho were full of needle fish and the spring actually had s belly full of 3" squid.

 

[Che]

Out for the morning bite... After getting a quick two hatch coho on ice, I tried everything else I had to try and wrangle up a Chinook. No joy.

I need to get rid of this curse, dunno what I've done to upset the chinook gods.

 

[Red silver]

Out for the morning bite... After getting a quick two hatch coho on ice, I tried everything else I had to try and wrangle up a Chinook. No joy.

I need to get rid of this curse, dunno what I've done to upset the chinook gods.

ok
so the natural question would be, what was in the bellies of your coho?
And, bad chinook karma comes and goes, all things pass

 

[Che]

so the natural question would be, what was in the bellies of your coho?

Crab Larvae. Both of them were stuffed with them.

I'm hunching that there aren't big schools of bait fish around, hence there aren't a lot of chinook. With the number of boats out there on a daily basis, there should be more chinook showing up at the dock. But that's not happening. So the question is why. I think its because there aren't many chinook around right now. I could be wrong, but I'm not seeing the big bait balls out front on the humps like we did in June and May.

 

[bigdogg1]

I agree with your observations. We tend to stay in the Mistaken/Gerald/Ballenas triangle and have been seeing some of the largest, most clustered and consistent bait balls in years. The surface feed was visible. However, the last 3 weeks or so has proven to be much different. What is there is thin and disperses when you try to work it. Interesting and I have troubles thinking like a mature fish s won't even try thinking like bait fish.

 

[Che]

Earlier this week during the mill pond calm days I came across several schools of juvenile herring at the surface. Gulls were picking at them. I ran through the school and got nothing. Two weeks ago I picked off two coho over at Sangster, bellies full of 5" herring. Huge bait balls everywhere. I had ~40 coho to the boat that day. Light gear, 30' down, it was just an epic day. Now, it's ghost town over there. Lucky to get two or three in an hour. No bait to be found. So I'm fairly confident in saying that there aren't many chinook in town because there isn't much for bait fish out there.

If the winds cooperate, I'm going to try a couple more hunches on the chinook hunt.

 

[Red silver]

ah
crab lava, thought they were krill, well the coho sure are red fleshed anyway

 

[Che]

Crab larvae are a common part of the coho diet. I'm not sure how to mimic it for a lure, but then again Coho are slobs and will hit anything that goes past their nose.

 

[dmurph]

Crab larvae are a common part of the coho diet. I'm not sure how to mimic it for a lure, but then again Coho are slobs and will hit anything that goes past their nose.

UV white hootchy mimic larvae.

 

[Che]

Followed my hunch up to the Little Q today. Stopped counting the coho after 30. No Bananas and a Yamashita OG11 hootchie, 0'-250'. I was actually bucktailing them with the hootchie for a bit. My two hatcheries had empty bellies.

There was -zero- bait around. None. Saw a few schools @ 300' on the troll back to the humps, then that Qualicum wind came up and it was time to go home.

 

[Thelonious]

some friends and I caught two springs a 32 on Friday and a 24 on saturday running plugs deep near the hump