Fishing out of Queen Charlotte City on Haida Gwaii this year was a tale of four seasons. The late-winter early-spring East Coast chinook fishing around Skidegate and Sandspit was ridiculous. The Inlet was full of small herring, and there were hordes of 10-15 pound springs around as a result, along with many marine mammals enjoying the bounty. A 3-minute run from the boat ramp put us on spectacular fishing in shallow water, with a fair showing of 25-30 pound fish joining the smaller guys in the mix, including some nice, fat white springs.
That fishery dried up in late April, as it usually does, necessitating running out to the West Coast. May and June were excellent there. In an unusual twist, the fishing was better off of Skidegate Point than in Rennell Sound. Fish in the 12-18 pound range were very easy to come by, even though they tended to be absolutely stuffed with extremely small needlefish. In another twist on tradition, we usually endure a lull in July that can last for most of the month, but this year, it remained very easy to catch springs right up until the start of August.
To our immense surprise, that usually-great month was mostly a huge disappointment. The biggest shock was when we went out on the minimal tides on the 12th expecting the great fishing we normally get at that time in those conditions, and were actually skunked for six hours aside from a few coho until a brief late-afternoon bite produced a decent flurry.
At that point, we started doing some math, and recalled that 2008 was the worst year in our memories of 40 years of trolling here. I also remembered being concerned back in 2012 that there would be terrible fishing again, reflecting the poor 2008 returns of four years before. Fortunately, while it definitely was relatively weak, 2012 wasn't as bad as 2008. But now, with 2016 rolling that cycle around again, I had fears of a potentially-doomed season as the unusual August doldrums continued.
Fortunately, the last 10 days of August saw a sudden surge of ravenous springs, and the action was as good as I've ever seen, with lots of doubleheaders happening in a hurry. Our fish were only 15-26 pounds, though, with nary a tyee. Apparently our improved fishing wasn't reflected at Langara until a bit later, as some northern charter guys actually resorted to fishing out of Queen Charlotte. The action was still hot last week, and I believe there are probably still lots of springs around, although I've switched over to exclusively targeting bottomfish to fill a niche in the freezer.
My theory is that the shortage of tyees this year reflects a lack of four-year old fish due to the down cycle that began in 2008, and was reflected in 2012. We got few fish with mature milt and roe this year. Fortunately, a really strong showing of smaller fish, probably three-year-olds with gonads that are very undeveloped even in September, filled the gap, and give promise of a good season next year.
As for the other kinds of salmon, there were a lot of coho around in May-late July, tapering off a bit, and then becoming very plentiful again in mid-August. There were less pinks than I had feared (I like to fish anchovies, and pinks like to eat them), and a huge showing of chum that has persisted until the present. One day in late July, we went through 36 anchovies in two hours, and then caught and released several more coho and chum on spoons and hoochies, before we finally limited out on decent springs. I don't know if the chum numbers reflect the presence of more of their kind of feed being around due to the warm water of the last two years, or if something else is involved, but they were way more abundant than I needed them to be. It's great to see a big chum return to enrich the streams and forest, though.
The water was warm, but not as bad as last year. Aside from that weird August slowdown, when we got very experimental, I fished at 60 feet, following the 20-fathom contour, and ducking into little coves with shallower water and a showing of kelp. During that bad spell, going deeper wasn't the winning strategy that it often has been, and going up to 40 feet or less mostly produced chums, pinks and coho.
I guess a good way to assess this season would be to look at the number of days' catches we bothered to photograph to celebrate the size and number of fish we'd brought home that day. Usually we'll put a half-dozen or so excellent catches into the digital record. This year, we only took advantage of two photo ops. We got a lot of fish, but I'm not inclined to record the memory of catching 15-pounders. I'm looking forward to seeing more of those guys next year, though, when the abundant herring that the Haida shutdown of the roe herring fishery is producing have fattened them up to size.
