Well I finally managed to cross paths with a spring again after a week and a half of pinks and skunks. Trap shak 55' green/glow/chrome teaser head betsy flasher extra large chovy. Was making the last pass of the evening cursing the dam skunk made a turn and fish on! Well I had to make one more pass after that and even a blind squirrell finds a nut once in a while I guess that was me cuz fish on again! Too good to be true , short bite all i got back was what was in the teaser head. Completley different set up purple haze head madi flasher extra small chovy 44'. Was nice to have an evening without the big winds.
 
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Fished from 7:00am until 2:30pm today. The whole time in the fog as it never lifted and was still in the outer Sooke basin when we came in!:confused:

Started out going west, across harbour mouth and down the bluffs in 70-90’ of water. Nothing at all along there except the usual plethora of five rockfish and two baby lings.:(

Turned east with the flood past Possession and the west side of secretary around the end of the island and down towards the Trap. Tried in 300’ of water for pinks but still nothing. When we got off the Trap noticed about 5 boats doing circles there. Not actually in tight like folks usually do but out a bit in 120-150’ of water. Joined the dance and finally had a hit around 10:30am on a small herring at 77’ and brought in a 10lb Chinook. Set all the gear at that depth and at 11:00am had a trembling hit and struck into something bigger for a change. After a good fight my wife netted a beauty 17lb chinook. :D

After that began to get pinks in the same area and boated three, lost about 6, including a double header and missed several hits. Got expensive on anchovies so switched to AP spoons and very small 3’’ herring and hooked a very nice coho (I think, because it got off near the boat) that fought well.

Finished the last hour going out to 350’ of water and began getting unclipped coho at 58’ on hootchies and little herring. Gave up after we released three or four.

Happy to have finally had two decent chinook and no point in catching and releasing 4lb coho after that!!;)
 
Well done Englishman. I wanted to take advantage of the benign currents and launch my kayak west of Sooke but I turned the truck around because of fog and fished Becher Bay instead. Only 1 hit which didn't stick but I enjoyed myself nevertheless. Got my exercise peddling the yak!
T2
 
anybody know were I can find the result for the Juan de Fucas fishing derby look everywhere for it even on coalition web site and nothing there help please

thank you
 
anybody know were I can find the result for the Juan de Fucas fishing derby look everywhere for it even on coalition web site and nothing there help please

thank you
It is here www.jdfderby.ca
but at the moment you cannot get to it because it gives the following message.
Bandwidth Limit Exceeded
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.

Probably at some poor technical location with too many restrictions for the use required. Money is tight these days!!
 
Trolled Otter today.... did the pass along three rocks..... and out to 200 along the drop off along the point. VERY LARGE Pinks in the area.... lots of fun for the kids. Not sure how many we hit... Hit one nice sized Wild Coho as well... let her go. One good Spring 18-20 pounds in tight to third rock. (60 feet)(51 feet on the rigger) Only out for 2 hours. Headed out for the day tomorrow... I understand afternoon fishing has been better than early AM... will report tomorrow.
On a side note....I find it funny to watch some guys wave and holler to get away when they are fighting the mighty Pink Salmon.. then the same guys troll within 20 yards when you are clearly fighting a nice Spring in tight to the rocks. LMFAO!
 
Looks like the next couple days will be blowing gale. Nice floods coming with big wind. We've been getting into a mixed bag of Springs, Pinks and Coho in a few locations. Yesterday we were in to tons of Pinks. Lost count trying to find the Springs. Today we were into mostly Pinks and a few wild Coho down from Secretary to Whirl Bay and ended up finding a smaller Spring around 12lbs or so that we released down there too while bucking the rip near Church. It started to really blow hard so we tucked in behind some cover to jig for awhile but decided to pack it in shortly after. Winds blew up to about 20 knots by the time we came in. Pink numbers sure are increasing over these past few days.
 
Good action at Otter again this AM... nice sized Spring up to 18 pounds.. (bagged 4 of them) .lost one that felt bigger. One clipped Coho... and countless Pink. Some Pink as high as 8-9 pounds..... loads of action for sure. Kids are having a ball! Crab traps stuffed to the brim with large Dungeness..!
 
Fished otter from daylight till 3 pm. Tons of pinks all day long and two coho. At 2pm we started hitting springs. Landed 4 and lost one. And lots of big crab; dungeness and rock. Wind was much calmer than the gov marine sight predicted for most of the time we were out but started to blow harder around 2 pm. (**Edit: we did also fish Gordons to Muir cr for a couple hours with just a couple pinks hooked there) My buddy with his springs and a nice pot of 8 keeper crab..20170815_203033.jpg Resized_SmartSelectImage_2017-08-17-19-18-18001.jpeg
 
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So fishing sooke for the first time has been a bit of an experience. Been a tough grind for springs for us. Tuesday trolled down to beach and saw peoplele getting pinks so thru in some sweets and had some fun. Wed my crew slept in and I went solo and trolled sounds O'Brian point where there was bait stacked up. The only other boat there was a charter guide without guests. He picked up his 2 spring prettyy quick and was gone. Today we trolled East again around trap shack and area. Few pinks and some undersized springs and lost the only decent spring we had all day. The tide rips and flood tide are a trip to me. Being on the water rigger lines looking great and the boat pretty much stationary or even losing ground is something I haven't seen before. Last go in morning before back to Van
 
May be a bit late to ask but if you had 5 hours to fish first thing in the morning where would you be setting up in hopes of some spring action
 
May be a bit late to ask but if you had 5 hours to fish first thing in the morning where would you be setting up in hopes of some spring action
Otter Point between 1st and 2nd rock or the Trap Shack, but Otter would be my 1st choice.
 
I'll see you there Morganic!
My son (6) just asked for the first time this year to go with me so I hope we have some action, not picky :)
He's held the rod and reeled a bit before but never cranked in one on his own so hopefully tomorrow is the day!
 
Took a day off Wednesday then we hit it yesterday. Tough one for us worked all day for 1 spring and that came late in the afternoon around 2:30 off Otter.
Today was much better. Started the morning at Otter it was slow for us some fish were caught but not by us. It got slow about 8:00 so we moved on down the beach a ways. Didn't take long by 10:30 we had our 4, well actually five, one small one about 5# we sent back. We had the double header on and landed both which was nice. Decent fish all between 12-22#. Then we went on a Pink hunt, hit Otter then on down to Donaldson. We had the light gear out again. I had the 9 weight fly rod out and with dummy flasher and coyote spoon on and wouldn't you know it we smashed a Spring out in the big rip. What a blast that was, the boy was on the rod. His arms were burning by the time we tailed it and set it free. 12-14# fish I would say, on a 9 weight loaded with 12# test mono lol, what a blast.

The 3rd pic is the Spring we landed with the fly rod.
 

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Out at first light with a buddy today. Before we even had gear down we battled through a snapped kicker bracket (thank god for safety chains) and lost steering on the boat. My buddy wanted to go right in & this was at 730 or so but I convinced him to tiller the 135 merc and make a pass and it was worth it. 24.3 red spring, fought like a *******! Nice consolation prize for an expensive day on the west coast.
 

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Well we arrived Wednesday afternoon and did a evening fish and just a few small springs 6lbs biggest off otter. Thursday hit otter/Muir first light a landed and lost about a dozen fish through out the morning all small biggest 7lbs running anchovie one side and skinny G and hootchie back and forth the other 45 and 55'. Then the boat trouble started lost our steering, wash down and downrigger started slipping. Went back to slip bled it and seemed fine. Evening fish to Aldridge was a bust couple shakers but fun ride back :) This morning hit otter/Muir first light and had a great morning lots of springs 7-15lbs running same gear and depths as yesterday. Fishing just started getting hot and lost our steering again so back to port. This time had a mechanic come down $1700 later new rear helm steering column, new wash down pump and new gears for downrigger so we're hoping to have a event free day tomorrow and Sunday. Fishing is great if I could stay on the water for longer lol. Special thanks to Wolf for helping out a Alberta buddy out big time!!! Good luck everyone. Purple flashers, needle fish style spoons and 40-60' seem to be the ticket.
 
GREAT bite for Springs off the Head this morning from about 8 am we limited out by 10
Lots of fish caught, ours were all in the mid to high teens.
We gotem at 40 - 80' Coyote spoons and Anchovy
Best bits we've seen in a few years.
Fish Tofino...you were right...they are moving in
 
Yep good bite just around 8 am out west as well. Picked up our 4 to 23 pounds and lost 4 more. The fish at the head were probably the ones that had been at Otter for a few days. Had a real good humpback show at the end of our trip. Breaching continuously, we left as it started coming our way...figured nah don't need to be in the news as another boat/whale collision.
 
Fished 6:45am until 2:00pm. Today was the inaugural sea trial of my brand new kicker, after three prior trips putting trolling hours on the main.:(

It worked out well, except I forgot about adjusting the tiller friction and so I could not use my vintage EZ steer and had to sit at the back of the boat to steer manually. :oops: But I digress…

We went to the same Trap vicinity area we visited Tuesday. At around 8:30am had a wobbling hit on a 4’’ herring in a regular anchovy teaser. Fish made a couple of decent runs for it’s size and turned into a nice 13lb chinook. :) So like the two posts above our action was around 8:00am but unlike those experts we could not contact any more fish except for one small pink. We did see a few caught though, which looked to be in mid-teens.

At 11:00am we ran out into deeper water to get some pinks and managed 5 on pink hootchies and little 3” herring in tiny teaser heads. Lost a few too.

Back at the ranch the chinook was marbled and the pinks were full of tiny transparent shrimps.:cool:
 
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