2019 Sooke Reports
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Stizzla
Crew Member
Thsnks man! There were some great members rooting me on this year and I’ve now caught my top 8 biggest fish to date in the last few months
fshnfnatic
Well-Known Member
Sounds like you guys had a solid trip there Stizz.Now you understand why we brave the harsher conditions on the outside.Not that you cant have good days in the Sidney area,but when it's good in Sooke waters,it's tough to beat.Hope to see you out there after Aug.1 for some real slaying and some serious real estate being taken up in your freezer! FFThsnks man! There were some great members rooting me on this year and I’ve now caught my top 8 biggest fish to date in the last few months
Englishman
Well-Known Member
The most incredible, amazing thing happened today. I caught a Tyee! My first ever!! But let me start at the beginning.
We went out at 7:15 am solely looking for pinks and we started opposite the Trailer Park. We had a couple of hits on pink hootchies and squirts but missed or lost them. Then nothing, then a flurry of activity when we brought the lures up to the 35’ and 40’ in 260’of water. Boated a couple of pinks then nothing for two hours.
Then set out for home and trolled by the Bluffs in 160’ of water, while eating lunch. At 84’ had a nice hit and after a surprisingly good fight landed a 7lb pink. The best of the day. Good, we have found the pinks again we thought.
Put the little pink hootchie down to 84’ and suddenly had a huge hit. The fish ran very hard down and away and I thought – must be a chinook. After a long haul to get it back to the boat I saw it in the water below and I could not believe it. My wife sat on the back near the swim platform and the fish came in relatively slowly and we netted and lifted it on to the swim platform. Please forgive me guys, I know you are not supposed to do this, but I have never landed such a huge fish before. We weighed it still in the net bag and took photos – I never touched it – it weighed 30lb and then we let it go and it swam down and away quite strongly. I was blown away.
Then we caught a couple more pinks. But unbelievably still further, we then had two more chinook in the same place but at 42’ using an Andrew P. spoon. One was in the mid twenties and one was a high teener.
So questions for the experts on this forum.
1) Why are so many chinooks off the bluffs in 160’ of water when there is no structure out there?
2) How come a 30lb fish hit a small pink hootchie, with a leader no more than 4’ long?
3) How come the chinook were spread through the water column such that the huge guy was at 84’ and the other two were are 42’?
4) How come the chinook were apparently hanging out with the pinks, in the same area?
All in all an incredible, never to be forgotten day!!
We went out at 7:15 am solely looking for pinks and we started opposite the Trailer Park. We had a couple of hits on pink hootchies and squirts but missed or lost them. Then nothing, then a flurry of activity when we brought the lures up to the 35’ and 40’ in 260’of water. Boated a couple of pinks then nothing for two hours.
Then set out for home and trolled by the Bluffs in 160’ of water, while eating lunch. At 84’ had a nice hit and after a surprisingly good fight landed a 7lb pink. The best of the day. Good, we have found the pinks again we thought.
Put the little pink hootchie down to 84’ and suddenly had a huge hit. The fish ran very hard down and away and I thought – must be a chinook. After a long haul to get it back to the boat I saw it in the water below and I could not believe it. My wife sat on the back near the swim platform and the fish came in relatively slowly and we netted and lifted it on to the swim platform. Please forgive me guys, I know you are not supposed to do this, but I have never landed such a huge fish before. We weighed it still in the net bag and took photos – I never touched it – it weighed 30lb and then we let it go and it swam down and away quite strongly. I was blown away.
Then we caught a couple more pinks. But unbelievably still further, we then had two more chinook in the same place but at 42’ using an Andrew P. spoon. One was in the mid twenties and one was a high teener.
So questions for the experts on this forum.
1) Why are so many chinooks off the bluffs in 160’ of water when there is no structure out there?
2) How come a 30lb fish hit a small pink hootchie, with a leader no more than 4’ long?
3) How come the chinook were spread through the water column such that the huge guy was at 84’ and the other two were are 42’?
4) How come the chinook were apparently hanging out with the pinks, in the same area?
All in all an incredible, never to be forgotten day!!
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wildmanyeah
Crew Member
Biggest chinook I caught last year was on a sockeye pink hootchy, they seem to like them.
Lots of chinook migrating past area 20 right now.
grats on a beautiful fish
Congrats Englishman. Very nice fish, you deserve it.
We took the boat out for our first trip/shake down cruise of the season. We were still getting things ship shape and putting the gear on the boat. I was thinking I will throw a rod in the boat and grabbed an old Shimano 4000 out of the drawer and Silver Spring brought his good rod and MR2. Turns out that Shimano reel was an absolute piece of crap. I think it was the one we once played a very large seal on and that seal destroyed that reel and it was warped with a very jerky drag and the drag was either off or locked up. We tried close inside on Possession Point but nothing, then went off shore and hit a few Pinks and then trolled in. We had almost no gear and fished a glow hootchie and a Skinny G spoon.
In about 160 feet of water at 1:30 pm Silver Spring says look at that bait on the surface so we turned around, brought the gear up from 80 feet to 40 feet and as soon as we were over it we hit our first Chinook. Played it up to the boat and did a gaff release, guesstimated around 19 or 20lbs. Between 1:30 and 3:30 pm we circled that 100 yard area and played 11 hard pulling pounding Chinook all of them 18lbs and up into the lower 20's. The Skinny G spoon kept bending the hook out on the hard fighting Chinook and since it was our only spoon we kept having to bend it back between fish.
I did have one real hog on that ran forever and eventually threw the hook I would like to think was in the upper twenties or so but we never got a good look at it. We did not weigh or net any and got lots of practice with the gaff release.
Playing all those hard pulling Chinook in a two hour window on a reel that would not turn true and pounded against my hand and had almost no drag was interesting. Got knuckle dusted, jammed a nail up and got friction burns and some small bruises from palming that piece of crap. We had two double headers, one right at 3:30 when we had to go in for a dinner appointment. I think if we had stayed another 2 hours on that spot we would have got a similar number of hard pounding Chinook. JDF seems to be loaded up with good Chinook. So what happened to the Chinook shortage? I made a point of not looking for clipped fins because if there had been a lot of them it would have just raised my blood pressure. Next time I am taking the MR3.
Got some great pictures and video my buddy email attached to me from his cell phone, but they don't seem to want to attach and work here.
We took the boat out for our first trip/shake down cruise of the season. We were still getting things ship shape and putting the gear on the boat. I was thinking I will throw a rod in the boat and grabbed an old Shimano 4000 out of the drawer and Silver Spring brought his good rod and MR2. Turns out that Shimano reel was an absolute piece of crap. I think it was the one we once played a very large seal on and that seal destroyed that reel and it was warped with a very jerky drag and the drag was either off or locked up. We tried close inside on Possession Point but nothing, then went off shore and hit a few Pinks and then trolled in. We had almost no gear and fished a glow hootchie and a Skinny G spoon.
In about 160 feet of water at 1:30 pm Silver Spring says look at that bait on the surface so we turned around, brought the gear up from 80 feet to 40 feet and as soon as we were over it we hit our first Chinook. Played it up to the boat and did a gaff release, guesstimated around 19 or 20lbs. Between 1:30 and 3:30 pm we circled that 100 yard area and played 11 hard pulling pounding Chinook all of them 18lbs and up into the lower 20's. The Skinny G spoon kept bending the hook out on the hard fighting Chinook and since it was our only spoon we kept having to bend it back between fish.
I did have one real hog on that ran forever and eventually threw the hook I would like to think was in the upper twenties or so but we never got a good look at it. We did not weigh or net any and got lots of practice with the gaff release.
Playing all those hard pulling Chinook in a two hour window on a reel that would not turn true and pounded against my hand and had almost no drag was interesting. Got knuckle dusted, jammed a nail up and got friction burns and some small bruises from palming that piece of crap. We had two double headers, one right at 3:30 when we had to go in for a dinner appointment. I think if we had stayed another 2 hours on that spot we would have got a similar number of hard pounding Chinook. JDF seems to be loaded up with good Chinook. So what happened to the Chinook shortage? I made a point of not looking for clipped fins because if there had been a lot of them it would have just raised my blood pressure. Next time I am taking the MR3.
Got some great pictures and video my buddy email attached to me from his cell phone, but they don't seem to want to attach and work here.
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Englishman
Well-Known Member
Congrats to you too Rockfish. Looks like you hit the chinook at more or less exactly the same depth of water, and around the same time (after noon ) as us. (We left at 2:30pm). What they were all doing there I do not know. We saw very few murres or gulls, yet there must have been bait to congregate so many chinook in apparently blank, unstructured water......
That seal battle was a few years ago and it was one huge bruiser. Normally when you have them on they are just holding onto a salmon till they can get some slack and then bite off the head or the line breaks. That one got itself hooked down in deeper water and for a while we did not know what we had. I think it may have actually gone after our Anchovy. It had an unbelievable amount of power and weight and both my buddy and myself had beat up hands from playing it. I am not surprised it destroyed the reel. Once we knew it was a seal it then climbed up on the rocks and all we could do was point the rod tip at it and power the boat away until the line broke close to the flasher. My mistake was putting that reel back in the reel drawer instead of inspecting and trashing or salvaging parts off it.
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kingspring
Active Member
Hell of a pile of fish out there!!
Good job, you deserve what you catch
Good job, you deserve what you catch
The most incredible, amazing thing happened today. I caught a Tyee! My first ever!! But let me start at the beginning.
We went out at 7:15 am solely looking for pinks and we started opposite the Trailer Park. We had a couple of hits on pink hootchies and squirts but missed or lost them. Then nothing, then a flurry of activity when we brought the lures up to the 35’ and 40’ in 260’of water. Boated a couple of pinks then nothing for two hours.
Then set out for home and trolled by the Bluffs in 160’ of water, while eating lunch. At 84’ had a nice hit and after a surprisingly good fight landed a 7lb pink. The best of the day. Good, we have found the pinks again we thought.
Put the little pink hootchie down to 84’ and suddenly had a huge hit. The fish ran very hard down and away and I thought – must be a chinook. After a long haul to get it back to the boat I saw it in the water below and I could not believe it. My wife sat on the back near the swim platform and the fish came in relatively slowly and we netted and lifted it on to the swim platform. Please forgive me guys, I know you are not supposed to do this, but I have never landed such a huge fish before. We weighed it still in the net bag and took photos – I never touched it – it weighed 30lb and then we let it go and it swam down and away quite strongly. I was blown away.
Then we caught a couple more pinks. But unbelievably still further, we then had two more chinook in the same place but at 42’ using an Andrew P. spoon. One was in the mid twenties and one was a high teener.
So questions for the experts on this forum.
1) Why are so many chinooks off the bluffs in 160’ of water when there is no structure out there?
2) How come a 30lb fish hit a small pink hootchie, with a leader no more than 4’ long?
3) How come the chinook were spread through the water column such that the huge guy was at 84’ and the other two were are 42’?
4) How come the chinook were apparently hanging out with the pinks, in the same area?
All in all an incredible, never to be forgotten day!!
silver spring
Well-Known Member
Congratulations on your Tyee, Englishman! That must have been quite the battle! As Rockfish, stated, we had a remarkable afternoon on the water between 1:30 - 4pm where we hooked in to 11 springs. We lost our biggest two fish when one of my screamers straightened out my Skinny G hook and Rockfish lost his largest when his less than perfect reel couldn't keep up to the power and velocity of the fish that was screaming out line! Here are a few pictures of a couple of the fish. We released them all safely in the water at the side of the boat!
prettyboyfloyd
Active Member
We had a sub par day last Friday early morning trip after half dozen great days this year. Started at Aldridge and eventually ran to possession and hit a couple chinooks 10 and 12 pounds.
Then something very strange happened and I am hoping for some comments. We were in 150 feet off the mouth of sooke and got a good pounding on rod at 33 ft. Took a good run about 200 ft and then just sat there like a parked car. Then took another 200 ft and sat there so we headed towards it at speed but never really retrieved any line which was close to spooled . Suddenly It came off and we got it back to the boat with a small piece of evidence attached to hook.. pic below. Could this have been a monster spring? A halibut? Or porpoise/seal? My buddy has played 1000’s of springs and a handful of seals but this acted like nothing he has ever felt. Easily over 40 pounds.
Then something very strange happened and I am hoping for some comments. We were in 150 feet off the mouth of sooke and got a good pounding on rod at 33 ft. Took a good run about 200 ft and then just sat there like a parked car. Then took another 200 ft and sat there so we headed towards it at speed but never really retrieved any line which was close to spooled . Suddenly It came off and we got it back to the boat with a small piece of evidence attached to hook.. pic below. Could this have been a monster spring? A halibut? Or porpoise/seal? My buddy has played 1000’s of springs and a handful of seals but this acted like nothing he has ever felt. Easily over 40 pounds.
scott craven
Well-Known Member
Looks like part of a Spring 's gill plate
may have been hooked on the outside and tore a piece off ?
may have been hooked on the outside and tore a piece off ?
Could have been a sea lion. I had it happen twice last year in Sooke to me. First was in 160 ft it went straight to the bottom before I could cut it off and just sat there until my main line frayed and snapped. No moving that thing at all. Second was out deep my line just started peeling he just came up a 100ft behind with my coho in his mouth luckily the hook popped out on that one. Those things are huge compared to a seal, you won’t move it.
prettyboyfloyd
Active Member
Thanks.
prettyboyfloyd
Active Member
How long can they stay underwater? This never surfaced for an easy 5 minutes...
wolf
Well-Known Member
it was a seal what they do is grab the fish you caught by the head use there front flipper to "peel" the head off leaving with what you got . i have experienced it ALOT lol i have been whapped 3 times already this year with pinks buggers.... Trap shack and Poseidon are bad spots for it. alot of time you never ever see the damn seal they are getting very well trained at this.
Now for today what a awesome sunny day and good fishing pinks, springs weather and was so good to see some faces I have yet to see out , Tips up, Spring velocity and a few others lots of boats and activity was great to see. lots of smiling faces at the marina people catching fish and kids especially.....
Good luck Wolf
Now for today what a awesome sunny day and good fishing pinks, springs weather and was so good to see some faces I have yet to see out , Tips up, Spring velocity and a few others lots of boats and activity was great to see. lots of smiling faces at the marina people catching fish and kids especially.....
Good luck Wolf
Gear'n'beer!
Well-Known Member
Take a kid fishing pink salmon festival today......good turn out and very well run event. Thanks to all the other skippers who volunteered!
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