Well another one is in the books. We got back last night. We stayed 4 nights and fished 4.5 days. We were a party of 2 guys and ended up 2 short on springs 1 short on coho. We had to work hard to find our fish and the weather wasn't great which limited our options a little bit. We arrived at Midnight in Coal Harbour and slept in the boat on the trailer until 4am. We launched at about 5 and headed for Kains. 2 hours at Kains didn't produce so we moved on to Grant's and ended up with a 21lb spring and a 10lb spring. That was it for the day. We talked about anchoring up but we were tired and it was early in the trip so we headed in to get set up. Winter Harbour was great and accomodating as always. It really is such a great place. People aren't pretentious, you can wander around with a beer in your hand meeting new people, checking out other peoples boats and setups. Most people are willing to share info freely etc. Friday night was rib night at Be More Pacific but unfortunately you had to let her know a day ahead of time and she only does it once a week. When I seemed dissapointed she asked what I'd like and what day I'd like it. I said a steak dinner would be great and she said no problem so she made us a nice steak dinner for Sunday night. Such a nice lady. She went out of her way for us and we appreciated it. Back to fishing:
Day 2: This was our weather window day. Up early and off to Brooks. This was our first day to Lawn Point and beyond. We were trying to find some terrain that would get us hali and lings at the same time on the achor. Mike picked a pretty good spot that I think should produce both but we missed the our target by a few hundred feet. It took a little longer than we'd expected but about 3 hours later we each had our hali. We pulled the hook and moved on to lings. We tried a few rock piles and back trolled up our lings very quickly. Nice eaters but nothing very big. The yelloweye population is insane out there and we caught some real monsters. They really are a nuisance when bottom fishing. All fish were released with our Seaquilizer. It works well and we didn't see any floaters I just hope that they survive. I have my doubts. Does anyone have any tips to avoid them? While bottom fishing we noticed coho jumping so once we had our white meat we started trolling toward the highway. It took awhile to find hatchery fish but we eventually got our 4 coho. Once out on the ledge we were able to find 3 springs. The fish are normally smaller offshore anyways but the 80cm limit sure makes things tough.
Day 3: A little rougher day but we decided to try and finish our bottom fish limits. We found a spot that looked good a few miles off Kains and dropped the hook. After 3 hours of nothing but a few yelloweye we pulled the pin and moved on to salmon. We trolled towards the ledge and ended up with 3 coho to show for it. If anyone here can offer some tips on fishing "The Highway" it would be appreciated. I understand the concept of the fish travelling along that ledge I just don't understand exactly where to fish ie contour curves, structure etc. I think our other mistake is fishing to shallow. We fished between 85' and 165' feet. I think guys may be fishing a lot deeper.
Day 4: We decided to concentrate on finding our last 3 springs in the morning and then see what kind of time is left in the day. We left the dock at 4am and had gear in the water at Grant's by 5. We had the place to ourselves for quite some time but we couldn't find anything. It was very discouraging. We saw a few guys net fish which made us even more frustrated. After hours of nothing we started trolling out towards the highway. I dropped my gear to bottom in about 180' and it immediately paid off with a 75cm chicken hali. Mike followed suite and picked up his as well. At least we know the gear still works. Time to switch gears. We pulled the rods and moved up to the humps out front of Grant's ad back trolled for Lings. We picked up 3 in a pretty short order. I still needed one Ling and I wanted to try somewhere new so we moved south and found a few choice spots just beyond the approaches. I eventually hooked onto a nice legal size ling which promptly attracted the attention of something much bigger on the reef. It was a good battle getting it to the surface between the fish getting under the boat, building weather etc. I was rewarded with this beauty and the smaller one was freed to swim away.
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We finished the day with a troll by Gooding and Harvey. 1 small hit and that was it.
Day 5 : Up at 3 am again and at Kains with gear in the water by 4:30. We fished tight to the kelp fishing a green splatter back hootchie on one side and a Skinny G herring aid on the other. We noticed a ton of bait stacked up at the outside edge of Kains along the kelp and so we really worked that area. I had a freight train on that I just could not slow down. We tried turning away from shore to get as far as possible from the kelp but there was nothing I could do. That fish would not let me turn him around. After what felt like a long battle and my arms were sore I started to retrieve some line but I could feel my line rubbing the kelp on the retrieve. It was a slow and steady game until the fish changed its mine. One last run and broke the leader off. Dissapointing but I don't think there was too much I could have done differently. Back to working the kelp beds. Next pass the hootchie got hammered again. This time we got the boat away from the kelp a little quicker and after a long tiring battle Mike being the better fisherman was able to bring an honest 32lb fish to the boat (40"L x 25" Girth). Despite the precariously hooked fish which made netting a challenge we brought it on board. One more good hit after that and then as boats showed up things slowed down. Oddly we had our biggest action 2 hours before tide change. After that it was quiet.
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That's our trip for the year. Can't wait to get back to WH next year.
Good luck to those with upcoming trips planned it's a pretty special place.
Brian
