2023 Nootka Sound/Esperanza Inlet Reports

[Trophy 2000]

Just got back from a week at Nootka. Stayed at Moucha Bay and its outstanding as usual. Got there Sat Aug 12th by noonish. Set up camp and in the water by 3pm fishing was lights out in the bay. Had 4 in the box by 4pm. 51 fish to the boat by the end of Tuesday. 3.5 days of fishing in the bay cost me less than a 1/4 tank of gas. Fished mostly spoons. The 3” hearing aid and cop car hit and run was the bomb at 87’ on the DR. Now that we’re limited out on Springs what to do. Wednesday we decided to go to the lighthouse as the the weather called for calm seas…Not. We started at Friendly trolling a green flasher with green flash fly and white flasher with white/ghost flash fly at 49 and 59 ft deep and had 3 springs ( 27,25,24 all released) by the time we got to the Monument. From there we stayed in 60ft of water all the way to Maquinna and hit 4 more spring and 2 wild coho. Then we swung out deeper and back to the lighthouse before the wind picked up. Final tally was 11 spring for the day and 7 coho in the box with at least 20 to the boat. It was a wild coho fest and struggled to find hatchery ones. The weather for Thursday didn’t look good but we decided to hit the lighthouse again. Turns out it was bumpy but not as much as the day before. Fished till 4pm and managed 5 springs to the boat and all 8 cohos were hatchery.
All in all best trip ever for #’s and size. I never knew releasing chinook’s was such a chore.
Unfortunately no bottom fishing this year dew to weather.

I was there pretty much the same time as you and stayed at Moutcha and left on Aug 14. Yes was crazy fishing in the bay when the bite came on in the morning and evening with multi double and triple headers . Looking around and everyone was playing fish but noticed bite was short and sweet .Glad you had a great trip .

 

[BDog Fisher]

I scanned through the last month reports, did not see much reports on if the chinooks arrived on the inside of Esperanza? Rosa Bay, etc? I like to track things for future trip planning. It was an offshore show from the sounds of it?

 

[Drewski Canuck]

Is there another commercial opening for Moutcha Bay planned? Apparently only one opening so far. Anyone know how the commercial guys made out on their opening?

Drewski

 

[Redfisher]

Just back from 4 days at Kyuquot. Excellent trip for us. Lots of coho in shore so fished them on light rods and bare spoons amongst the rock piles. Whitefish and springs out on the highway. Long runs for the lodge guys. Found some nice springs onshore amongst the rocks. They were a bonus, still feeding and very feisty. Even found some nice Hali’s out on the bumps. Weather was great and it was nice to not be around many boats. Nice way to end my salmon season. Still a tough road though, 2 1/2 hours to highway and some nasty washboard.

 

[nootkaassassin]

Left the dock yesterday morning at 7am with my Mom and Dad. This was there first trip together this summer. The sky was clear of smoke and the water looked great, so we headed outside too chase some Coho.
Down Zuciarte Channel we go and 22 min later Dad spots a couple jumpers so I decided to start to deploy the gear. Before I get the second rod out Mom starts yelling WooWoo Fish On… I Yelled back your the Captain you get the first fish. We’ll for the next hour it was Mom and Dad taking turns playing fish.We would only hook up 1 way and it was full of bull kelp and weed. Mom was the captain and did a great job at the wheel navigating through the land mines.

About a 45 min later Dad was playing a fish and I noticed about 9 or so huge aluminum boats on some sort of formation travelling down the channel right past us. I hadn’t recognized any of these boats before but was very impressive sight. They all past bye and stopped at discovery and started circling the wagon.

It was my turn on the rods now and I might have been a bit rusty as I couldn’t get any too the boat. Even a double header and came up short,after all the heckling and some help from Dad I was able to redeem myself. I wasn’t done for the day just yet even though the fish bin was.

I convinced Captain Mom to troll towards the boat parade at Discovery, maybe we will hit a spring or 2 on the way.Well 15 min later Mom trolls through the pack of North River boats from Moutcha and they look to be 35-36 footers I am not sure but pretty dam big vessels and Mike Mitchels big red rig was in the parade too.We didn’t get a invitation so we packed up and headed home.
All fish where caught on flash flys at 35-65feet.



Smokey Sky




Military Patrol Boat

 

[Fishtech1]

Thanks for the report guys. Headed up early tomorrow for the week.

 

[donnie d]

Left the dock yesterday morning at 7am with my Mom and Dad. This was there first trip together this summer. The sky was clear of smoke and the water looked great, so we headed outside too chase some Coho.
Down Zuciarte Channel we go and 22 min later Dad spots a couple jumpers so I decided to start to deploy the gear. Before I get the second rod out Mom starts yelling WooWoo Fish On… I Yelled back your the Captain you get the first fish. We’ll for the next hour it was Mom and Dad taking turns playing fish.We would only hook up 1 way and it was full of bull kelp and weed. Mom was the captain and did a great job at the wheel navigating through the land mines.

About a 45 min later Dad was playing a fish and I noticed about 9 or so huge aluminum boats on some sort of formation travelling down the channel right past us. I hadn’t recognized any of these boats before but was very impressive sight. They all past bye and stopped at discovery and started circling the wagon.

It was my turn on the rods now and I might have been a bit rusty as I couldn’t get any too the boat. Even a double header and came up short,after all the heckling and some help from Dad I was able to redeem myself. I wasn’t done for the day just yet even though the fish bin was.

I convinced Captain Mom to troll towards the boat parade at Discovery, maybe we will hit a spring or 2 on the way.Well 15 min later Mom trolls through the pack of North River boats from Moutcha and they look to be 35-36 footers I am not sure but pretty dam big vessels and Mike Mitchels big red rig was in the parade too.We didn’t get a invitation so we packed up and headed home.
All fish where caught on flash flys at 35-65feet.
View attachment 97182
View attachment 97183

Smokey Sky

View attachment 97184


Military Patrol Boat

View attachment 97185

Rates up 260% at Moutcha to pay for their $5M investment in those North Rivers. Beautiful boats, but Moutcha doesn’t make a lot of sense for me anymore.

 

[nootkaassassin]

Rates up 260% at Moutcha to pay for their $5M investment in those North Rivers. Beautiful boats, but Moutcha doesn’t make a lot of sense for me anymore.

Yeah weird I never encountered any of these new boats this summer until now. I assume they were tied up all summer out at Newton cove? I fished around a few of there guided Grady’s and seen a few older tin rental boats around. Their dock at Nootka Sound Resort was full of Grady’s sitting idle most days.

Just checked there site to confirm rates “WOW”

 

[littlechucky]

Yeah weird I never encountered any of these new boats this summer until now. I assume they were tied up all summer out at Newton cove? I fished around a few of there guided Grady’s and seen a few older tin rental boats around. Their dock at Nootka Sound Resort was full of Grady’s sitting idle most days.

Just checked there site to confirm rates “WOW”

bring your own boat to Nootka Sound Resort Was $400 per person in 2021…$850 this year. No thanks.

Hardly much difference vs guided. Makes no sense.

 

[Eden Island]

Overnight moorage at Moutcha Bay is $55 for 24' slip and $66 for 32' slip. $30 ramp fee to launch and retrieve. Plus tax.

 

[chille51]

I was shocked at the bill for fish processing at Moutcha this year. Asked the girl "did the price go up?" and she said "yeah, everything did". Probably my last year there as well, now that I've got my own boat.

 

[pescador]

Yeah weird I never encountered any of these new boats this summer until now. I assume they were tied up all summer out at Newton cove? I fished around a few of there guided Grady’s and seen a few older tin rental boats around. Their dock at Nootka Sound Resort was full of Grady’s sitting idle most days.

Just checked there site to confirm rates “WOW”

That'll just promote the other places to increase their prices too. I have always been shocked at Moutcha Bays facilities. It's really world class in an area that just cant sustain it. Those new 30ft plus Alu boats are set up to perfection. Only the best of the best gear on them.

 

[donnie d]

Yeah weird I never encountered any of these new boats this summer until now. I assume they were tied up all summer out at Newton cove? I fished around a few of there guided Grady’s and seen a few older tin rental boats around. Their dock at Nootka Sound Resort was full of Grady’s sitting idle most days.

Just checked there site to confirm rates “WOW”

Crazy huh. I paid 399/night this summer, but I booked 2 years ago. Now the same room is 1049/night.

Those NR boats are insane. It’s like a school bus in there, 9 or 10 seats with shockwaves for each seat. They were all tied up at Moutcha when I was there July 29-Aug 2, but they all took off the night of the 1st. Presumed Newton.

 

[nootkaassassin]

Saturday morning headed back out to find some feisty Coho. Apparently we need some for the canner now so we left the dock at 7 with Mom and Dad. Deployed the gear in the same spot as last time out (Red Light) and this time around we decided to fish the exact flasher and fly combos.The only difference was a slight variation in the fly heads and bead color and depth 30/60 feet in 400 feet water. Action was steady and no real big difference between the 2 setups with the coho slightly bigger this time.

Exact flasher’s just 1 flipped over






This morning we left the dock just after 7 and headed back too the honey hole with basically the same flys I used all summer with the same results.

Oddly enough of the 25-30 fish we had on, landed or lost in 2 days where all hooked up trolling against the current accept 1 fish.

 

[Dano3232]

This is Super late, but its slow at work today and with all the help i had from everyone on this group figured id do up a quick trip recap.
First Ocean trip with the new boat, pulled it out from Edmonton with the family. we were there for a wedding, so what better time to add some "bent rod time". We fished both Nootka sound and then French Creek.
Half the fun is getting there lol. (Probably wont do a haul over on the ferry again, I will fish from Vancouver side or do Kitimat or PR)
Aug 22-25 - Nootka Sound ( Stayed at Critter cove ). We did the 45min run up the channel from Gold River.... beautiful run!

We dropped off the gear and hit the "Wall".... 10min in, double header, into the bucket, My son built the bonker...lol. We decided to run down to Moutcha to process and fuel top up. My 8 year old sons first "chinook"




The second day was SLOW, we just could not dial anything in. We did wrap our downrigger line around the 9.9 prop lol( Good thing for two motors). We ducked into friendly cove and moored up to get that fixed. Back to fishing within 10min.

The third day we got back into the chinooks, Picture of my son fighting a "teen"


We left Nootka with such great memories and sore arms lol.
We then went back to the East side of the island, we continued to fish where i could between "my duties for the wedding". I got my daughter into a couple fish, and it was great to see them working together to net and fight a fish (Daughter loved be the netter, probably because i told here, ..."its the most important job") the rest of the photos are from French Creek. Coho, and pinks mostly.
Such a Great Trip. Even go the groom his very first FISH ever lol, only took him 38 years.
Next year (2024) will either be Kitimat (Stay at Bishop Bay hotsprings and rough it, OR Work channel and stay at Victory Cove)
Thank again to everyone that helped me out with tips and tricks.

Happy New Year to all, and Tight lines in 2024

Dano3232