2023 Sooke Reports

[Englishman]

Beauty Fall day on the water. We counted at least 100 boats out there, all spread out between Beechy and Otter, and all at various depths with a few small “clusters”.

Unfortunately it was the slowest early October day we have experienced. Lines in the water at 8:00am and we trolled back and forth between 250’ and 550’ of water, sometimes with “the gang” and sometimes on our own. Fished hootchies behind dodgers between 45’ and 65’ like Profisher and others reported last week.

Between our 8:00am start and 10:00am we had just 3 hits and they were impossible to hit. There was no warning bounce; just sprang off the clip in one go and by the time I reached the rod they were gone.

Decided to drop one lure to 85’ and finally just after 10:00am made contact with a conventional hit and boated a little unclipped of 5lb. We knew it was not going to be a good day, so we kept it.

Another hour went by with another two missed hits. Tried a flasher/ herring spoon combo for 30 minutes but nothing on that at all. Replaced that with a dodger/hootchie again and dropped to 100’ and made contact once more and brought a second 5lb unclipped to the boat.

That was all we had except for one long line release just as we were packing up after lunch. I though it must be the rain last week chasing them away, but there are two posts above for yesterday and it appears to have been great.

At the Sunny Shores dock another guy said it was dead slow for them as well, with a few impossible hits like ours. They released just 6 unclipped as they were all too small. So I don’t think it was just us!!

 

[Mozart]

Fished from 10:30 to 5:00. Tripped from trap to whirl bay. Nothing but shaker spring. Picked up went back to the head trolled to whirl bay. More shakers. We were trolling between 350-450’. With DR between 30-65’
Trolled our way back into the bay picked up two coho. It’s a big difference compared to yesterday.
Wind is cold today too.

 

[eroyd]

Went out from Cheanuh for an afternoon outing on a gorgeous fall day. Primary goal was to see whales. Stopped just outside the marina off Fraser Island to get my gear ready and a Humpback blows just 30m behind the boat dives and comes up under a group of sea birds stealing their bait ball in one big mouth full. Mission one complete.
Fished outside in, out and around clusters of boats sitting static against the tide. Several small shakers and only four solid hits, none pinned. Another group of whales.
Thought it was kind of slow for this time of years but there seemed to be a fair number of fish at the cleaning station.

 

[kingspring]

Left Sooke harbour and dropped gear at the 450. Released a 7lb wild as the sun came up.
Fished out to the 650 then towards Beechy then as the current changed fished west.
Released several more wilds then hit and kept a 10lb wild at 77.

No clipped for us and rounded up the day with one of my biggest coho ever at 91 ft, 13 ish.
Beauty day, very grateful for our fish today.

 

[chris73]

Great fishing in the afternoon flood in front of Secretary. Several double headers, mostly shallow around 30' on the rigger. Biggest was a wild around 10# but also found two nice clipped of 6 and 7#.

 

[Fishin]

Fished 9-3 yesterday picked up 2 right away went quiet would hit a few here and there wasn’t hot but had 12 to the boat homemade fly behind a red flasher and green flasher with a hootchie were the ticket for us trolled west away from the pack finished the day at the head only picking up one there. 30-65’ on the riggers 350’ out to the 450’ mark of water.

 

[2xeagle16]

Anyone have info on the coho derby results?

 

[Fishin]

Anyone have info on the coho derby results?

(Off the cheanuh marina fishing report Facebook group)

Gary Fletcher won the coho derby with 12.5lb $4790 with side bet.
Darren Edward won the hidden weight prize 11.6lb
Thanks for coming out every1 it was a gooder

 

[Doug]

We fished the Otter Point area yesterday but got a late start due to the captain got stuck in the elevator for an hour.
Depart downtown at 715 and arrived at otter point around 815. Flat calm and no fog and lots and lots of boats from Beecher bay to Otter Point. Not much action until 930 which lasted until 1030 and dead again. Managed to get 3 wild and one clipped and let go about 4 fish. All the fish were caught at 50 ft on the DR and on alligator or glow white squirts, in 350 ft of water. The fish only were biting on the tide change. Bonus, we got 4 nice hard crabs.

 

[Grant_J]

Went out from Cheanuh for an afternoon outing on a gorgeous fall day. Primary goal was to see whales. Stopped just outside the marina off Fraser Island to get my gear ready and a Humpback blows just 30m behind the boat dives and comes up under a group of sea birds stealing their bait ball in one big mouth full. Mission one complete.
Fished outside in, out and around clusters of boats sitting static against the tide. Several small shakers and only four solid hits, none pinned. Another group of whales.
Thought it was kind of slow for this time of years but there seemed to be a fair number of fish at the cleaning station.

So we had a rather eventful encounter Sunday with what was likely the same Humpback. We were trolling Westward in front of Beechey Head in about 300' when my wife noticed a Humpback behind us but inbetween us and the shore, maybe 500m away or so. A couple of minutes later WHAMO and one of my reels starts letting out line like I've never seen in my life. I didn't think it could spin that fast and I swore it was going to catch on fire and start smoking. I had no idea what was happening. There were no boats behind us, the depth hadn't changed, and I wasn't out that deep so it's not like I had caught up on something on the bottom and besides, I've got hung up on stuff before and it never ever pulled line out like that. I made a half attempt to grab the rod but thought better. I killed our kicker and just watched the line continue to go out like it was tied to a rocket until it was almost out of line entirely. Then all of a sudden it went slack, and then not far off the whale breached over on the other side of us, so it had swam past perpendicularly behind us, I assume right into my line. I can only imagine it somehow hit my line and took it for a ride, or perhaps the hook snagged on the whale somewhere? After reeling for what seemed like forever I got everything back intact, no gear lost. What an experience.

 

[tigerprawn]

Wow can’t believe what some idiots will do the Sooke River Estuary.
This is a huge stress fracture on migrating salmon. Bad enough all the seals and sea lions

 

[sweettjim]

Left Sooke harbour and dropped gear at the 450. Released a 7lb wild as the sun came up.
Fished out to the 650 then towards Beechy then as the current changed fished west.
Released several more wilds then hit and kept a 10lb wild at 77.

No clipped for us and rounded up the day with one of my biggest coho ever at 91 ft, 13 ish.
Beauty day, very grateful for our fish today.

nice size coho

 

[habberdasher]

Out 10:30 -3:30 nice hatch right off the bat in 300 ft off Church then a very long quiet time then from about 2 on three more cohos ended with two hatch and two wild.
AP spoon was Three and Coho killer one

 

[Fishin]

Out 10:30 -3:30 nice hatch right off the bat in 300 ft off Church then a very long quiet time then from about 2 on three more cohos ended with two hatch and two wild.
AP spoon was Three and Coho killer one

Bottom fish looks like a chinook to me, great day on the water nonetheless!

 

[N2013]

100p.

 

[habberdasher]

Bottom fish looks like a chinook to me, great day on the water nonetheless!

Thanks having caught it in 350 feet and forty feet on the rigger I just assumed it was a Coho next time I will take a better look

 

[kingspring]

Forked tail, cookie cutter to other coho in size though!

 

[N2013]

Still lots around off Secretary. Picked up a few between 845-1045. White hootchies around 65 & 55 for us. 450’ of water. Fast.

Thx to @gon fishin for a quick repair of a couple chipped eyelets in my Technium. Wasn’t looking forward to using my backup rod

 

[Doug]

Two of us, fished today from 7 to 815 at Albert Head area and got one small, clipped Coho that was bleeding out so we kept it.

Picked up and move to west of Race Rocks and closer to Beecher Bay and fishing 845 to noon. We were fishing in 450 ft of water and 50 ft on the DR and using glow white squirts.

Ended up with 2 nice size wild and 5 clipped and let go 20+ wild. Most of our action was from 845 to 1115. Then the tide flow became to fast and the fish stopped biting so we packed it in.

 

[Allbay]

Made it out Monday from 9:15-13:00. Had about a dozen on and kept three wild and two hatchery. Two double headers, one of which we got both to finish the day strong, which was awesome! Fished 350-500’ near Secretary. Small spoons and 50-70’ on the riggers worked for us. Boys are getting good at gutting the fish.