Port Hardy / Winter Harbour / North Island Report - Spring and Summer 2011

ouch heavy...hope you're ok...sure you must of had my gf as your server at sportys then one of the nights haha How'd she do :D haha And that hook is hard enough to get out of fish, nevermind a hand...the barb is wannabe pinched
 
This deserves it's own thread, "200 lb'er in Weighed in Port Hardy", "Catch and Release at the Quarterdeck", "Foul Hooked"?
 
The season ended for us on Sun. We were at Winter Harbour for 3 days and then brought the boat home. Fishing was real good and the water perfect. We got our limit of springs, coho and lings. I could not find a hali to save my life!!! The coho fishing was spotty and the fish were smaller than years past. We did find some much bigger coho in Grants Bay right up against the shoreline between the beach and Lippy Point.We were fishing in 40-60 ft of water and running the lines 15 and 25 ft deep. We also got two nice springs in there, one close to 30 and the other 25 . they were both at 15 feet deep.The coho in there were 12-16 lbs and lots of them on Sun AM.The biggest coho of the trip was 16 lbs and was a hatchery fish,biggest one I have caught. We also ran down to Lawn point to bottom fish on sat.We quit after getting our limit of yellow-eye as they do not release well. I wish everyone would do the same, we saw a number of them floating by during the afternoon, looks terrible.
On the way back from Lawn the water was smooth and almost flat. As we were headed home I heard a very loud thump as if I had hit a log. I shut down the throttles and looked back to see what I had hit. Their was a hughe patch of red in the wake and two halves of a shark,poor batstard was cut in half. The amouint of blood was surprising. Good luck to everyone headed out
 
I hit a salmon shark off Bamfield quite a few years ago. Big BANG, outboard kicked up, scared the hell out of me. When I realized I had not lost power, I swung back ro see what I had hit. Bit chunk out of the sharks head, bleeding and slowly sinking. I estimated it was at least 7 ft. Took a big amount of paint off the gear housing, but no damage to the prop.
 
Busterbrown, maye we passed you as you were leaving Grants Bay? We were in a Boston Whaler. Fished Kains at first light Sunday morn for Springs, and had no luck. Trolled up to Grants and saw a white crusier with a blue top? just leaving there heading for Kains. We never caught a cohoe over 10 lbs that morning, lucky you, as you probabily caught all of them just before we got there, lol,. If, indeed that was you, sorry we didn't get to say hello.
 
Heavyc, did not fish Cliffe, however did see one boat fishing there Sat nite just at dusk, as I was running into WH from Coal Harbour. ..........BB
 
Just got back from WH had a great time- fishing was spotty but rewarding at times. Sunday night right at dark picked up a 31 at cliffe point on a chovie at 30 ft in 37ft of water. Some nice coho around. Made the mistake of going seaward mon morning-very spotty to slow-picked up a teener spring and some reasonable coho-but sloow.One Hali-trolling deep. Worked around Mcallister and cliffe rest of mon. but couldn't seem to generate anything but the occaisonal bite. Worked cliffe late that night few promising hits-coho-no springs. Tues morning very early at cliffe 2 very quick springs-26 and 27 then it died-Burned gas-then decided to find coho-found a few at Mahatta but really got into them at Koprino. Prawns were good as was crab. I think a double glow green hootchie outfished chovies. Have never seen it before but got 4 doggies at cliffe pt. pics to follow
 
Thanks for that Holmes-its been a great year and have had to move around a lot. Guess that's the way of the future. Had a great and fun bunch to crew with. Last trip to WH tomorrow-Gentlemans trip-just going to fish inside and use all the gear I said I would experiment with and never did. Break out the spin and glo hootchie combo's LOL
 
Last Quatsino trip of the year was saturday. 1 22 lb spring and 1 barely legal one that we hooked in the gills and kept. Lots of coho though, but still not the size of the average ones from last year although we did finally get a few that were into the low double digits.

This was supposed to be a hali trip though as we were trolling near bottom, but only picked up 3 nice ling cod, not a single halli... oh well. Nicest day on the west side by far this year, fishing wasnt the usual constant action but still steady.

Boats out of the water for good now and shot the 1st grouse of the year yesterday.
Bring on the moose rut!

Yak
 
Any reports from Coal harbour, Rupert Inlet on the Cohoe fishing? Don't belive that there has been any rain up there lately, so maybe the cohoe are still hanging out there? ...........BB
 
Glad to hear that your hand is healing up enough to allow you to go fishing!! I was hoping to go up either this Sunday or Monday, if I hear anything positive about the fishing close to Coal Harbour. Just want to do a quick up and back for one day of fishing. Truck burns alot of gas towing my boat, so need to know for pretty sure that the fish are there. ..........BB
 
They are there Bill just not as big or as plentiful as last year. I caught them on the slack to flood where the current comes into rupert arm. Did what the locals did and fished the current like a river in the 25 to 40 ft range with coho killers,pink coyotes and the old green double glow hoochy. I think on the ebb; fish the outlet of the narrows the same way although I haven't tried that specifically.
 
Our last hurrah out of Coal Harbour this year yielded some welcome results. We launched wednesday morning at 715am. By 815am we had set our crab traps and limited out on wild coho hitting the Stephen Creek run with light tackle, 4 ho's between 4 and 7 lbs. Plus I caught about a 10lb chum that I released. We headed out after that to do some trolls or casts at cliffe pt or McAllister islet. Too much crap in the water to fish tight at cliffe, but mcallister yielded a few nice sized black rockfish, a china rockfish and a beauty silver coho.

While we were heading in we spotted what looked to be a humpback in distress in the middle of the sound in the vicinity of Mahatta Creek. What it turned out to be was a Humpback playing in some of the mid-sound kelp. He would come up and roll around and then do it again. It was hilarious to watch. I took some pics but didn't get a video.

We saw lots of jumper ho's all up and down quatsino and rupert arm. Undoubtably the rain the past day or so has made several of them run for the rivers, but there were a few schools still on the outside.

It was a gas getting them on a 6ft collapseable rod with light test tho, another great trip all around.
 
Is it time to revive this thread? Heading up to Hardy in a couple of weeks and wonder if there are any new reports. Thanks in advance.
 
I'm a fair weather fisher with a young inexperianced boating family ( Wife, 8 year old, and a black lab ) I have no problem myself on the west coast or much of anything, with my buddies, but with my family I take it safe. I have spent some time in McNeill and around Malcolm Island. I feal safe being able to use islands as wind guards and staying out of the big rollers on the west side. Question. What is the water like up the Goletas Channel? Rollers on the outside of the island group Hope island down to Gordon Islands? Anything to watch out for? Passages to stay away from? Would my 16 foot open whaler style boat be out of place in this water. I have a good reliable 50h 4 stroke, gps, sounder, charts and good gear ( no kicker, no radar ). I'm thinking that on the best day, max, would be a run to Shadwell Passage. Boat does 32 mph on a nice day. Looks like 40miles from Hardy to Shadwell Passage? the distance bugs me a bit. Is it worth making this run? Hows the fishing any reports?

Any advice or reports would be great.

Thanks.
 
out to duval point thursday no results only a few other boats out mostly americans heard some springs at nawitti bar but its to far away for me
 
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