Winter Harbour this week.

[Mighty Sylvan]

6 friends and I are heading to Winter Harbour thursday night until monday. There has been a gale warning this weekend and the extended forcast looks like it is diminishing. Lets hope. My first trip to WH and I'm super excited.
So where should we fish if we can't get outside?

 

[Barnacle Bill]

I would try Cliffe Point, and Kains , if the weather is bad. Looking forward to your report upon your return. Have a safe trip. ...............BB

 

[Sitkaspruce]

Bear Cove was out there and posted a report. Sounds like springs are around Kains.

Lets hope the weather changes, not be a lot of fun up here this weekend with respect to the wind.

Good luck

Cheers

SS

 

[BearCove]

We fishing all around Caines, only spent the one afternoon there and picked up four, biggest was 21. Spent that morning up at Brooks bottom fishing did really well there. The next morning we spent at Ciffe as it was blowing like snot, didn't touch a thing nor did we see any bait. That was last Tuesday Wednesday.

Best of luck to you,

 

[Mighty Sylvan]

Thanks for the reports. I hope to post up some pics of our catch next week.

 

[Rum Buddies]

don't waste time at cliffe point, it doesn't hold fish until august when the marble river fish start showing up. IMO WH is all about the highway, fish in tight to land and the lighthouse is just ok, most fish will be passing by quickly offshore.

 

[spring fever]

PS is absolutly correct-my journals show for the last 15 years -Cliffe point is from very last week in July until end Aug. optimum date is 7 aug-give or take. Add ing to PS -quckly try Grants Bay along the Kelp at first light-no more than 2 passes-if you hit nothing-hit the highway and as you get kicked off try closer to the harbour approaches and the Island.

 

[Rum Buddies]

PS is absolutly correct-my journals show for the last 15 years -Cliffe point is from very last week in July until end Aug. optimum date is 7 aug-give or take. Add ing to PS -quckly try Grants Bay along the Kelp at first light-no more than 2 passes-if you hit nothing-hit the highway and as you get kicked off try closer to the harbour approaches and the Island.

Good tip on Grants, I've seen that bay absolutely stacked with needlefish and springs - but it was hit or miss the summer I spent there. Have fun up there, its a wild place to fish.

 

[Sitkaspruce]

The last week of June last year, the hot spot to catch springs was Cliffe. We fished a few days at Kains and outside (too rough for the highway) and all but two of the springs came from Cliffe. There was bait and fish there and according to Phil from WH Cottages, they are usually there in June.

Not arguing with anybody, but Cliffe can hold fish prior to July/Aug, but not in the numbers as outside and in Aug.

Cheers

SS

 

[spring fever]

SS-absolutely you are right as well. The fish I am refering to are Marble river run springs. Springs can be in there earlier but you have to have the bait in there and usually on an ebb tide. The bait usually holds round the back of the point in the back eddy. Hell if you can't fish outside or it's the evening -give it a whirl.They are sometimes there or pinnicle rock. The one thing I've learned about Winter Harbour-there are places i would choose to fish and then there are places I can fish-and quite often they don't coincide-but that doesn't mean you won't catch fish. Nothing is hard and fast in this life and especially not fishing!!LOL Oh by the way I've caught them their as late as 18 sept-go figure-they should have been gone-or we should-one of the two.

 

[Rum Buddies]

That's the biggest problem with WH, the best fishing is a long run away and the weather and swells often suck. Its way to far to go to just fish the lighthouse and inside areas, you'll have way better fishing inside Barkley sound or nootka if you're stuck to inside to fishing. There's a reason all the qualicum river boats blast past the lighthouse each morning.

Those marble river fish are big though, I think they are regarded as one of the largest average sized springs we have on the island, but the run is small. Any fishing is better then no fishing but if your boat or the weather won't allow you to go offshore I would consider making other plans.

Now if you got a sweet rig like SF then you got no problems

 

[Mighty Sylvan]

Both boats going are good for getting out to the Highway. We are staying at WH cottages too and it sounds like Phil and Pat can give us some tips too.

Thanks again

 

[wstcoaster]

i think marble river springs have been scarce due to fish farms in inlet

 

[spring fever]

You could be right -they certainly don't help. The other factor is there is no hatchery to speak of to help them out. I know there is one on the creek (stephehnson creek?) up by Cole Harbour but I think that is coho only. I'm sure some of the locals have way more knowledge than me in this regard and it would be interesting to hear from them if I am correct on the hatchery situation

 

[Sitkaspruce]

There is Marble River Hatchery at the mouth of Alice lake.

http://www.quatsehatchery.ca/marble-river-hatchery

Ironically they benifit from the Fish farms by getting their hand me downs with respect to net pens, which does save them some $$$.

They do alright with returns for springs.

I am not a fan of Fish Farms by a long shot, but some times we jump on them when ever there is a precived problem. If they are so bad (all 4 of them) why do we have great returns of coho and pinks in Quatsino?? They play a part, no doubt, but there is other unkowns that also play a part in any decrease in fish numbers.

Anyways not to side track the original post.

Cheers

SS

 

[Prawn Star]

Both boats going are good for getting out to the Highway. We are staying at WH cottages too and it sounds like Phil and Pat can give us some tips too.

Thanks again

I stayed at Phil and Pat's place in May (20-25). They are great people and offer good advice. We spent 3 out of 5 days staring out the cabin window (gale force winds) and 2 looking for fish on the inside as it was still too rough to fish Pinnacle or Kains or Cliffe. Good thing the cabins are very very nice and we had lots of beer. I highly recommend Cape Scott Winter Harbour Cottages. http://www.winterharbourcottages.com/index.html

 

[spring fever]

The Spring Fever flying circus and travelling gong show finally sees a weather hole of epic proportions Winter Harbour way starting thurs. We will be there until late Sat night when we will anchor around the narrows. If you see us give us a shout on ch 6 or stop by if we're anchored- Green and white podded Orca. Looks so good might even try "real halibut fishing" -God-did I say that!!! Anyone have any reports???- I'd be surprised -the weather has been poor-this looks like a good window. Fingers crossed!!

 

[high tide]

Da Highway if the wind will let cha, Cliff, Caines, Salender, spelling may be off. If not, some good bottom fish and even inside salmon, on the fringe ....... big water, big fish.

Have fun b safe.

HT

 

[AlGee]

I used to work with the commercial salmon trollers in Winter harbour all thru the 1990's. I talked with all the old-timers that comprised most of the day fleet. I'm talking about guys who used to fish that area since the 1940's.

http://www.salmonuniversity.com/images/vin_qs_50k_780.gif


These saintly gentlemen are all dead now and I feel I was fortunate to have seen the end of an era in commercial salmon fishing. Robert Benton, who ran the Tantalus, used to fish in Area 8 (see the yellow area on the map). Just head out and go thru the gap between Kains and the Island and fish along the shoreline. There are a series of pinnacles along that way so you have to be careful. I've heard of lots of guys hanging up and losing cannon balls in that area. Robert never made a full day of it, usually one of the first guys in around 11 or 12 o'clock, but he'd pick up some mighty big beautiful springs! A lot of these old timers didn't go way out there. Klaus Botel on the Seafari III fished across the mouth of Quatsino Sd. He was 84 yrs old in his last year of fishing. There were lots of Botels fishing that area, Carl (Cliff Point), Donny (Midnight Star), Andy (Dolphin), Tommy (forget the name of his boat), lots of fond memories. Every time I got sent up there for the summer I considered it a paid vacation.

Its a little early to get into the main Vancouver Island runs, mostly July, August and Sept. for the Marble River, Conuma Hatchery (Nootka) and Robertson Creek (Alberni). Right now you would probably be getting into American fish bound for Columbia River and Skagit R. whites. During those years I collected LOTS of Robertson Ck. coded wire tags, coupled that with area and times caught you could pretty much pinpoint the run timing. Its too bad DFO killed off so much of the troll fishery. We had data coming out the yin yang in regards to WHERE the fish were and HOW MANY we could have expected when compared with hatchery releases.

 

[Mighty Sylvan]

Well I'm back.

Thursday night we drove to Hardy and stayed at the Pioneer. Friday morning we had sunny skies and increasing winds. Beautiful landscape. I really enjoyed the run up to WH. After unloading our supplies at the cabin we poked our head out. We were in huge swell that was starting to white cap. I lost my hat and that was it for offshore that day. We fished the rest of the afternoon at Cliffe Point and landed a 8lb and 17lb. Saturday morning we looked out the window to a gale. White caps in the harbour and sheets of rain. We spent the morning with coffee in hand at the cabin. Mid morning we crossed over to Cliffe again and caught one more small one. Sunday the forcast called for less wind so we got up early and fished around the light house for a bit and in the afternoon we headed NW to the "highway" for some modest success. Our fishing partners in the other boat landed a beautiful 30lber to win our weekend derby of $350. All in all a great trip. As noted above, it was a little too early. Not so much for fish but weather. Our boats performed well and all seven of us agreed we would go back to Winter Harbour Cottages again.