spring fever
Well-Known Member
Finally Swell Watch gave us a window to try an early fishery at Winter Harbour. My 15 years of journal keeping told me if I could get to the hi-way I should get some good to great Spring fishing. Friday Striper Sniper,Rogeah and myself set off. Spring Fever was loaded with crab and prawn traps plus about 20 different set-ups of LED hootchys I had designed using PIRATE DENS water activated LED lights. They have a large double flashing squid whose applicability to the Halibut fisherman is obvious but the small lights I wanted to see how they could be used for salmon. I had had some top water success in Mexico-but only early morning and late evening was their effectivness demonstratively better than a similiar lure without the lights. Before anyone asks-I have no shares in this company nor am I renumerarated in anyway except I do receive the lights for testing. Crab and Prawn traps were set and we were at Kain Island by 3 pm. Cold-damn it was cold with a brisk northerly wind and a lot more swell than I had hoped. There was no sign of the commercial fleet and since salmon was open -this was not a good sign. We were alone. Pushed out from Kain and right away it was evident if we wanted to fish it would have to be down swell. Watery sunshine helped a bit but it was bone chilling. Decided to use a LED lit purple haze hootchy and fish it against a double glow green splatterback hootchy(proven producer). Only made it 21/2 miles out before turning downwind-fished where we could not where we wanted. Down 160 on both hootchies. Noticed in the watery sunshine the lit haze does not seem to knock your socks off like in a dark room but it had an eerie lumenescent purple glow. Fishing seemed reasonable downwind-10 minutes in and the LED hootchy went live- nice 18-20 spring put up a great fight in difficult to land conditons. That hootchy kept taking fish-a halibut,lings rockfish but no more salmon. We released a lot. We quit-'we were beat up- tied up at a buoy inside for a snooze and supper. SS went to sleep-at 7 pm With SS still in the bunk Rogeah and I snuck out for another peak-it was laying down a little we made it 21/2 miles out again before one came over the pulpit and roof of the Orca. Down swell-took lots of lings with anchovy and an LED lit blood and bones cuttlefish no salmon-finally at 9ish the LED hit another 18-to 20 and we called it quits. SS had not moved from his bunk and was amazed when he saw the time and the fish!!! Next morning at 5 am we went seaward at 25 knots what a treat-dropped the gear at the 300 ft mark and trolled towards Japan-Anchovy one side LED hootchy the other. Nada-nyet, nothing-no birds no bait ,no bites, no other boats-it may take 3 hours but I can take a hint. We moved back in to off-shore grants and both bait and LED started picking up Lings,hali's (small) and rockfish. We released many Lings but no salmon!!Finally took a feisty 10 lb spring on the LED. We tried bottom fishing the large LED squid which I had rigged wih a 6/0 treble baited with octopus. Two locations SS got hit right away-both times they were large yellow eye. So all in all we fished hard all day Saturday-we caught tons of fish-released lots. I was happy with the rigging I had worked out on the hootchy's. My main concern-that of weight turned out to be a none issue-the LED hootchy seemed to behave exactly the same as a no LED hootchy. The weather quickly worsened SAT night and Sunday morning just in front of a howling SouthEaster we beat a hasty retreat. Prawns were OK as were crab-.In summary Salmon were very scarce-seems to be good bottom fish-lots of small hali's, snapper. Interesting that the LED caught all 3 salmon-I'm not declaring it the victor but I will keep testing it-it is working, I want to see it a few more times but I think I will switch. They do last-I haven't had one burn out yet. You can find them at the local stores-Gone fishin and Harbour chandlers, Westview marina carries the hali squid. A serious hali fisherman might want to change the rigging a bit but man they take bottom fish and are trouble free unlike lite sticks and AA battery lites. If you want some rigging info with what I was doing with the LED lit hootchy's drop me a PM-don't want to turn this into a sales pitch as it is a work in progress and I am still experimenting
Attachments
Last edited by a moderator:
