2016 Port Renfrew Reports

Fished the beach this weekend, bonked a couple on Saturday, released some small ones on Sunday. Saw a good bite come on Saturday at the tide change, probably 15 nets out within less than an hour. Lots of fish netted looked to be in the teens. Still nowhere near lights-out but there are at least a few fish to be had out there now!

It was flat calm today, kinda kicking myself for not running out to the bank.
 
advTHXance said:
Fished the beach this weekend, bonked a couple on Saturday, released some small ones on Sunday. Saw a good bite come on Saturday at the tide change, probably 15 nets out within less than an hour. Lots of fish netted looked to be in the teens. Still nowhere near lights-out but there are at least a few fish to be had out there now!

It was flat calm today, kinda kicking myself for not running out to the bank.
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Thank you for your frequent reports. They are much appreciated. Good to hear fishing is on the upswing there. If you don't mind me asking, have you fished the NE corner much for hali this season? How would you rate the hali catches from that side of the bank this year?

Thanks again.
 
Only half-assed fished it myself for a drift or two and didnt have any luck hooking a hali. Did see a cluster of about a dozen guide boats out there anchored up at 400 feet the other weekend on our way back from the west edge, so I assume theres halibut to be had if theyre all fishing there. I think a lot of the guides target their hali further up the coast towards nitinat, but Im not much of a hali fisherman, so take that for what its worth!
 
advTHXance said:
Only half-assed fished it myself for a drift or two and didnt have any luck hooking a hali. Did see a cluster of about a dozen guide boats out there anchored up at 400 feet the other weekend on our way back from the west edge, so I assume theres halibut to be had if theyre all fishing there. I think a lot of the guides target their hali further up the coast towards nitinat, but Im not much of a hali fisherman, so take that for what its worth!
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Thanks
 
I fished the American side of Swiftsure this past Sat. and Sunday. It's SLOW out there. We managed to scratch out 4 in the 9-14# range on Sat. but we worked all day for them. Sunday, we only managed two, one at 15 and one just legal (maybe 6-7#). The only thing that was working well for us was a 3.5-4" funky-chicken coyote spoon fished behind a flasher about 120'170' on the cable with 150' being best. Herring behind a flasher was largely untouched but the larger size (blue label) herring did OK. We fished all day but most of the action came during the two slack tides in the early AM and late afternoon. There's some coho to be found but we can't keep any on the US side so we generally fished below them. Unlike in past years, it was easy to get the bait/gear down past the coho and there just isn't that many around. On another thread, I keep hearing one guide complain about the "negative" posts when people say the fishing is bad out there but folks - the fishing is bad. Sure you CAN find fish but the numbers are down relative to any year in the past 15 or so. On the bright side, we did get 3/4 of our limit and a day fishing is priceless even when the fishing is tough. We also saw on humpback breach 37 times within about 5-7 minutes and saw a sea otter on the way in. That stuff makes it all worthwhile even when fishing is slow.
 
advTHXance said:
The guys/guides that fish a half mile inside the closure probably do... o_Oo_Oo_O
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Ha ha. Thanks. We were out there all day Sunday and worked hard to get 1 hatchery coho (about 8 lbs). Lots of shakers but that was it for us. I haven't fished Renfrew much but I was pretty surprised by the number of boats that run a little inside that closure. Not sure if that's the norm or people are just frustrated this season.
 
Brian Reiber said:
Ha ha. Thanks. We were out there all day Sunday and worked hard to get 1 hatchery coho (about 8 lbs). Lots of shakers but that was it for us. I haven't fished Renfrew much but I was pretty surprised by the number of boats that run a little inside that closure. Not sure if that's the norm or people are just frustrated this season.
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I've never noticed that the times I've been there, I'm guessing the fishing has been pretty tough for guys to be doing that. The DFO used to make flights over the area taking pictures of boats inside the boundary. I'd heard you could get a ticket in the mail if they photographed you fishing inside the boundary. Maybe that was an old wives tale to scare kids at night, or maybe guys have figured out they're not doing the fly overs with budget cuts these days.
 
Oh boy, I mostly posted that as a joke, not to open this can of worms... (youd have to troll at like 270' on the downrigger to bounce bottom outside of the west edge, so hali as bycatch is unlikely)

Ive heard the stories about DFO flying overhead and photographing boats as well, but they could also simply ping you with radar or their gps during a fly-by. The strong ocean currents push boats towards the closure so you have to oversteer to stay outside, and with no landmarks it doesnt take much to become disoriented.

DFO should partner up with marine navigation companies to integrate closures and updates into their maps. Would save me hours of manually inputting every closure datapoint, and remove a lot of the confusion every time a new set of regs rolls out.

Anyways, didnt mean to point any fingers or ruffle any feathers. :)
 
I was there the weekend before and we couldnt keep the shakers off the lines, but we also managed to bonk a few good teens. How was the weather out there on Sunday, Brian? It was like a lake on the inside, was kicking myself for not going offshore!
 
Weather was great. Very fishable. I was hoping for better results but that's fishing. I didn't feel too bad as there weren't a lot of nets waiving around and the chatter on the radio suggested we weren't alone. Until we got to the cleaning table and saw the guides unloading . Oh well those guys put a lot of time in and are good at their craft.
 
Sounds like bamfield is heating up so it shouldnt be long for Renfrew. Im gonna fish the beach on Friday, Ill let you guys know how I make out.
 
Fished the beach this morning by myself. Lost 1 first thing, not a big fish maybe low teens. Then released a wild coho before things went dead for a couple hours. About 9am both rods go off and cross over eachother... I manage to net one and yank the other over the gunnel. 15 and 22 lbs, both were hooked really well otherwise I might have lost one while playing the other. Didnt see any other nets out, but I was fishing a little ways off the pack.
 
back from 8 days,slowwww is not the word,worst fishing i have seen for renfrew this time a year,few guys getting a couple here and there but most get blank or 0ne for multiple hrs of troiling.to me 2 fish in a boat with 4 people on board is sloww fishing,even the bank is dead,no hali or springs of size.hundreds of boats fishing with not to much results.
 
My report is a week old but not all doom and gloom.. Yes its not the old Renfrew we all know.. But there are fish there and they move. East point was good first thing but 30-40 boats there makes it combat fishing at its best but they are there. We hit the bank one day and did good for spring but then it died. We hit Nitnat and had a awesome day and then heard the whales came threw and screwed that up. Camper was ok for a couple but it was a grind. You have to try and stay in the loop there and burn some gas but easier said than done. lol
 
Just got back from a week in Renny. Stayed at the new Pacific Gateway - great spot. Had a good time playing some music around the firepit with my brother. Handy spot for fuel and ice and overall nice staff. We used Trailhead's flash freezer and processing and happened to arrive the day they purchased a large load of Albacore so added several loins to the freezer (mmmm sashimi).

Fishing was spotty as has been noted. It was better earlier in the week -- Sunday through Thursday on the bank we had a couple days where we limited out. No large fish -- but a couple days on the bank we probably caught and released over 50 salmon -- kept everyone entertained for certain. Latched into a giant Octopus and got a great video of it (released it to live another day). Hit the beach a few times with my 12 year old getting her biggest fish to date that hit 20lbs on the nose. Due to the excellent fishing the past couple of years, I've grown somewhat lazy with my technique and realized that with the slow year, you have to bring your A-Game to the table -- pick the spots and times and depths, get rolling some anchovies etc... Watched a fleet of guys from the US (they told me they were former Bering Sea fishermen) consistently bring back their limits in 20+lb springs -- and they were working the beach hard. So as mentioned, the fish are certainly there..... just not in the larger numbers yet.

Will be back again on the long weekend.
 
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