trophywife
Crew Member
all minis so far off shore..,, backside of flemming has been good. only one boat there with 2 hr limit on springs for 3 fishers.
This was the bait from the wall.
Last edited:
2017 Bamfield and Barkley Sound Reports
- Thread starter SFBC
- Start date
all minis so far off shore..,, backside of flemming has been good. only one boat there with 2 hr limit on springs for 3 fishers.
This was the bait from the wall.
Brian Reiber
Well-Known Member
Wow. Good fishing
Strike Zone
Member
Was at the Nook for couple of days... Tuesday morning was a bust, rain and strong wind all day... Couldn't do much... Settle for a 10 lbs in Yankee Bay late evening... Wednesday was slow fishing in the interior... Beale had 6 ft waves with winds at 22 kts... Not great to be fishing there in a small boat... Have to mentioned the road that was a complete disaster , close to the worst condition I've seen...
Boats coming back with very few fish, if any, nothing BIG ... Still early in the season, There's always next time....
Boats coming back with very few fish, if any, nothing BIG ... Still early in the season, There's always next time....
Derby
Crew Member
Here u SZ was at the Nook a couple days myself.. the winds were not our friends Tuesday weds....couldn't fish beale Tuesday..was able to do Beale a bit on weds.. **** show but boated a couple springs to 12lbs..missed a pile due to the water conditions.... got a couple springs along the wall too & cohoes were being hit at Assits & Swale rock.... I'm out there tomorrow I'll be at Beale 
Last edited:
T
The Jackel
Guest
Here u SZ was at the Nook a couple days myself.. the winds were not our friends Tuesday weds....couldn't fish beale Tuesday..was able to do Beale a bit on weds.. **** show but boated a couple springs to 12lbs..missed a pile due to the water conditions.... got a couple springs along the wall too & cohoes were being hit at Assits & Swale rock.... I'm out there tomorrow I'll be at Beale
Well well well another few days away from the office for our nearly retired Derby
, man i want your's and FishT's life but someone has to work and pay all the taxes to keep the country rolling along
trophywife
Crew Member
weather is looking great for offshore this weekend!!
michael_reiber
Active Member
Cross posting this with the Ucluelet reports, but we just arrived here today and will be out fishing until Tuesday if anyone wants to pm me and hopefully we can work together to find the fish, our game plan is probably heading offshore tomorrow! And if it's rough we will probably be in around mears
Derby
Crew Member
Well well well another few days away from the office for our nearly retired Derby
lol.... I'll be happy to have your job...
Saratoga
Active Member
We just returned from Bamfield last night after fishing Saturday thru Tuesday. Fishing was very good for us. Over the 4 days we caught roughly 30 keeper size Chinook. Many were in 5 to 7 pound range & were released. We ended up with our limit of 16 Chinook with an average of around 12-14 lbs per fish but we did manage to get one that weighed in at 26lbs. All the fish seemed to fight well above their weight class - strong fights w/ long runs. We also ended up with 5 nice sized coho between 5-6lbs each. Saturday we focused around Whittlestone Point, Kirby, and the Wall (too rough to get offshore). Lots of bait on the sounder at each location. Anchovies and spoons (copcar & skinny G kitchen sink) were the ticket on Saturday with our keeper fish coming from Kirby & the Wall. Sunday we started at the Wall (after the requisite attempt to get offshore) but it was slow despite bait showing on the sounder. So we pulled up after an hour & headed back to Whittlestone and spent the rest of our time between there and the inside of Beal. Lots of bait again. The fish were targeting herring & the majority of fish we hooked into were taken on anchovies but we did get some on a copcar spoon as well. The 26lb was taken on achovies bewteen Beal & Whittlestone - a double header with the other being around 7lbs that we released. It was a blast. On Monday, the winds settled & our offshore attempt turned into success allowing us to get out to 7 mile. We started bottom bouncing but the currents were quite strong so we shifted to drift jigging. After about 2 hrs we had lost of a couple of good halibut but landed a nice 26lb halibut & another about 16lbs along with an 8lb ling. Coho are everywhere offshore - it was great to see so many of them swirling around and jumping. My buddy hooked into a large Octopus as well - always something new offshore! We trolled for a bit but could not keep the coho off - even as deep as 160 feet. For whatever reason, the coho offshore are much smaller than those on the inside. I'd say they are blueback size at around 3lb average - too small to really keep despite being over 30cm. Inshore they are a much nicer size between 4-7lbs. We headed back in to Whittlestone Pt to target Chinoook - but the bait we observed the prior day wasn't there. We shifted to Beal - a bit farther out along the reef and started marking bait again. After a few passes with no takers on anchovies we started shaking things up. Dropped the lines down with cuttlefish hoochies and started nailing Chinook with every pass. It was clear they were feeding on squid. It felt like sockeye fishing but for Chinook - double headers & fish on almost as soon as the rods were lowered! Fish were all in the 12 - 15lb range - a ton of fun! Tuesday was our final day and the wind was howling. We tried the Wall for a bit with a few other boats and although some bait was still around, we didn't see any action and only saw a few boats get undersize fish. After 90mins of no action, we decided to try new territory (more specifically calmer waters) so we pulled up & ran to Pill Pt to test out the inside. Other than one or two boats off in the distance but we had Pill Pt to ourselves. There were clear bait balls on the sounder so we put the copcar spoon & anchovies back down and wasn't too long before we found the fish again - it wasn't the crazy action we experienced at Beale but we boated 4 nice Chinook between 12-15lbs over a 3-4hr period and released several in the 5-7lb range. We also boated one nice coho about 5lbs. Really just a great overall trip! Here's a few photos.
Attachments
Saratoga
Active Member
Thanks Finaddict. It was one of those trips where every decision we made seemed to land us on fish. We could do no wrong. Nice to have those trips once in a while! The fish seem to be moving around so we tried not to stay for too long in a single spot despite how successful it might have been the day prior. And we mixed up the gear fairly quickly if we were marking a lot of bait but not hitting fish. I think that strategy paid dividends for us as well.
Scorpiofisher
Member
Great report Saratoga!! Well done for sure.
the fog ducker
Well-Known Member
my turn
looks like Doc finally gave green light
might have to get my lefty gear out
fd
looks like Doc finally gave green light
might have to get my lefty gear out
fd
Newfieslayer1978
Member
Guys it was on like donkey Kong today at Austin... And Cree we were tabbed out within 2/3 hours and was off to bottom feeders were there was the same result... Beauty day on the water... For us any depth any lure/hoochie/anything of choice
T
The Jackel
Guest
Sharphooks
Well-Known Member
Nice to hear some guys made all the right moves. I just spent four days in Bamfield with what can be summed up as ....mixed results.
Launched at Clutesi and on the way up the canal I stopped at Poett Nook to stay out of the wind (it was howling last Tuesday)
First two drops, two nice springs, one pushing 14 lbs
O.K., sign of good things to come for sure. Turned them loose. Why not? Lots more to come, right?
The next day, fished around Kirby. A few shakers. Tried Beal but there was lots of slop from the wind on Tuesday. A few coho and more shakers. My first thought was...wow, is this going to be like my trip last year? All those miles and effort for...shakers?
I was fishing straight bait and realized I'd better suck it up and do what everyone else was doing.....put on a flasher with a spoon or plastic. That immediately changed the luck and I had a few nice springs on a tide change at Baudelaire but for some reason, using flashers to me is like gargling with razor blades. I don't feel like I'm fishing any more....I feel like I'm just dragging gear around. And what was supposed to be a break-away flasher wasn't breaking away.
So I said the hell with it---- do what you enjoy doing or don't do it at all. So I went back to straight bait and on Thursday, hooked what was no doubt a serious fish using a picked whole-round blue label.
It's pretty stunning what a fish will do when there's no flasher in its face----a few 100 yard smoking runs protested by a loud ratchet on a knuckle-buster for me is like grinding coffee in the morning---you hear a brass band playing and all is right with the world again.
I lost the fish in a kelp bed but that will be the fish I'll remember for awhile. The flasher fish were just dead fish in a box
Friday, my last day. I broke down. Some idiot left the radio and a sonar module on over night, forgot to turn the battery selector to "off" position and it drained his house battery down to 6 volts. The starter battery fired up the Suzuki no problem so that same idiot headed out of Bamfield thinking he'd go to Rat's Nose ---it was clear, there was zero wind, and a long run on the Suzuki would juice the house battery back up again, right?
But just outside of Bamfield harbor the Suzuki alarm system went off and the motor went into neutral gear. WTF? Turns out fly-by-wire is extremely sensitive to voltage drops (the soft under-belly of new technology) and I was dead in the water. My first suspicion: with a dead house battery, the ACR started drawing juice from the starter battery to compensate for the voltage drop and that killed the fly-by-wire (and all my electronics---Furuno is also sensitive to ANY voltage drop)
And my Honda was stuck in up position---no power to drop it and fire it up. I was dead in the water----first time ever. Infamy!
If I had my wits about me, I would have switched my Blue Sea battery switch to "BOTH" which would have been just enough power to get the Honda in the water, get it started, and juice my house battery back up. But being a half-wit, that option didn't cross my mind.
But having a quarter of a brain cell is sometimes just enough to get a half-wit through the day---I remembered I had jumper cables in the boat. I connected the house battery to the starter with the cables (yes, the same thing switching to "both" on the Blue Sea would have done without a lot less effort) got the Honda pull-started with its burly alternator (the pull-start option is why I bellied up the the bar for a 15 Hp Honda---good move, half-wit) and I was back on Broadway in short order. The Honda alternator juiced the starter battery back up and the Suzuki fly-by-wire was happy again
But no way was I going to head out on the water-----went back to Bamfield and had Breakers Marine come down and check out the batteries to see whether or not I'd fried anything.
So, sometimes in the land of FISH you're on fire and can't do anything wrong, and sometimes you're NOT. By the time I got the thumb's up from Breakers it was noon and the day was pretty much a goner
Then yesterday, to top off what had already been a bit of a sketchy trip I tried pulling my boat out at Clutesi on a minus tide. Nothing like building confidence going up a river in a 24 footer with a 300 HP Suzuki in 4 feet of water.
I thought I was good when I made it to the ramp without bending a fluke but little did I know that the fun was about to begin. At the ramp I was in a full fledged river current with a big eddy at the ramp. To make it more interesting, right where you want to apply power to counter-act the eddy and the current and get her up to the dock you're staring at logs and branches in 3 feet of water.
What was important was the 3 or 4 passes I made that almost put my boat on the rock jetty above the ramp and the piling below the ramp provided comic relief to people sitting on a park bench who watched the whole ridiculous excercise. They were hooting and hollering, having a jolly time. The thought of coming down on the dock and catching a bow line never crossed their minds---they were having too much fun
Note to self---never attempt Clutesi ramp on a minus tide again. And never again dock the boat and turn in for the night forgetting to turn your battery switch to "off" position.
So, to quote the cute gal standing behind the counter at Breakers in Bamfield, fishing is not always about catching
Launched at Clutesi and on the way up the canal I stopped at Poett Nook to stay out of the wind (it was howling last Tuesday)
First two drops, two nice springs, one pushing 14 lbs
O.K., sign of good things to come for sure. Turned them loose. Why not? Lots more to come, right?
The next day, fished around Kirby. A few shakers. Tried Beal but there was lots of slop from the wind on Tuesday. A few coho and more shakers. My first thought was...wow, is this going to be like my trip last year? All those miles and effort for...shakers?
I was fishing straight bait and realized I'd better suck it up and do what everyone else was doing.....put on a flasher with a spoon or plastic. That immediately changed the luck and I had a few nice springs on a tide change at Baudelaire but for some reason, using flashers to me is like gargling with razor blades. I don't feel like I'm fishing any more....I feel like I'm just dragging gear around. And what was supposed to be a break-away flasher wasn't breaking away.
So I said the hell with it---- do what you enjoy doing or don't do it at all. So I went back to straight bait and on Thursday, hooked what was no doubt a serious fish using a picked whole-round blue label.
It's pretty stunning what a fish will do when there's no flasher in its face----a few 100 yard smoking runs protested by a loud ratchet on a knuckle-buster for me is like grinding coffee in the morning---you hear a brass band playing and all is right with the world again.
I lost the fish in a kelp bed but that will be the fish I'll remember for awhile. The flasher fish were just dead fish in a box
Friday, my last day. I broke down. Some idiot left the radio and a sonar module on over night, forgot to turn the battery selector to "off" position and it drained his house battery down to 6 volts. The starter battery fired up the Suzuki no problem so that same idiot headed out of Bamfield thinking he'd go to Rat's Nose ---it was clear, there was zero wind, and a long run on the Suzuki would juice the house battery back up again, right?
But just outside of Bamfield harbor the Suzuki alarm system went off and the motor went into neutral gear. WTF? Turns out fly-by-wire is extremely sensitive to voltage drops (the soft under-belly of new technology) and I was dead in the water. My first suspicion: with a dead house battery, the ACR started drawing juice from the starter battery to compensate for the voltage drop and that killed the fly-by-wire (and all my electronics---Furuno is also sensitive to ANY voltage drop)
And my Honda was stuck in up position---no power to drop it and fire it up. I was dead in the water----first time ever. Infamy!
If I had my wits about me, I would have switched my Blue Sea battery switch to "BOTH" which would have been just enough power to get the Honda in the water, get it started, and juice my house battery back up. But being a half-wit, that option didn't cross my mind.
But having a quarter of a brain cell is sometimes just enough to get a half-wit through the day---I remembered I had jumper cables in the boat. I connected the house battery to the starter with the cables (yes, the same thing switching to "both" on the Blue Sea would have done without a lot less effort) got the Honda pull-started with its burly alternator (the pull-start option is why I bellied up the the bar for a 15 Hp Honda---good move, half-wit) and I was back on Broadway in short order. The Honda alternator juiced the starter battery back up and the Suzuki fly-by-wire was happy again
But no way was I going to head out on the water-----went back to Bamfield and had Breakers Marine come down and check out the batteries to see whether or not I'd fried anything.
So, sometimes in the land of FISH you're on fire and can't do anything wrong, and sometimes you're NOT. By the time I got the thumb's up from Breakers it was noon and the day was pretty much a goner
Then yesterday, to top off what had already been a bit of a sketchy trip I tried pulling my boat out at Clutesi on a minus tide. Nothing like building confidence going up a river in a 24 footer with a 300 HP Suzuki in 4 feet of water.
I thought I was good when I made it to the ramp without bending a fluke but little did I know that the fun was about to begin. At the ramp I was in a full fledged river current with a big eddy at the ramp. To make it more interesting, right where you want to apply power to counter-act the eddy and the current and get her up to the dock you're staring at logs and branches in 3 feet of water.
What was important was the 3 or 4 passes I made that almost put my boat on the rock jetty above the ramp and the piling below the ramp provided comic relief to people sitting on a park bench who watched the whole ridiculous excercise. They were hooting and hollering, having a jolly time. The thought of coming down on the dock and catching a bow line never crossed their minds---they were having too much fun
Note to self---never attempt Clutesi ramp on a minus tide again. And never again dock the boat and turn in for the night forgetting to turn your battery switch to "off" position.
So, to quote the cute gal standing behind the counter at Breakers in Bamfield, fishing is not always about catching
Last edited:
casper5280
Crew Member
Great bad report Sharphooks. You are not alone, I have had trips like that also. I was once told "You will remember your first fish, you will remember your biggest first, and you will remember all the trips that **** just happened". Lol. Better luck next time.
Similar threads
