2017 Haida Gwaii Reports
- Thread starter SFBC
- Start date
We had plenty of sun during that trip. July/august can get really sunny and hot, I prefer the weather you saw in the video. IMO the high/low pressure changes can trigger bites and make the hunt more enjoyable.
advTHXance
Well-Known Member
Lots of sun the past few days but its certainly not typical! Limits for lings got reduced to 2 per day. 4 possession. 1 yellow eye per day and 2 poss. Salmon is 2 chinook/day and 4poss, 4 salmon total per day tho if u can find a few stray cohos. Good luck! Bites been on and off for us so far but lots of bottomfish to go around. I think the commies just opened up too so it might get scratchy for the next little bit...
ILHG
Crew Member
Just got back late last night after the plane was grounded in Sandspit. My trip to Hippa was epic! I have never caught so many fish. My hands as a mess & I cant even take the cap off a bottle of YOP for my little girl this morning.
Day#1: We arrived at the lodge & were out fishing with in an hour. The wind was blowing hard & after trying to leave the in side fishing grounds we quickly headed back to the inside to troll. We caught nothing the first day & didn't even get a bite. When returning to the lodge the other boats all had fish in the boxes & I couldn't help but worry that night.
Day#2: We were up at 4:30 am & on the water with our guide by 5:15am. The wind had died down & the rain had settled in. We headed to the outside fishing grounds & started off at the "light house". We immediately caught 2 springs ~15 lbs using whole herring. The guide didn't even check the roll on the herring & I quickly questioned him on the roll & he replied that it didn't matter as long as it was meat.... Sure as **** we caught fish.. After trolling for 20 min with out a 3rd bite the guide recommended that we go for bottom fish while the conditions allowed. My partner & me both wanted to insure we got our Lings first as they are a family favorite. He brought us to an unmarked pinnacle that was small & went from 250' to ~115'. I dropped down a white grub jig & quickly boated two ~20' ling cod. While he was busy with my fishing partner, getting him rigged up I through on my 9" LED squid on a spreader bar. The guide laughed at me & said I didn't need it & I had to wait until we went to a halibut hole. By the time he was done & ready to get my partner fishing we had drifted off the pinnacle into ~350' of water with a gentle slope to it. I asked if I could have 15min to try it out before he moved back to the pinnacle. I dropped down the LED squid & with in 5 min had a huge fish on. When I got it to surface I was even surprised at how big it was. We netted it & brought it in the boat. After measuring it 3 times it was 133 cm. When he measured it from the nose over the top to the tail it was ~135cm. I said no way that that was a perimeter measurement & and not the length. When you measured the actual length of the fish from the bottom (white side up) it was 133 cm on the money. (which is an actual measurement). I was pumped! that was the biggest you could possibly keep for a Halibut. It weighed 67lbs when we got it back to the lodge. We continued to fish for Salmon for the day & boated so many I lost count. The biggest fish kept was 20 lbs. I ended up keeping a 12 lber because it was bleeding & I was not going to throw it back. The end of the day we had 3 Lings, 2 salmon, 2 yellow eye in the fish box. When I looked at the belly of the Halibut I caught it was red & scratched up bad exactly the same as what I had seen on my fish from QCL earlier in the week. To me that means that the fish are still arriving from the deep & swimming up some sharp rock ledges.
Day #3: We were up at 4:30 am & on the water with our guide by 5:15am. We woke to the moist beautiful weather I have ever seen on the west side of the island. The wind was calm & the sun was shining. The weather stayed like this all day & allowed us to fish all over the grounds. We started the day going for my buddy's Halibut. He tied on the 9" LED squid & hooked up with in minutes of hitting bottom. It was a 125cm Halibut & my partner was very happy to take it. By this time the guide was impressed with the LED squid & wanted to know more
.
We started fishing for salmon & caught so many I truly don't have a count to give. they all ranged from 15-22lbs & where all caught off structure that didn't seem to matter what tide it was. The fish were so aggressive & were in a feeding frenzy at times. The depth finder was covered in lines heading every which way from the salmon feeding under the boat. I tried a couple of spoons & they worked but didn't compete with bait. The 2 spoons that worked where the AP Tackle works "lemon Lime" herring spoon & the Coyote 6.0 live image blue. My partner & I got into a school of Coho that showed up & each ended up keep 2 fish at ~8lbs. I ended up keeping a 15lb & 21lb bleeder along with two 20lb lings & 3 black bass & 2 coho.
Day#4: We were up at 4:30 am & on the water with our guide by 5:15am. Again the day had amazing weather & I remembered to put sun screen on as my face was burnt bad. We headed out to get my partners lings stopped the boat at a bait ball off the edge of a pinnacle. I finally had my chance to jig for salmon!. I tied on my jig that "Waterwolf" had strongly recommended & began my first drop.... Well I could not get out more than 30' of line before I had swarms of black boomers taking the jig. They were the biggest black bass I have ever seen. I ended up getting me & my partners limit on black bass while attempting to get my jig down deep enough to catch a salmon... Dint happen...Once we had his lings we headed out for our under Halibut. I tied up a small LED squid & dropped it. 10 min later we had two 80cm Halibut in the boat & where done with Halibut. We wanted to switch over to salmon & the radio showed that folks were having a hard time with Salmon that morning. The Orcas had moved into the "Light House" & "Red Rock" & scattered the fish. Guys claimed they came in & took out the sea lion that was ruining peoples days, & they may have been right as we never seen him again after that.. The Orcas coming in had worked greatly to my favor. I told my guide during the first day that I didn't want to fish in packs & preferred to be a lone wolf. He was happy with that & that's what we did. When the orcas came in they pushed the fish right to us & gave me an afternoon/evening I will never forget. For the next 7-8 hours we caught more Salmon than I have ever caught in my life combined. We ran out of bait & switched over to 6" Tomic 602 plugs & continued to have luck until the bait either moved off or was eaten.
All I can say is wow! The biggest fish for the day was ~25 lb which was released beside the boat. The only salmon that seen a net where the bleeders that we were not going to let go. During this time we caught 2 over Halibut that I estimate were ~40lb ~6 huge ling cod that felt like reeling in a 5 gallon pail on a mooching rod. I tried to jig again but the black bass would not even allow the jig to drop 20' before they were on it. They seemed to come out of no where. We ended the day with the remaining limit on our fish as well as an additional 2 Coho each that were bonus fish. We started to catch more quality fish after taking more time to insure we had a decent roll on the bait. I always baited my own hooks and truly believe it makes a difference with quality fish. In fact we were the only boat that I knew of to catch Coho. Every one of them caught was on a small herring with a tight roll. Both me and my fishing partner had a huge salmon on the line. I'm not going to get into that story, but will say it will haunt
me for years to come. The last day we had to use a different guides boat & the condition of his rods were terrible. In the end it cost me a VERY large fish.
In closing the trip was epic! My guide was great & very professional, definitely one of the best I have had in over 6 years. If you are going to WCR HIPPA, I would strongly recommend "Chase" aka "Fud".
I made it through a 9 day fishing marathon at 2 different lodges in Haida Gwaii. It has been a dream to do it & glad I did. My body hurts, my hands are a mess, im broke but couldn't be happier!
Day#1: We arrived at the lodge & were out fishing with in an hour. The wind was blowing hard & after trying to leave the in side fishing grounds we quickly headed back to the inside to troll. We caught nothing the first day & didn't even get a bite. When returning to the lodge the other boats all had fish in the boxes & I couldn't help but worry that night.
Day#2: We were up at 4:30 am & on the water with our guide by 5:15am. The wind had died down & the rain had settled in. We headed to the outside fishing grounds & started off at the "light house". We immediately caught 2 springs ~15 lbs using whole herring. The guide didn't even check the roll on the herring & I quickly questioned him on the roll & he replied that it didn't matter as long as it was meat.... Sure as **** we caught fish.. After trolling for 20 min with out a 3rd bite the guide recommended that we go for bottom fish while the conditions allowed. My partner & me both wanted to insure we got our Lings first as they are a family favorite. He brought us to an unmarked pinnacle that was small & went from 250' to ~115'. I dropped down a white grub jig & quickly boated two ~20' ling cod. While he was busy with my fishing partner, getting him rigged up I through on my 9" LED squid on a spreader bar. The guide laughed at me & said I didn't need it & I had to wait until we went to a halibut hole. By the time he was done & ready to get my partner fishing we had drifted off the pinnacle into ~350' of water with a gentle slope to it. I asked if I could have 15min to try it out before he moved back to the pinnacle. I dropped down the LED squid & with in 5 min had a huge fish on. When I got it to surface I was even surprised at how big it was. We netted it & brought it in the boat. After measuring it 3 times it was 133 cm. When he measured it from the nose over the top to the tail it was ~135cm. I said no way that that was a perimeter measurement & and not the length. When you measured the actual length of the fish from the bottom (white side up) it was 133 cm on the money. (which is an actual measurement). I was pumped! that was the biggest you could possibly keep for a Halibut. It weighed 67lbs when we got it back to the lodge. We continued to fish for Salmon for the day & boated so many I lost count. The biggest fish kept was 20 lbs. I ended up keeping a 12 lber because it was bleeding & I was not going to throw it back. The end of the day we had 3 Lings, 2 salmon, 2 yellow eye in the fish box. When I looked at the belly of the Halibut I caught it was red & scratched up bad exactly the same as what I had seen on my fish from QCL earlier in the week. To me that means that the fish are still arriving from the deep & swimming up some sharp rock ledges.
Day #3: We were up at 4:30 am & on the water with our guide by 5:15am. We woke to the moist beautiful weather I have ever seen on the west side of the island. The wind was calm & the sun was shining. The weather stayed like this all day & allowed us to fish all over the grounds. We started the day going for my buddy's Halibut. He tied on the 9" LED squid & hooked up with in minutes of hitting bottom. It was a 125cm Halibut & my partner was very happy to take it. By this time the guide was impressed with the LED squid & wanted to know more
.We started fishing for salmon & caught so many I truly don't have a count to give. they all ranged from 15-22lbs & where all caught off structure that didn't seem to matter what tide it was. The fish were so aggressive & were in a feeding frenzy at times. The depth finder was covered in lines heading every which way from the salmon feeding under the boat. I tried a couple of spoons & they worked but didn't compete with bait. The 2 spoons that worked where the AP Tackle works "lemon Lime" herring spoon & the Coyote 6.0 live image blue. My partner & I got into a school of Coho that showed up & each ended up keep 2 fish at ~8lbs. I ended up keeping a 15lb & 21lb bleeder along with two 20lb lings & 3 black bass & 2 coho.
Day#4: We were up at 4:30 am & on the water with our guide by 5:15am. Again the day had amazing weather & I remembered to put sun screen on as my face was burnt bad. We headed out to get my partners lings stopped the boat at a bait ball off the edge of a pinnacle. I finally had my chance to jig for salmon!. I tied on my jig that "Waterwolf" had strongly recommended & began my first drop.... Well I could not get out more than 30' of line before I had swarms of black boomers taking the jig. They were the biggest black bass I have ever seen. I ended up getting me & my partners limit on black bass while attempting to get my jig down deep enough to catch a salmon... Dint happen...Once we had his lings we headed out for our under Halibut. I tied up a small LED squid & dropped it. 10 min later we had two 80cm Halibut in the boat & where done with Halibut. We wanted to switch over to salmon & the radio showed that folks were having a hard time with Salmon that morning. The Orcas had moved into the "Light House" & "Red Rock" & scattered the fish. Guys claimed they came in & took out the sea lion that was ruining peoples days, & they may have been right as we never seen him again after that.. The Orcas coming in had worked greatly to my favor. I told my guide during the first day that I didn't want to fish in packs & preferred to be a lone wolf. He was happy with that & that's what we did. When the orcas came in they pushed the fish right to us & gave me an afternoon/evening I will never forget. For the next 7-8 hours we caught more Salmon than I have ever caught in my life combined. We ran out of bait & switched over to 6" Tomic 602 plugs & continued to have luck until the bait either moved off or was eaten.
All I can say is wow! The biggest fish for the day was ~25 lb which was released beside the boat. The only salmon that seen a net where the bleeders that we were not going to let go. During this time we caught 2 over Halibut that I estimate were ~40lb ~6 huge ling cod that felt like reeling in a 5 gallon pail on a mooching rod. I tried to jig again but the black bass would not even allow the jig to drop 20' before they were on it. They seemed to come out of no where. We ended the day with the remaining limit on our fish as well as an additional 2 Coho each that were bonus fish. We started to catch more quality fish after taking more time to insure we had a decent roll on the bait. I always baited my own hooks and truly believe it makes a difference with quality fish. In fact we were the only boat that I knew of to catch Coho. Every one of them caught was on a small herring with a tight roll. Both me and my fishing partner had a huge salmon on the line. I'm not going to get into that story, but will say it will haunt
me for years to come. The last day we had to use a different guides boat & the condition of his rods were terrible. In the end it cost me a VERY large fish.
In closing the trip was epic! My guide was great & very professional, definitely one of the best I have had in over 6 years. If you are going to WCR HIPPA, I would strongly recommend "Chase" aka "Fud".
I made it through a 9 day fishing marathon at 2 different lodges in Haida Gwaii. It has been a dream to do it & glad I did. My body hurts, my hands are a mess, im broke but couldn't be happier!
anorthernhunter
Active Member
Great summary - thanks Barry. PM sent.
Just got back late last night after the plane was grounded in Sandspit. My trip to Hippa was epic! I have never caught so many fish. My hands as a mess & I cant even take the cap off a bottle of YOP for my little girl this morning.
Day#1: We arrived at the lodge & were out fishing with in an hour. The wind was blowing hard & after trying to leave the in side fishing grounds we quickly headed back to the inside to troll. We caught nothing the first day & didn't even get a bite. When returning to the lodge the other boats all had fish in the boxes & I couldn't help but worry that night.
Day#2: We were up at 4:30 am & on the water with our guide by 5:15am. The wind had died down & the rain had settled in. We headed to the outside fishing grounds & started off at the "light house". We immediately caught 2 springs ~15 lbs using whole herring. The guide didn't even check the roll on the herring & I quickly questioned him on the roll & he replied that it didn't matter as long as it was meat.... Sure as **** we caught fish.. After trolling for 20 min with out a 3rd bite the guide recommended that we go for bottom fish while the conditions allowed. My partner & me both wanted to insure we got our Lings first as they are a family favorite. He brought us to an unmarked pinnacle that was small & went from 250' to ~115'. I dropped down a white grub jig & quickly boated two ~20' ling cod. While he was busy with my fishing partner, getting him rigged up I through on my 9" LED squid on a spreader bar. The guide laughed at me & said I didn't need it & I had to wait until we went to a halibut hole. By the time he was done & ready to get my partner fishing we had drifted off the pinnacle into ~350' of water with a gentle slope to it. I asked if I could have 15min to try it out before he moved back to the pinnacle. I dropped down the LED squid & with in 5 min had a huge fish on. When I got it to surface I was even surprised at how big it was. We netted it & brought it in the boat. After measuring it 3 times it was 133 cm. When he measured it from the nose over the top to the tail it was ~135cm. I said no way that that was a perimeter measurement & and not the length. When you measured the actual length of the fish from the bottom (white side up) it was 133 cm on the money. (which is an actual measurement). I was pumped! that was the biggest you could possibly keep for a Halibut. It weighed 67lbs when we got it back to the lodge. We continued to fish for Salmon for the day & boated so many I lost count. The biggest fish kept was 20 lbs. I ended up keeping a 12 lber because it was bleeding & I was not going to throw it back. The end of the day we had 3 Lings, 2 salmon, 2 yellow eye in the fish box. When I looked at the belly of the Halibut I caught it was red & scratched up bad exactly the same as what I had seen on my fish from QCL earlier in the week. To me that means that the fish are still arriving from the deep & swimming up some sharp rock ledges.
Day #3: We were up at 4:30 am & on the water with our guide by 5:15am. We woke to the moist beautiful weather I have ever seen on the west side of the island. The wind was calm & the sun was shining. The weather stayed like this all day & allowed us to fish all over the grounds. We started the day going for my buddy's Halibut. He tied on the 9" LED squid & hooked up with in minutes of hitting bottom. It was a 125cm Halibut & my partner was very happy to take it. By this time the guide was impressed with the LED squid & wanted to know more
We started fishing for salmon & caught so many I truly don't have a count to give. they all ranged from 15-22lbs & where all caught off structure that didn't seem to matter what tide it was. The fish were so aggressive & were in a feeding frenzy at times. The depth finder was covered in lines heading every which way from the salmon feeding under the boat. I tried a couple of spoons & they worked but didn't compete with bait. The 2 spoons that worked where the AP Tackle works "lemon Lime" herring spoon & the Coyote 6.0 live image blue. My partner & I got into a school of Coho that showed up & each ended up keep 2 fish at ~8lbs. I ended up keeping a 15lb & 21lb bleeder along with two 20lb lings & 3 black bass & 2 coho.
Day#4: We were up at 4:30 am & on the water with our guide by 5:15am. Again the day had amazing weather & I remembered to put sun screen on as my face was burnt bad. We headed out to get my partners lings stopped the boat at a bait ball off the edge of a pinnacle. I finally had my chance to jig for salmon!. I tied on my jig that "Waterwolf" had strongly recommended & began my first drop.... Well I could not get out more than 30' of line before I had swarms of black boomers taking the jig. They were the biggest black bass I have ever seen. I ended up getting me & my partners limit on black bass while attempting to get my jig down deep enough to catch a salmon... Dint happen...Once we had his lings we headed out for our under Halibut. I tied up a small LED squid & dropped it. 10 min later we had two 80cm Halibut in the boat & where done with Halibut. We wanted to switch over to salmon & the radio showed that folks were having a hard time with Salmon that morning. The Orcas had moved into the "Light House" & "Red Rock" & scattered the fish. Guys claimed they came in & took out the sea lion that was ruining peoples days, & they may have been right as we never seen him again after that.. The Orcas coming in had worked greatly to my favor. I told my guide during the first day that I didn't want to fish in packs & preferred to be a lone wolf. He was happy with that & that's what we did. When the orcas came in they pushed the fish right to us & gave me an afternoon/evening I will never forget. For the next 7-8 hours we caught more Salmon than I have ever caught in my life combined. We ran out of bait & switched over to 6" Tomic 602 plugs & continued to have luck until the bait either moved off or was eaten.
All I can say is wow! The biggest fish for the day was ~25 lb which was released beside the boat. The only salmon that seen a net where the bleeders that we were not going to let go. During this time we caught 2 over Halibut that I estimate were ~40lb ~6 huge ling cod that felt like reeling in a 5 gallon pail on a mooching rod. I tried to jig again but the black bass would not even allow the jig to drop 20' before they were on it. They seemed to come out of no where. We ended the day with the remaining limit on our fish as well as an additional 2 Coho each that were bonus fish. We started to catch more quality fish after taking more time to insure we had a decent roll on the bait. I always baited my own hooks and truly believe it makes a difference with quality fish. In fact we were the only boat that I knew of to catch Coho. Every one of them caught was on a small herring with a tight roll. Both me and my fishing partner had a huge salmon on the line. I'm not going to get into that story, but will say it will haunt
me for years to come. The last day we had to use a different guides boat & the condition of his rods were terrible. In the end it cost me a VERY large fish.
In closing the trip was epic! My guide was great & very professional, definitely one of the best I have had in over 6 years. If you are going to WCR HIPPA, I would strongly recommend "Chase" aka "Fud".
I made it through a 9 day fishing marathon at 2 different lodges in Haida Gwaii. It has been a dream to do it & glad I did. My body hurts, my hands are a mess, im broke but couldn't be happier!
No Sable fish???
ILHG
Crew Member
No........ my fishing partner kept letting fish go so he could go for bigger. The last full day when I wanted to go out he still needed a couple springs. We caught plenty of fish but spent the day looking for his At the end of the day he ended up keeping a 15 lb bleeder. It was still fun catching all the fish but disappointed that I never got to deep drop. The weather was perfect for it... The last day we had 2.5 hrs in the morning & I wasn't going to go out and only have 20 min to go for Sable fish.
I could have pushed it but my buddy was so happy & it's not to often you have a day when you catch and release over 2 dozen big springs each in a day. (Not to mention the all the by catch) Not to mention the guide was not interested in going either.
Now that I am home I am disappointed even more about it. Looking back I realize even more that I just don't like going with guides from the big resorts. I hope I am not offending any members here. I have fished with professional guides who have taught me the majority of what I know. Those guys where masters of there craft. I am sure some of those guides work for the big Lodges & I always thought they would be the ones in the upgraded boats. That's why I booked the upgraded boat on this trip, but I found it was a guy who had never spent a day in the boat.
My guide and every one out there had the addittude that all you need to do is drop down meat to catch the fish. Thats why they only fish a few spots with deep structure. That where you can catch smaller springs who are very aggressive and are in a feeding frenzy on a bait ball. When that's on they hit anything. Not once did I see any one work tight on Kelp or shore line structure to get the big ones.
I asked my guide twice on 2 separate days when the tide change was & he had no idea.
I baited my own hooks after the first day and it made the difference. We were the only ones to catch any Coho. I think that's because I took the time to put out the smaller herring & gave them a tight fast roll.
I brought my camera up there but forgot my charger. I ran it the second day we were out there & I recall the other other rod with a cut plug getting the action. When I look at the movies it's either a herring in a teaser with NO spin due to trolling with current, or a helicopter blade going through the water. The only time it caught fish was in a feed frenzy at a bait ball...
I'm glad I told him I will do my own baits after1/2 way through the second day. That's when we started to catch fish away from bait balls.
Sorry to rant & I hope I have not offended any one
anorthernhunter
Active Member
Nice fish!! Were you able to salvage any video from your camera before the battery died?
hippaisland
Well-Known Member
If you wanted to work the kelp and spots in tight, staying in the smaller 18' CC would've been advantageous. Tacking those Seawest's in tight to the kelp, shallow structure is a nightmare. I will agree with you though, the vast majority of boats fish where it's "going off", typically offshore structure and pinnacles. Sounds like you had a good time though! Thats a pretty epic trip you did, and good on you for keeping the bleeders!
From what i have seen the vast majority of customers guides get are total numbnuts & land about 1 in 10 fish. Do the math they need to hook-up lots of fish. Also a lot of the resorts release all Salmon over 30#. With mortality at 15% you may have only kept 2 fish, but how many did you kill? They may not be into killing large fish.
I think if you were to fish the rocks you'd need to fish hardware otherwise you'd be changing bait/leaders from Rockfish & not be fishing much. I have been to both outfit's up there & if the guide didn't own it, it wasn't getting fished. West Coast Fishing Club only fishes cut-plug; looked to me like they'd risk getting in trouble deviating from the corporate plan.
I used to run my 24' Searay so close to the rocks around Ucluelet the booms would almost hit the rocks, so i don't see any issue with their bigger boats. Had my 33' Chris pretty close in as well, but fishing the rocks is my favorite drug.
Did Hippa last year in late August Mike (Nubbs) totally abused us our last day; limits on everything - Coho 13-16, Chinook to 26 Ling to 29; would have easily traded all my lings & YE's for your Hali though my one that day was 80 something. Lodge was not full so you could probably get a deal.
I think if you were to fish the rocks you'd need to fish hardware otherwise you'd be changing bait/leaders from Rockfish & not be fishing much. I have been to both outfit's up there & if the guide didn't own it, it wasn't getting fished. West Coast Fishing Club only fishes cut-plug; looked to me like they'd risk getting in trouble deviating from the corporate plan.
I used to run my 24' Searay so close to the rocks around Ucluelet the booms would almost hit the rocks, so i don't see any issue with their bigger boats. Had my 33' Chris pretty close in as well, but fishing the rocks is my favorite drug.
Did Hippa last year in late August Mike (Nubbs) totally abused us our last day; limits on everything - Coho 13-16, Chinook to 26 Ling to 29; would have easily traded all my lings & YE's for your Hali though my one that day was 80 something. Lodge was not full so you could probably get a deal.
anorthernhunter
Active Member
Just got back last night from North Island Lodge. The sea lions were wayyyy better this time. Not sure why but they weren't a huge or even big factor. Some guys lost fish to them, but not more than the norm.
I managed to limit out on coho ... they were in big time. I got 3 chinooks - could have kept more but was looking for size. I caught a 34 lb chinook at 48 feet on a flasher and hoochie - interestingly enough a white chinook.
Lots of hali's and ling cod.
Staff was excellent at NIL ... the weather was good and fishable - overall an excellent time.
Now ... I am in withdrawals.
I managed to limit out on coho ... they were in big time. I got 3 chinooks - could have kept more but was looking for size. I caught a 34 lb chinook at 48 feet on a flasher and hoochie - interestingly enough a white chinook.
Lots of hali's and ling cod.
Staff was excellent at NIL ... the weather was good and fishable - overall an excellent time.
Now ... I am in withdrawals.
littlechucky
Crew Member
I caught a 34 lb white at Langara a few years ago.
I have heard that the big Kitsumkalum fish can be white. Also a run of whites on the central coast (Atnarko?).
http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2015/mpo-dfo/Fs70-1-1999-164-eng.pdf
My understanding the Harrison whites are resident fish and don't migrate up that far north.
fishin_magician
Well-Known Member
A good guide should fish according to your expectations and wishes. If you wanted to fish away from the crowd...then he should have taken you there.
As for certain guides not wanting to fish anything other than their gear...they should demonstrate why... I had fun with that a couple of times....
As for guides wanting to fish bait...they do it because it works! Guides should be fishing ethically however.
As for the guide not checking the roll and fishing a dead action bait...that's incredible. I would have complained to the lodge manager and owner. If I were on that management team that guide gets a final warning.
You can fish whatever you want to fish and if you want to fish gear....so be it.
As for certain guides only fishing bait....perhaps it's all they know how to fish? That's a large portion of the reason why certain "guides" only fish bait at certain establishments.
Interesting to hear everyone's experiences.
As for certain guides not wanting to fish anything other than their gear...they should demonstrate why... I had fun with that a couple of times....
As for guides wanting to fish bait...they do it because it works! Guides should be fishing ethically however.
As for the guide not checking the roll and fishing a dead action bait...that's incredible. I would have complained to the lodge manager and owner. If I were on that management team that guide gets a final warning.
You can fish whatever you want to fish and if you want to fish gear....so be it.
As for certain guides only fishing bait....perhaps it's all they know how to fish? That's a large portion of the reason why certain "guides" only fish bait at certain establishments.
Interesting to hear everyone's experiences.
Guided around hippa for a bunch of years. The black rockfish were pretty bad inshore so it made it tough to fish tight to the kelp. There are places but mostly the bigger fish come close to the bottom on structure. I used to fish a lot of bait (I honed my skills on the central coast where the roll actually matters). Anyways the west side is a fun action packed fishery where you have to go through lots of numbers to get the bigger fish. I found that exclusively fishing 7" tomic plugs produced a better grade. But that was just me. Soon many tween Chinook up there it was amazing. The 40s and 50s were little lacking at times.
ILHG
Crew Member
I learned a lesson about Bait when I was up there. Nothing beats it.. Ever.. Only time to switch it up is when there is a feeding frenzy going on & you want to get back down quicker. However I will say that the 7" Tomic plug "602" was a close second. I was surprised at little attention the spoons got.
Dogbreath
Well-Known Member
The old Go To for commercial trollers there was a 50/50 Chrome & Brass anything I found a strip of glow tape really improved odds on spoons.
