2017 Haida Gwaii Reports

[Derby]

better late r then never ..here's my 2017 North King Lodge Report.. June 9th-13th..

as always there is a group of about 10 to 16 of us that go on this trip and have been doing it 14 years or so..
it usually starts out staying at the Pacific gate Hotel and a Thursday night a Pier 73 pub visit ..One needs to have a nacho plate and Beer to start a good trip off..



Next morning we are shuttled off the south terminal were we book in to our flight and load on the a charter to Bella.. great weather this year and nice flight..



In a hr 15 minutes your in Bella and on to a helicopter and off the lodge you go...

 

[fishspoon]

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.

No doubt! When I saw a guide tossing a very old giant rusty looking chrome brass spoon in the water. A few minutes later, a nice big Rennell spring was caught! Impressive!

 

[Derby]

Your grab a quick meal and on the water you go.. This year was able to fish with my warehouse manager of PNT Scott..being it was his fish time at the end of a sportie trod this was going to be a fun trip.. the afternoon great a we found quickly that he was a natural on pulling on the critters that like to pull line.. scott
got his first fish in to boat right of the hop...turns out he is a natural at this...


At the top end of wall Island every year the whale watching hut has some folks logging whale sighting ..there is a reason it is called whale channel as a day doesn't go bye where u are not seeing a wacked of different whales going thru...


Wall Island and the honey hole continued to be the good spots for a couple days ..with nice fish to 25lb being released and a good supply of early cohoes to 6lbs..nice bonus for early June..


I have to go...will finish later

 

[fishin_magician]

All the usual spoons work well up there.

In the 90's I fished some gear when the fishing got slow and I did well one morning. I took a shellacking and beating from the head guide at that lodge one lunch hour because one of the other boats saw me "trolling" with a second rigger instead of cutplugging and hooking a double on 6" Tubbies... Something was up when we came back with 4 Chinooks and 4 released when the entire fleet brought back 2 for all the other boats.

I found that 5.5 and 6.0 Wonder 1/2 & 1/2 worked well as did Clendon Stewarts and Superiors in MOP 158, 602 and 500s. The Gold ones were very good as were the Copper ones when the Cedar water arrived.

Superiors in 5.5 to 7.0 worked all too as did Diamond Lances.

Plugs in all sizes from 5-7" worked.

212 was a good one as was 600, 602, 126, 158, 168 and 232. 203 and 500 also worked. The 700, 727, 652, 407, 408 all worked. 301 was good too. A 512g hammered them.

Coyote 6.0's destroyed them as well.

I used to fish medium and large Herring in super Herring and they worked great.

What I didn't like was losing the gear out of my own pocket....Tubbies at $12 a pop back then and Commercial spoons at $10 adds up in a hurry. Although finding one of my plugs offshore while Hali fishing great... as was finding a half dozen broken off plugs with bent hooks and tails hanging off the rings after an Alaskan Troll opening. Chinooks with ripped jaws hit the dock for 3 weeks after that...

 

[Derby]

on the Monday we were able to sneak across to Alexander island over bye eclipse pt and it was game on for the morning.. a bunch of cohoes .. Released 6 spring from 18 to 25lbs... Scott got his butt kicked a g good spring that end up being his first tyee 31lber...



there was one small emergency on the water as it seemed a fellow SFBC member crew member was out of cigs...so Scott stepped up to float his a loaner to get bye.

 

[Derby]

After a good morning on salmon.. we fish flat cod for the afternoon.. Wasn't getting as much love as a couple of my buddies we were able to get Scott his first hali a 42lber...


Did lose another about 70lbs at the boat... u know **** happens then u fish was testing out the new descending device on all the cod and found it worked great..


The Tuesday Morning fishing Wall island I bumped into Our friend Black Jack again..seems to be annual event.. slow morning there so off he went to greener pastures I'm sure....

Its was a great trip this year ... lodge had 6 tyees on the board lots of cohoes and fish caught by all.. big smiles all around.. a successful trip for 2017....


And off course .... your know your home when u wake up on you flight home to this view..

 

[stones93]

thank you for the great report Derby! I am headed to Langara July 8th and will also post my experience

 

[SFBC]

Great report Derby...another great place to fish on the west coast! Love all that flat water in your photos.

 

[Pursuit]

Thanks for the report Derby. Hope we have your weather next week up there

 

[stones93]

Langara specific questions, I have fished there 9 time and know how to fish the salmon spots quit well but as I am unguided (going up July 8th) I was wondering if anyone had a great ling cod spot they would be willing to share and a hali spot for the oversized (I usually go between langara rock and the lighthouse but not sure what depth or something specific to look for) If you don't want to post it please send me a personal message as I would very much appreciate it! I will post a full post trip report when I get back. The ling spot is something I really want!

 

[Derby]

Thanks for the report Derby. Hope we have your weather next week up there

Had a couple tough day of wind ..but we did get a beauty day once it settled in... there is always a place to fish there..question is are the e fish in that spot

 

[UkeeDreamin]

Langara specific questions, I have fished there 9 time and know how to fish the salmon spots quit well but as I am unguided (going up July 8th) I was wondering if anyone had a great ling cod spot they would be willing to share and a hali spot for the oversized (I usually go between langara rock and the lighthouse but not sure what depth or something specific to look for) If you don't want to post it please send me a personal message as I would very much appreciate it! I will post a full post trip report when I get back. The ling spot is something I really want!

No experience with Langara but a suggested solution I used to find lots of great ling pinnacles out of Lund, BC before I fished it the first time (and now have a half-dozen to a dozen spots that produce legal lings on a regular basis): go to the Navionics WebApp and go to the Chart Viewer (should default to the boating charts), scroll the map to the Langara Island area you're interested in and turn on the Sonar Chart overlay (there's a button in the bottom left corner). Pinnacles and other structure will jump right out at you. Everywhere I've ever fished, pinnacles that top out at anywhere from 40-150ft that drop-off at least 60 ft, and preferably 100-200ft, to the surrounding bottom will always hold lings. Good luck, look forward to the report!

Cheers!

Ukee

 

[stones93]

No experience with Langara but a suggested solution I used to find lots of great ling pinnacles out of Lund, BC before I fished it the first time (and now have a half-dozen to a dozen spots that produce legal lings on a regular basis): go to the Navionics WebApp and go to the Chart Viewer (should default to the boating charts), scroll the map to the Langara Island area you're interested in and turn on the Sonar Chart overlay (there's a button in the bottom left corner). Pinnacles and other structure will jump right out at you. Everywhere I've ever fished, pinnacles that top out at anywhere from 40-150ft that drop-off at least 60 ft, and preferably 100-200ft, to the surrounding bottom will always hold lings. Good luck, look forward to the report!

Cheers!

Ukee

That's awesome Ukee and exactly what I am looking for! Going to try it tonight.

 

[stones93]

I just put together a highlight video of the trip:

.

I mounted a gopro camera to the boat and captured most of the fish strikes. It's fun to watch these; you can learn a lot simply by studying what triggered the bite. e.g. turn the boat to trigger a strike, and don't turn your back once you've cranked down on the rod!

Thank you very much Barry for the video! I am heading up to Langara this weekend with my 14 year old nephew. It was awesome to be able to show him what a bite looks like and also to give him confidence that he can pull these fish in (truth be told he is stronger than any of us old guys going but don't let him know I also really appreciated, from my perspective, how cool and calm you were with your boy letting him make his own mistakes and not yelling when a fish is on. The best line is "picking your nose" I will use that instead of any foul language! I can tell you are a great dad and once again thank you for sharing your experience with us!

 

[BarryA]

Thx Stones, my son is pretty salty so we've had enough time on the water to enjoy the friendly trash talk. Unlike home, Langara is a place where you get more than 1-2 chances a day so it's a great place to let him get some reps in. He just needs to grow longer arms to work the downriggers more quickly. We'll be up there again next year with more videos to share.

 

[Pursuit]

Just back from 4 great days at Langara ~ lots of fish around [Springs, Coho] and a few Pinks, even picked up a Chum [released] but most Springs in the teens, a few in the 20's, only 2 [out of 40 fishers at the lodge] were just over 30lbs. Largest coho was caught by my wife at 10lbs. The sea lions were an issue and we lost enough to be APITA even free-spooling the fish.

Here's picture of a sea lion that tangled with a commercial trawler:
[I assume it was a trawler as I didn't see any sportie's with flashers and this one was all silver which I think is standard commercial issue.]

 

[ericl]

Was at Masset fishing with Brett (Masset Fishing Adventures). Pretty slow; lot's of marks on the sounder but very few bites. Lot's of feed. Fish were all small (under 20) empty stomachs & a bit on the thin side. Hali was pretty good largest 105 Cm. Caught everything on the troll in 35-40 ft of water. Salmon all hit like a ton of bricks & fought well above their weight, so I was very pleased with the trip.
Brett runs a first class operation. Can pin a chovy faster than I have ever seen with superb netting skills. Boat has a heated cabin, fish are bled/dressed within 2 minutes & in a salt ice slurry.
Packer in town charges $2/pound for first rate portioning & packaging.
Weather was jeans/shirt; not the usual Hippa/Langara space suit experience. All fish caught on spoons.

As Arnold says, "I'll be back".

 

[stones93]

Just got back from Langara yesterday. Great wether and winds. Didn't spend time going for a big hali or lings but has tons of coho (up to 14 lbs and averaged about 8-9 lbs). Chinook were a bit tougher to find but when you did it was great, size has been going up with lots over 20lbs. Our biggest (out of 7 people) was 30 (released). Floating lodge biggest was 36.5 but I think. I saw a North Island lodge boat land a monster but don't know the weight.

 

[Fishin'Zinn]

Awesome! Those are nice fish, great fights there. Good to hear they are getting bigger. 14 lb coho is a riot!!! Congrats on the release, that's really good of you guys to do that... I was lucky enough to be there a few years back. Current ripping through Bruin bay, fought a high 20's/ low 30's in whirlpools and rips, most amazing feeling to release a big fish unharmed. (I'll spare the rest of the story about losing my phone in the drink after trying to get a hurried picture and almost falling in trying to reach it LOL)

Did you even get a chance to try for lings? Or was it tough to get everyone their salmon?

I *might* be lucky enough to be there in early August, trying to get all the info I can til then!

 

[stones93]

Awesome! Those are nice fish, great fights there. Good to hear they are getting bigger. 14 lb coho is a riot!!! Congrats on the release, that's really good of you guys to do that... I was lucky enough to be there a few years back. Current ripping through Bruin bay, fought a high 20's/ low 30's in whirlpools and rips, most amazing feeling to release a big fish unharmed. (I'll spare the rest of the story about losing my phone in the drink after trying to get a hurried picture and almost falling in trying to reach it LOL)

Did you even get a chance to try for lings? Or was it tough to get everyone their salmon?

I *might* be lucky enough to be there in early August, trying to get all the info I can til then!

Fishin'Zinn, I didn't spend anytime going for ling this year but lots of people has success for smaller eaters at 150-180ft between no-name and Macpherson. I also spent a lot of time talking with the lodge manager and a few guide friends and have good avionics' spots on the north side of the island if you like. I also have an amazing Hali hole for biggies.
It was not tough to get salmon as there were coho everywhere, the tougher part was the chinook but our group of 7 mostly limited on our chinooks. Our largest in our group was a 30, but the next day a 44 was caught. The biggies are rolling in!
feel free to message me, plus I have a great lure tip for lings that also got us Hali!