Left Hardy last week on Wednesday evening, and camped near River's Inlet. It poured rain for the first few days and we didn't catch much. The guides reported the same slow fishing. We fished a bit south of the crowd, near Alexandra Passage, and managed to find a bay which held quite a few fish. The smaller springs bit on army truck and green/glow hootchies, and the bigger springs bit on 3.5" glow green/white (5' leader to flasher) spoons trolled FAST. We actually found out by accident that if we trolled at 4mph we hooked the large springs and avoided the smaller ones.
There wasn't much bait but we did come across two balls on the surface. At one, we counted 50 eagles in the trees, taking turns swooping into the bait ball, hooking a few small herring, and returning to the trees. We actually scooped our bucket alongside the boat and got a number of small herring to use as bait.
Bottomfish was slow. Don't even bother fishing Rankin Shoals/Sea Otter Group. I assume it's been hit hard by the longliner which we saw moored in various bays at night. We did manage to catch the lings and two small halibut but it took a while (fish the pinnacles closer to shore).
Dropped off my friends Sunday night at Port Hardy, and took out a different friend on Monday morning. We fished a few spots, but managed to find our springs in a shallow bay close to Cape Sutil. Trolled with the tide around points and into the eddy, in 30' of water. 3.5" spoons. The guide fleet was at the Cape itself but we preferred to be out of the crowd and ended up doing just fine.
Tried for hali by dragging the bottom in 140' a few miles out from the cape. Nothing touched the cut plug herring with large glow/LED hootchies. So we anchored on a pinnacle at 160' and no luck. Tried a trough at 325', but no luck. Finally caught our two halis at about 200' in a hump we anchored on. Some pretty exciting gaff and harpoon work happened (it was my friend's first time fishing), but we got the fish in the boat.
Saw humpbacks every day, sea otters, and a bear on the beach. What a great time.