2019 Sooke Reports

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Today was the day I’ve been waiting for approaching about 8 months. Back in December I blindly chose a date with the legendary profisher, which has finally arrived this fine Wednesday. Here’s what happened:

I set my alarm for 04:20 this morning and hopped out of bed at 04:15. I picked up my pops at his house and bombed out to sooke. We went down to the dock. Dad had a little fall in the gravel but he rebounded nicely.

Then I saw him. Standing over 7’ tall and chiseled out of granite, Rollie Rose was ready to take us on the most epic adventure of our lives.

His skill was on display early and often. We hit a plethora of hearty, healthy springs in the 15-23 range we pulled about 10 out of 11 up to the boat. We selected some great high teens/low 20’s to take home for the freezer/smoker. The pinks were thrown in the mix and we got 3 each and even let go a nice sockeye safely released.
Ended the trip nice and early with some hard shelled dungees to boot.

What else can I say? The water was flat calm and the sun was shining. It was all I hoped it would be and more.

Thanks you Rollie, you’re a class act and I recommend anyone and everyone to try a trip with you! My dad and I shared the reeling on the 23(ish)
which is a new personal best :)

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Heading over Thursday night and was going to shore fish but just gunna bite the bullet and rent a boat out of Pedder Bay. Proabably only for 3 hours around the early afternoon high tide so i was curious of the closest place to fish Springs out of Pedder Bay. Decent fishing just outside of the bay in the shallows? Thanks for any input!

Scott
 
sswilson92 PM sent
 
Stizzla said:
Today was the day I’ve been waiting for now for about 8 months. Back in December I blindly chose a date with the legendary profisher, which has finally arrived this fine Wednesday. Here’s what happened:

I set my alarm for 04:20 this morning and hopped out of bed at 04:15. I picked up my pops at his house and bombed out to sooke. We went down to the dock. Dad had a little fall in the gravel but he rebounded nicely.

Then I saw him. Standing over 7’ tall and chiseled out of granite, Rollie Rose was ready to take us on the most epic adventure of our lives.

His skill was on display early and often. We hit a plethora of hearty, healthy springs in the 15-23 range we pulled about 10 out of 11 up to the boat. We selected some great high teens/low 20’s to take home for the freezer/smoker. The pinks were thrown in the mix and we got 3 each and even let go a nice sockeye safely released.
Ended the trip nice and early with some hard shelled dungees to boot.

What else can I say? The water was flat calm and the sun was shining. It was all I hoped it would be and more.

Thanks you Rollie, you’re a class act and I recommend anyone and everyone to try a trip with you! My dad and I shared the reeling on the 23(ish)
which is a new personal best :)

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Nice work!
The lessons you learned today and the memory of this great day with your Dad is priceless!

My best memories of my Dad were fishing with him.
Now I'm making memories with my Kids.

Congrats!
Tips
 
While Stizzla was out at otter point I got out in my tub to Beechy Head with my buddy Dan this am. Got the gear down by 7;30 and the fish were very active today. We had 8 double headers and probably near 30 fish on through the am. Everyone around us was catching fish as well, some mid twenties caught around us. We Kept 13 lb spring, 10 lb hatch Coho and a few pinks. Released a few springs looking for that big one but it never showed up. Still outstanding conditions, aggressive fighting fish made for one of my best days ever
 
Stizzla said:
Today was the day I’ve been waiting for approaching about 8 months. Back in December I blindly chose a date with the legendary profisher, which has finally arrived this fine Wednesday. Here’s what happened:

I set my alarm for 04:20 this morning and hopped out of bed at 04:15. I picked up my pops at his house and bombed out to sooke. We went down to the dock. Dad had a little fall in the gravel but he rebounded nicely.

Then I saw him. Standing over 7’ tall and chiseled out of granite, Rollie Rose was ready to take us on the most epic adventure of our lives.

His skill was on display early and often. We hit a plethora of hearty, healthy springs in the 15-23 range we pulled about 10 out of 11 up to the boat. We selected some great high teens/low 20’s to take home for the freezer/smoker. The pinks were thrown in the mix and we got 3 each and even let go a nice sockeye safely released.
Ended the trip nice and early with some hard shelled dungees to boot.

What else can I say? The water was flat calm and the sun was shining. It was all I hoped it would be and more.

Thanks you Rollie, you’re a class act and I recommend anyone and everyone to try a trip with you! My dad and I shared the reeling on the 23(ish)
which is a new personal best :)

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It is for stories like this one that I particpate in this forum. Well done. A great guide also depends upon good anglers to put the big fish in the box. Your dad looks really stoked.
 
The SRKW must be into one hell of pile of fish off Swiftsure to keep them there and not in Juan De Fuca. Some of the best Chinook fishing I've seen for numbers of fish being hooked up. The bites go on for long periods, then subside , then start up again. Everyone is getting in on the action. I switched over to pink hootchies a couple days ago because we had our springs, lost a few and released a few. We dropped welll back into the flood rip east of Otter and we found some pinks there. We also hooked and landed 4 more springs on the pink hootchies. Englishman would have FREAKED OUT!!! LOL
 
Stizzla said:
Today was the day I’ve been waiting for approaching about 8 months. Back in December I blindly chose a date with the legendary profisher, which has finally arrived this fine Wednesday. Here’s what happened:

I set my alarm for 04:20 this morning and hopped out of bed at 04:15. I picked up my pops at his house and bombed out to sooke. We went down to the dock. Dad had a little fall in the gravel but he rebounded nicely.

Then I saw him. Standing over 7’ tall and chiseled out of granite, Rollie Rose was ready to take us on the most epic adventure of our lives.

His skill was on display early and often. We hit a plethora of hearty, healthy springs in the 15-23 range we pulled about 10 out of 11 up to the boat. We selected some great high teens/low 20’s to take home for the freezer/smoker. The pinks were thrown in the mix and we got 3 each and even let go a nice sockeye safely released.
Ended the trip nice and early with some hard shelled dungees to boot.

What else can I say? The water was flat calm and the sun was shining. It was all I hoped it would be and more.

Thanks you Rollie, you’re a class act and I recommend anyone and everyone to try a trip with you! My dad and I shared the reeling on the 23(ish)
which is a new personal best :)

View attachment 47041

View attachment 47055
Click to expand...
Well Written Stizzla!! You are approaching the level of the Englishman!! I wish I could write so well!! Sounds like an Epic adventure!! I'm very happy for you that you had such a great day fishing.......Great to have that memory with your Dad.........great to share with family. I can hardly wait to go again!! Xena
 
“We also hooked and landed 4 more springs on the pink hootchies. Englishman would have FREAKED OUT!!! LOL”
When we were commercial trolling, those springs always tended to get the adrenaline going when they came up on a 6 ft leader and no reel, just a clip!
 
profisher said:
The SRKW must be into one hell of pile of fish off Swiftsure to keep them there and not in Juan De Fuca. Some of the best Chinook fishing I've seen for numbers of fish being hooked up. The bites go on for long periods, then subside , then start up again. Everyone is getting in on the action. I switched over to pink hootchies a couple days ago because we had our springs, lost a few and released a few. We dropped welll back into the flood rip east of Otter and we found some pinks there. We also hooked and landed 4 more springs on the pink hootchies. Englishman would have FREAKED OUT!!! LOL
Click to expand...

You bet I would Rollie, but only if they were 30lb like my one was.!! ;)For me, it has been so ironic that all my chinook that I had to release before August 1st have been larger than anything we have had since except for my daughter's 24lb 'der on the on the 6th. And the irony of the released 30lb 'der is it came on that tiny pink hootchie while fishing for pinks and all my herring and anchovy since August 1st has brought nothing bigger than 12lb (again, except for my daughter's fish). (And all my herring and anchovy over the last 10 years has brought nothing so large either....... so my "freak out" as you call it is entirely to be expected!!)
I have no doubt such an amazing occurrence will never happen again......!!:(
 
Roland I've said this many times to many people, especially those just starting out. A spoon, plug or hootchie will always outfish bait that is not presented well. Those artificial lures are pre-tuned by the presumed fishing expert who invented and manufactured them...while bait has to be tuned every time before being lowered in the water by the end user. That has to be learned and mastered. It can be a frustrating process, I was there at one time.
 
Tips Up said:
Nice work!
The lessons you learned today and the memory of this great day with your Dad is priceless!

My best memories of my Dad were fishing with him.
Now I'm making memories with my Kids.

Congrats!
Tips
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You bet , Tips! The memories were fantastic. I’m not sure about “priceless” though. At least not according to my credit card bill.

Kidding, it was worth every penny!

My dad’s first fish was one of my favourites. He had 30 years of rust on him and got back on the horse with a 20 pounder. (His all time best is 23.5)
His knuckles took a beating on that one! Rollie and I were both giving him an earful. Bonked in the end.
I’m proud of him and this was really a special one as I’m not sure how much time we have left together with his resume of health problems.

Love that guy!
 
Saxe Point said:
Always take the benefit of the doubt when it is offered! And what matters is that you chose to do the right thing.
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I actually do my best to respect all the ever changing and complicated rules. I am also very supportive of protecting the Sooke River Chinook. I am not sure how many people know that the fact that this Chinook run exists in itself is an amazing accomplishment. As I understand it, the original Sooke Chinook went extinct and from a Chinook perspective, the river was dead. The run was reestablished using genetically very similar Chinook from a nearby system and the establishment of the Jack Brooks Hatchery and is now a self sustaining run. We owe a great deal to those anglers and the Community of Sooke, for that project, done on a shoe string budget with considerable local fund raising and volunteer efforts many years ago. It amazes me how successful the Sport Fishing Sector and small communities can be at protecting and restoring salmon runs with little support, when they are simply allowed to.

I don't know that I made the correct decision to turn with a big Chinook on to stay out of the zone. I guess we need an interpretation of the rules from DFO. Technically you can fish for salmon inside the line. You are just supposed to release any Chinook you hook up in there, but we hooked up outside the line.

I would also say that most of the salmon hooked up inside the line in the shallow water are big spawner Chinook this time of year, (I would think well over 90%). So those who fish in there from a boat with the excuse they are fishing for Coho is in my opinion, just BS. You will see them over the line fishing all the time, sometimes 50 feet over the line, and sometimes one to three hundred.yards over the line. So what are they fishing in there for? - to Catch and Release big Chinook? Some I think are not locals and may just not have a clue.

I also think that on the east end, almost all would not be Sooke Chinook but Fraser and other river system Chinook. That area on the east end of the line to the west of Possession point is historical prime sport fishing territory. Perhaps moving the boundary marker in a little on the east end would keep this prime sport fishing territory open while not impacting the Sooke Chinook which tend to enter the inlet from the west end, Even 50 yards would make a huge difference to those fishing this location - a simple solution.

The reason I suspect it is only Chinook non retention in the protection zone, is that allows the shore fishermen at the mouth of the Sooke River to catch Coho etc. in Sept when they start to turn up in numbers. Perhaps it won't matter in the future as I don't yet know how big the new floating shell fish farm will be, that I have heard DFO has approved to go into the little bay just west of Possession Point.
 
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