2019 Sooke Reports

[Englishman]

Gave Muir one more try today, but it proved one trip too many as our luck finally ran out.

We had one hit but I missed it and that was it. We arrived around 7:00am and found only six or seven boats at Otter, one down at Sheringham, with zero at Muir. That should have told us something! LOL

Anyway it was great to have the whole of Muir to ourselves, during a variably foggy morning which all burned off by 11:00am to give a spectacular calm day once more.

Trolled back past Otter (only 6 boats there again) and down the east side after lunch and came in at 2:30pm. Needless to say we saw nothing doing at Otter.

 

[Cannonball]

Fished tues and wedn 7am-1:30 everywhere between Secretary to Bedfords, all different depths, all different rigger depths, all different tackle but it seemed as though the switch has turned off. Took a pink home on Tuesday and a rock cod on Wednesday- desperate times. Come on coho run - start showing your faces!

 

[Old Seadog]

Went Halibut fishing today, but No love for me... when the tide was pushing me one way & the wind the other, I called it. Picked up my gear and went salmon fishing. Got one late pink and two wild coho, let them all go... I wanted a Halibut today.
Nice morning on the water.

 

[profisher]

3 springs today the biggest went 27 pounds. Let one over 10 wild coho go and had a mystery fish on for a bit. Nice morning, nice flat and fairly clean water. Just over a dozen boats at Otter so good all round.

 

[gunnerlove]

Fished Aldridge to Trap this morning with a buddy from work, two Coho and two Spring.

 

[c.askin]

fished wed. around secretary and posession 7am t0 1pm 2 pinks and a small spring let 1 wild coho go foggy for a while but smooth seas....C.A.

 

[SpringVelocity]

Dropped into Otter this morning around 830. Had two good sized wild cohos on right away. Kind of ****** timing totally flat calm to washing machine in about 20 minutes/heavy fog when I got there.

Pulled the pin early and headed in. No springs fro me, and will now be switching to coho.

Going to rain all next week so that should send the remaining chinooks on their way. Off to Renfrew tomorrow for last shot at the can.

 

[BCBill]

Launched at Cheana this morning at 6:30. No luck on the dawn bite but after shaking off a few wild coho we boated a 14 lb spring on a red metallic teaser at 40 ft just off the Head. Finished off the day with a 'two hatchery, one pink' triple header landing all three despite the challenge of confirming adipose fin status via the soft net which seemed to enjoy grabbing each of the first two teaser hooks. Chaos but fun chaos.

 

[wolf]

Should have stayed Jarrod !!!!!!!!!!!!after yesterday figured was gonna be "on fire" as we went on thursday 2 for 7 lost 3 at boat EEERRRRRR

today took a bit but when flood kicked in was good and it did calm a bit at about 10 ish thats when all hell broke loose got 3 and called it a day
took my first mate out with a couple of buddies

 

[Tsquared]

Should have stayed Jarrod !!!!!!!!!!!!after yesterday figured was gonna be "on fire" as we went on thursday 2 for 7 lost 3 at boat EEERRRRRR

today took a bit but when flood kicked in was good and it did calm a bit at about 10 ish thats when all hell broke loose got 3 and called it a day
took my first mate out with a couple of buddies

Sea biscuit at the ready!

 

[profisher]

Got to Otter at 10am just as it was happening. Landed 2 springs, 4 nice hatchery coho and a pink. Released a larger wild coho and lost another spring. Got quite lumpy and was hard to fish a straight line anytime you had to deal with a rod or a fish you were very quickly being pushed to the beach. Watched Elliot from Islander Reels doing a salt water immersion test on an Islander. He seemed quite happy and relieved when the reel and rod was back on board and the test was done.

 

[Rayvon]

I gave a new rod and reel the salt water test a couple of weeks ago when I hit a fish jigging,luckily I had another rod handy with a jig on it.I casted out past the sunken rod and was lucky enough to catch the line and pull it back in.Lost the fish though.

 

[mikeyman]

Well im afraid to say we are back to reality for sept!!!!!!! August was a unbelievable month of Chinook fishing I have ever seen in many years...If englishman can get 2 springs in a day ANYONE could LOL, now its ones and 2 per day unfortunately . I am hoping by Thursday with the bigger am floods and not these all HUGE ebbs another shot of springs will come in (im sure they will)
Seeing more coho as well so thats even more promising saw a guy cleaning a beauty about 12 ish lbs at cleaning station He got quite belligerent when I said nice coho.... showed him the white gums and he told me that some springs have white gums too ya know..... its been a long summer so I just walked away..
Word of advice make sure what ya got and DO NOT filet a hatch coho you have to leave it whole so DFO can identify it...

I actually spoke with a co once about the keeping it hole thing to identify it. I wanted to vac pack my catch then freeze it on my trip. He said cut it so the adapose fin or lack of can be identified and its ok.

 

[casper5280]

Fished the Trap form 7-11 this morning, was after springs but ended up with 3 hatch coho all caught in a hour. All on a green CohoKiller@ 70 ft. Ran bait on both sides and not a sniff. Only rod that hit was the center rod today and that never happens. lol. Cleaned them on the boat and all the bait that was in them was small the size of the cohokiller, but a little fatter not sure what they were and they weren't sandlance.

 

[chris73]

Still some good fishing to be had off Sooke! Went out with my son yesterday expecting a lazy day but we were positively surprised about decent action. Unfortunately no real hawg but we hit 3 springs of which one let itself go after a few good runs, one around 10-11# we let go and this one in pic came home with us. Also a few decent coho around once the flood got moving full tilt. Most unclipped of course but there is the odd clipper in the mix. No more pinks though. Fun day, bit foggy at times but manageable. All on bait from Muir to Secretary.

 

[Jama]

Got out yesterday afternoon for a few hours out front. Cruised around looking for springs and didn’t see any action so went out deep searching for coho. Hit a wild on the top rod at about 300ft kept looking out to 550ft and no luck. Trolling back finally got a tug on my rod after no action for about 2 hours. Son grabs it and 15 minutes later a 25 lb spring in the boat! About 400ft of water 120 on the rigger off secretary.
In Mid August I was in Powell River for a celebration of life. I haven’t been back there in years so while I was waiting at the ferry to head back to the island I looked up tackle shops. Turns out there is Marine Traders right beside the terminal. I walked in and they had this display of Skinny Gs right at the door in a color I have never seen so I grab one and a flasher to match. I’ve caught every fish since on that combo and it’s out fished everything else I’ve put down by a mile. I knew I should have grabbed 2....

 

[RogersonCrusoe]

Turns out there is Marine Traders right beside the terminal. I walked in and they had this display of Skinny Gs right at the door in a color I have never seen so I grab one and a flasher to match. I’ve caught every fish since on that combo and it’s out fished everything else I’ve put down by a mile. I knew I should have grabbed 2....

Marine Traders has taken a lot of my money over the years while waiting for the ferry. I'm going up there for Thanksgiving - would you care to share the colour/flasher?

Went out yesterday afternoon as well and didn't fare nearly as good. Went straight out to the depths and trolled down to Beechy Head and back with only two wilds (safely released) to show for it. Not a lot on the sounder in the 0-150' range.
Oh well - going out again tomorrow!

 

[Englishman]

Bit of a gong show this morning. Left home in the fog at 7:30am and found the water too low to launch at Sunny Shores so went to the Prestige. Unfortunately we were unfamiliar with the boat channel in the fog and turned left too quickly after the first red buoy and immediately found ourselves in an ocean of eel grass. Weed masses soon clogged the intake and so the engine overheated and shut down. Took us 30 minutes to extricate ourselves with a mixture of reverse, use of the kicker, and repeated hand clearing of the intake as much as possible. Engine finally quit when we were in the clear and I thought we might be done, but after 30 minutes leaving it to cool the engine regained it’s composure and we finally dropped lines off Possession with half dozen other boats at 9:30am. Did a couple of passes of Possession but no hits so headed out to where more boats were hanging off Secretary. By heading out further from the pack we eventually got about a dozen hits after 11:00am at 43’ on herring and spoons. However, some were sharp savage tugs which we could not hit, some were long distance releases and we only managed to get four coho to the boat, only one of which was a hatchery. The fish we saw were quite small, only 3-4 lbs. Came in at 3:00pm.

 

[RogersonCrusoe]

Oh good, glad to see it wasn't just me to get a pile of hits, but very little to show for it.

Launched at 9:30 and got to possession to have two very quick hits (one of which was a beautiful 10+ wild - that I subsequently cut my leader with a miss with my pliers and watched my prized hoochie swim away with the fish). Overall, got two hatchery into the net and 5 lost overall all between 65-80ft on the rigger in 100-300ft deep. Back at Scuzzy Shores by 2:15

Took my old salmon mentor out on the boat and he went 0/4! He wasn't impressed when I called him a horse

 

[SpringVelocity]

How is the coho fishing going. Did they show up in bigger numbers yet?

Sort of worried with all this early rain going on.