Rain City
Crew Member
Alright. It finally happened. I caught my first Hali on my own boat with my own gear. This was years in the making and I couldn't be happier. I know it's not a big deal to most guys looking at these reports but this was huge for me. Ended up having another forum member volunteer to make the trip out from the city to jump on board with me for a day. He arrived late night and slept in his truck. As luck would have it I woke up at 4AM to the worst fog I've seen on this trip and in fact, in my life. Maybe 50 feet of visibility in the dark. Somehow got to the East Dock and meet this crazy stranger for the first time in the pitch black. At this point I'm not totally convinced he's not there to kill me. Some say I post too much! So it's my first experience running out in the fog and I'm going solely on the chart and radar. Several times I looked away for two seconds and hung a hard right without knowing it. It was 2m waves but nice and spread out, the boat handled it fine. This was hands down one of the most exciting moments of my adult life. I've never been out there on my own. Never been guided. Never been to a lodge. We made it out about 15 miles when we decided to hit a pinnacle that another member memtioned "might be good". There's a lot of cryptic language that's used with tips I've noticed. "Near there", "about here", "this range". I can appreciate that the guys that know, want you to figure it out for yourself. We dropped the gear and buddy immediately hits a big skate. I wasn't disappointed because it was another first for me. I was pretty jacked that we were on fish. Pulled up a couple yellow eye and sent them back down. But then it got stale. We drifted for a about an hour with no dice. Messaged a forum member to ask what he thought of the spot I chose. "You're close". Great. We picked up and moved over to the edge of the bank and started trolling along it bouncing our gear. Made it about a mile and gave up on that. I looked at the chart again and picked a subtle hump right at the edge of the bank. I decided to go back to the drift and try and sit there for a bit. The fog started clearing a little and the visibility was about a mile when I noticed another boat. I knew who it was too. We found a spot! Not two minutes into the drift I get hammered and pull up a 95cm Hali. Not the biggest, but the biggest deal to me. We picked up another two chickens and made our way in to hit some salmon. I went through the paces to put buddy on some fish and we quickly had his limit. At that point I really had just checked out and was going through the motions. I've caught a lot of salmon in my life. I was still jacked about the Hali. Dropped him off at the dock with a cooler full of fish, another great SFBC member find. The amount of help I've receieved over the past 7 years from good guys on this forum is amazing. Going from an 18 foot bowrider and never fishing with a downrigger to taking my boat to Bamfield solo and getting on my first Hali is all thanks to this forum. My family arrives tomorrow and I'm excited to show them around this beautiful place and get them on some fish!
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