2024 Bamfield and Barkley Sound Reports

Started at pill point this morning, had the binoculars on all the boats and didn't see any fish getting caught so i only did a couple passes and moved on. Crossed imperial eagle and tried link/weld island, no luck but i did get to see a humpback whale feeding at close range. Moved over to diplock and got a silverbright 14 pounder on anchovy. Out in front of swiss boy island there is a reef that i found some action, first a 9 pound coho on white hootchie at 63 feet. Circled back and got a smaller spring around 8 pound. Then another coho around 5 pounds. Many shakers on bait. Another smaller spring around 6/7 pounds on the anchovy coming back towards pill.
Brutal. Sounds slow. Was thinking of ripping down from port on sunday but this report is giving me 2nd thoughts. Maybe a day for bathroom renos instead!
 
The first day was independent and the second and third day was from lodge. The lodge guide was great at salmon just didn’t want to do anything else. Independent guy only had salmon gear and we weren’t allowed to touch it. It was hard to watch as he wouldn’t check gear regularly and would only stick to his program.
DM me so i can razz them and make sure i dont refer them to anyone if i am overbooked..
 
Have been fishing here for the last 10 days. My report is fishing was on fire up until the monsoon rains and Thursday evening. The evenings and even the afternoons at times were better than the mornings for us. Yesterday we scratched a few and today - at Cree currently - is brutally slow. More fish coming I hope? Small spoons and coho killers/wee gee's were all that were working for us. Thinking of heading offshore for coho now... any advice? Literally just go out a few miles and start randomly trolling?
 
Home from Bamfield last night. We had an excellent trip with limits of fish for 2 guys, although nothing huge. We were away for 4 nights and fished for 3 days as the weather (seas) were great, fished all 3 days offshore; we don’t often get 3 days offshore back to back.
I mostly used a 6” Tomic 602uvii and caught all species on it.
My partner likes to use meat, so he used anchovies and herring until he ran out of them then he switched to spoons.
The coho were thick, so many times we caught them while we were still holding the lines in our hands before we could even connect to the downriggers!
  • 8 Spring salmon (largest just shy of 20) The larger ones were white springs.
  • 8 Coho (all hatch)
  • 4 Halibut - mid 70cm's
  • 6 Lingcod
  • 1 Blackcod
We lost count of how many coho, springs and halibut we released. So much fun!
The boat ran fantastic, and we sure appreciated the onboard diesel heater on the cool damp days running to and from the fishing grounds.
Cheers
 
I just got back from Bamfield. Mills Landing. Our first day was Sunday before the rain. We had a couple hours so we hit the Wall. Picked up a chinook and coho. The next day the rain started heavy. We hit the Wall again, four fish right away. Thought it was going to be easy pickings this year. Then we had two very tough days. Rained the entire time and got a couple coho at Stanford. Thursday and Friday we nailed the salmon. Girberator Island and Fleming is where we Had the best luck. The bigger anchovies and white hoochie on blue flashers got all the fish. Best part of the trip was watching my son reel in his first chinook, 14lbs. He's addicted. We came back with 18 salmon, 9 chinook and 9 coho.. The coho are big this year, 8-10 lbs. Great trip, great town. See you next year.
 

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Home from Bamfield last night. We had an excellent trip with limits of fish for 2 guys, although nothing huge. We were away for 4 nights and fished for 3 days as the weather (seas) were great, fished all 3 days offshore; we don’t often get 3 days offshore back to back.
I mostly used a 6” Tomic 602uvii and caught all species on it.
My partner likes to use meat, so he used anchovies and herring until he ran out of them then he switched to spoons.
The coho were thick, so many times we caught them while we were still holding the lines in our hands before we could even connect to the downriggers!
  • 8 Spring salmon (largest just shy of 20) The larger ones were white springs.
  • 8 Coho (all hatch)
  • 4 Halibut - mid 70cm's
  • 6 Lingcod
  • 1 Blackcod
We lost count of how many coho, springs and halibut we released. So much fun!
The boat ran fantastic, and we sure appreciated the onboard diesel heater on the cool damp days running to and from the fishing grounds.
Cheers
Mind sharing where you went off shore. We did ok today, couple beauty springs and one coho in the boat lost 4-5 more. 2 Hali also Went straight out from bamfield 10-12 miles.
 
Mind sharing where you went off shore. We did ok today, couple beauty springs and one coho in the boat lost 4-5 more. 2 Hali also Went straight out from bamfield 10-12 miles.
We were out near Rats Nose. We stayed on the 200 foot flats and dragged the cannon balls in the mud for springs and bottom fish. 80-150 for coho except for those that we literally caught on the surface.
Good luck out there!
 
And anyways. Is the sound still slow? May do another day run next week.
my date/deckhand , lol, yesterday didnt want to fish until 10 a.m. then done at 2.. it is slow but other boats where on the banks , did good and i would assume these fish are timed to come in over the next couple weeks. i hope.
 
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I just got back from Bamfield. Mills Landing. Our first day was Sunday before the rain. We had a couple hours so we hit the Wall. Picked up a chinook and coho. The next day the rain started heavy. We hit the Wall again, four fish right away. Thought it was going to be easy pickings this year. Then we had two very tough days. Rained the entire time and got a couple coho at Stanford. Thursday and Friday we nailed the salmon. Girberator Island and Fleming is where we Had the best luck. The bigger anchovies and white hoochie on blue flashers got all the fish. Best part of the trip was watching my son reel in his first chinook, 14lbs. He's addicted. We came back with 18 salmon, 9 chinook and 9 coho.. The coho are big this year, 8-10 lbs. Great trip, great town. See you next year.
Jesus not going to mess with that kid lol. !!
 
Headed up to the Sound Tuesday evening for a few days of fishing. Stopped at Pill shortly before dark with time for a quick fish to see how things were looking. Hooked up a nice one on first pass in Blood Bay so called it a night feeling good about the days to come. Hit the meat hole at first light and hooked a double on the first pass of two of the most lethargic springs I’ve ever seen. One swam straight into the net while the other popped off and just sat there for a while 10 feet below the surface for a minute before slowing swimming away. Hooked up a couple more before the bite went dead. Saw very few others hookup that morning. Ran to Swale and hooked another right away and then it went dead. Then the rain hit hard and we ran to Cree and picked up a bunch of Coho and called it a day. Pretty depressing as a bunch of guys at the dock were skunked on the day. Monsoon rains moved in and we almost just called it quits but the rain stopped around 7am Thursday so we went back to the meat hole and some fresh fish moved in with a decent bite going on with lots of guys hooking up. We had a good morning except when a couple sea lions moved in and were grabbing fish left right and center. After the bite died we went to Cree to get our coho. Way better mood amongst the fleet and lots of fish at the cleaning tables. Went back out to the meat hole Friday morning and the bite was better than the day before and we were getting a better grade of fresh, harder fighting fish to end the trip. Overall not the greatest fishing but good enough. You really don’t want to miss the morning bite or you could be in for a grind. Chovys and small spoons worked equally well.IMG_8107.jpegIMG_8115.jpegIMG_8122.pngIMG_8125.jpeg
 
First trip to bamfield in the books. Did pretty good on everything, lots of help and hints from members here. Biggest spring was 25. Lots of coho( limit for 3 guys). Halibut…. Fished one morning inside rest of time off shore. Will return with better planning and really put some time in fishing in the broken group. Thanks to all for helping makes this a great experience
 
First trip to bamfield in the books. Did pretty good on everything, lots of help and hints from members here. Biggest spring was 25. Lots of coho( limit for 3 guys). Halibut…. Fished one morning inside rest of time off shore. Will return with better planning and really put some time in fishing in the broken group. Thanks to all for helping makes this a great experience
find some halibut?
 
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