2024 Bamfield and Barkley Sound Reports

[ShipDisturber]

Arrived late in the afternoon for a week by way of the Bamfield highway. Road is in great shape, easy tow. Got out for an evening fish at Fleming. 3 for 5 (one coho), biggest was ~25lbs. Snapped a downrigger belt on our 1106, hoping Breakers has one for us tomorrow. If anyone has a spare in Bamfield I’d be happy to exchange for some extra cash.

 

[Charleygirl]

Arrived late in the afternoon for a week by way of the Bamfield highway. Road is in great shape, easy tow. Got out for an evening fish at Fleming. 3 for 5 (one coho), biggest was ~25lbs. Snapped a downrigger belt on our 1106, hoping Breakers has one for us tomorrow. If anyone has a spare in Bamfield I’d be happy to exchange for some extra cash.

Harbourside Lodge will have them

 

[trophywife]

get out for first light!! last 5 days, the biggest fish of the day have been caught in first one hour of daylight. small spoons still and white hootchies.
i have been fishing deeper troughs and cuts as the day progresses. 90-120 feet and still 3mph.. if we get some good rains and it gets closer to spawn time then it 2.2mph time.

 

[Flywheel]

Going out for tuna on Friday. Looking for a buddy boat or two to join.

 

[fish brain]

We are planing on going out for Tuna on Saturday. Looking for a buddy boat or two to join.

 

[SpringVelocity]

Just got back last night. It was really good, and was there Friday to Wednesday. Nice fish are in some places. Cree/Austin fore me was still the best, but that started changing when I was leaving. Kirby was good on/off. We fished Diplock, Sanford, Swale and tended to be bit slower with all that brown warm water. Could have been timing in the tide changes.

I am seeing a lot of guys coming up here from other areas never fished here saying its slow and this and that. This is a very big area. Your not going to slay everything your first time. Work the tide changes and find the fish. Sometimes moving around pays off.

Limited out on chinook 15- 20lbs, and coho 8-10lbs. Got some lings, halibut, rockfish, so a really good time overall. The big wave bulk of run is just about to drop. There were seals/sea lions working just down from 3 mile when I was offshore on Tuesday. Go get em...

 

[Aces]

Just got back last night. It was really good, and was there Friday to Wednesday. Nice fish are in some places. Cree/Austin fore me was still the best, but that started changing when I was leaving. Kirby was good on/off. We fished Diplock, Sanford, Swale and tended to be bit slower with all that brown warm water. Could have been timing in the tide changes.

I am seeing a lot of guys coming up here from other areas never fished here saying its slow and this and that. This is a very big area. Your not going to slay everything your first time. Work the tide changes and find the fish. Sometimes moving around pays off.

Limited out on chinook 15- 20lbs, and coho 8-10lbs. Got some lings, halibut, rockfish, so a really good time overall. The big wave bulk of run is just about to drop. There were seals/sea lions working just down from 3 mile when I was offshore on Tuesday. Go get em...

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Good for you sir

 

[carpeweekend]

Also, just got back from the area. Fished from Friday afternoon to Monday. Caught two nice Springs and a Coho at Beale on Friday afternoon. Went offshore on Saturday getting our 3 unders and some Sable fairly quickly. Started trolling for salmon and couldn't keep the Coho off the line. Caught Coho from 2 feet to 180 feet and could rarely get the line down to depth before hooking up. Had to wade through a fair number of wilds to get hatchery but didn't take long. Tried to use larger spoons and huge plugs to stay away from Coho and get some Springs but to no avail. Ran in and fished Beale again for a couple of hours but no results.

Focused on Springs on Sunday and hit Beale again early. No bites and very little bait showing. Moved over to Kirby and joined the parade. Picked up one Spring right away but the bite seemed to go off. Decided to move on and trolled down to Hammond. Just us and one inflatable trolling around. The bite really came on and we picked up another 5 good Springs to get our limit while losing a bunch too. Great to fish away from the crowd and have lots of room to play fish.

Monday was another offshore day to get some more small Hali. Again, easy to pick up 3 unders and finished up our Coho limits. Stopped for some bottom fish and ling at a fishy looking pinnacle. Ran back to Hammond in the afternoon and again got into a good Spring bite. Only one other boat fishing the area. It was hot again and lost a couple of really nice fish before boating our last two Springs including a really long but not so fat 28 pounder that ran over 150 yards on the initial run. Nice not to try to play that fish amongst the fleet.

Our crew did really well by staying away from the more popular spots. As mentioned by others, the fish are feeding on tiny bait. We had more success on white glow and white/green glow hootchies rather than small spoons. Most fish caught between 75 and 100 feet. Really noticed how important having a charged up flasher and hootchie/lure is. Fog/cloud/murky water meant that there was very little visibility at that depth. Numerous times we changed out the flasher/hootchie to a new fully charged combo and got a fish within 5 minutes of the new combo going down. We rarely left anything down for more than 30 minutes and it seemed to make a big difference.

Great trip in my favourite part of the Island to fish.

 

[SpringVelocity]

Second the UV white hootchies and glow. I used combination of those and mini turds and it completely out fished bait this time. I got a charger onboard and seems to make a difference on low light/ murky conditions. I didn't find my usual spoons worked as well. The fish were plugged with 2.0 size herring. There were also 3 other boats with us on this trip, and they all did well. @chris73 got really nice hali last day.

 

[chris73]

Yeah, fantastic trip with some lights out fishing. We moved away from areas with murkey and warm water as the salmon either stay away from there or don't feed there. Sometimes 6-7 degrees difference in water temp between places. Salmon were hungry in places with temps of 12-14 degrees, anything more, move on.

 

[Tips Up]

Yeah, fantastic trip with some lights out fishing. We moved away from areas with murkey and warm water as the salmon either stay away from there or don't feed there. Sometimes 6-7 degrees difference in water temp between places. Salmon were hungry in places with temps of 12-14 degrees, anything more, move on.

How come I never get flat water like that in Bamfield? Damn

 

[chris73]

How come I never get flat water like that in Bamfield? Damn

Believe me, the first two days were NOT like that!

 

[coastrunner]

Hamm

Also, just got back from the area. Fished from Friday afternoon to Monday. Caught two nice Springs and a Coho at Beale on Friday afternoon. Went offshore on Saturday getting our 3 unders and some Sable fairly quickly. Started trolling for salmon and couldn't keep the Coho off the line. Caught Coho from 2 feet to 180 feet and could rarely get the line down to depth before hooking up. Had to wade through a fair number of wilds to get hatchery but didn't take long. Tried to use larger spoons and huge plugs to stay away from Coho and get some Springs but to no avail. Ran in and fished Beale again for a couple of hours but no results.

Focused on Springs on Sunday and hit Beale again early. No bites and very little bait showing. Moved over to Kirby and joined the parade. Picked up one Spring right away but the bite seemed to go off. Decided to move on and trolled down to Hammond. Just us and one inflatable trolling around. The bite really came on and we picked up another 5 good Springs to get our limit while losing a bunch too. Great to fish away from the crowd and have lots of room to play fish.

Monday was another offshore day to get some more small Hali. Again, easy to pick up 3 unders and finished up our Coho limits. Stopped for some bottom fish and ling at a fishy looking pinnacle. Ran back to Hammond in the afternoon and again got into a good Spring bite. Only one other boat fishing the area. It was hot again and lost a couple of really nice fish before boating our last two Springs including a really long but not so fat 28 pounder that ran over 150 yards on the initial run. Nice not to try to play that fish amongst the fleet.

Our crew did really well by staying away from the more popular spots. As mentioned by others, the fish are feeding on tiny bait. We had more success on white glow and white/green glow hootchies rather than small spoons. Most fish caught between 75 and 100 feet. Really noticed how important having a charged up flasher and hootchie/lure is. Fog/cloud/murky water meant that there was very little visibility at that depth. Numerous times we changed out the flasher/hootchie to a new fully charged combo and got a fish within 5 minutes of the new combo going down. We rarely left anything down for more than 30 minutes and it seemed to make a big difference.

Great trip in my favourite part of the Island to f

Hammond? Never heard of it. Is that around Edward King Island?

 

[carpeweekend]

Hamm


Hammond? Never heard of it. Is that around Edward King Island?

Yes, Hammond Channel by Edward King Island

 

[devwils]

Has anyone been fishing the inside, bamfield wall down areas? Heading up this weekend to give it a try. Don't have a big enough boat to venture much further out. Is the water still brownish?

 

[Squire]

Just got back from another fantastic trip to Bamfield staying at Mills Landing. The original plan was to go offshore with a guide one day and fish on our own for the balance. We had two boats booked for one day for the four of us but one had to drop out on short notice. We were able to change the booking to one boat for two days so we didn’t get out much on our own.
Halibut were fussy and apparently not as hungry as the black cod but we managed our two unders each over the two days and loaded up on the cod. When we packed it in for the bottom fishing one day reeling the gear in resulted in a triple header of the little buggers.
We had no problem finding our limits of hatchery coho offshore but the latest run of springs had apparently moved on and we could only scratch a few up. Our two best were caught in our two afternoon/evening two hour shifts on our own and they were 17-18 pound bookends.
Weather was amazing right up to our Sunday morning departure and visit to the Clutesi zoo to put the boat back on the trailer in the pouring rain.

 

[Rad Gumbo]

Just Back from a Thursday to Sunday trip. Was another great trip. Limit for 2 on springs and coho. Very surprized and delighted to get that many hatch coho. 8- 10lbs. for the hatch coho Largest wild was a 14lb. beauty. Springs went from 12 - 22lbs. A variety of gear worked on everything. A couple caught at 50 ft on the riggers , the rest at 37ft. Most frustrating time was had at Harbour Entrance as we got sealed 3 times. (If I had a gun I would definatly use it ) Shakers were another issue there. Not so much anywhere else. The road in/out was a real treat after YEARS of pounding. Time now to fish the local waters again ..........if only that rediculous slot size would disapear forever , how dumb. Cheers !!!!

 

[MikePA]

Me @Birdman and @Lookout just got back from a 4 day trip to Bamfield. Fishing was pretty good but as others said, murky, warm water in some places. All 10 people on the trip got their limit though. Our most consistent seemed to be the first light at Fleming, it then really seemed to cool off after an hour or so. @Birdman ran to cree and did well there. Beale was also good. Tried some of the spots we've had success in the past on the way home Assits Island and San Mateo Bay but nothing happening there. Bait definitely seemed to be the ticket for us, tried small spoons and only got shakers, white hoochie hooked up once. Most fish we got were at 40'. Amazing warm and calm weather on the trip, can't wait for next year.

 

[Skins88]

On my way back from a 5 night trip to Bamfield. Spectacular as usual. 5 of us on the trip. Limits on salmon. 8 hali and a handful of other bottom fish. Filled 4 totes at Mills. We went off shore twice. The coho were insane out there. The first day was really productive and then the second offshore day the brown warm water showed up. We worked around inshore to fill licenses. As mentioned, the early bite was great. Already booked for next year. Can't wait to be back.

 

[Keith Brown]

I thinking of heading up to the Barkley Sound/Bamfield with my wife and our Labrador Retriever for three days and two nights next week. Accommodations is no problem, we will be staying on our boat at anchor. We will be doing a bit of fishing, but scenery and checking out the area are the primary reason for the outing. I would like to move around quite a bit. Its also important (for my wife and our lab) to have at least two shore breaks per day, however if possible prefer not to bring my zodiac cause its a chore cycling it off the roof. I can beach on a sand or light gravel on a flood tide if its steep enough but would prefer a dock with or without services that allows dogs and has an trail to go for a walk. I realize this is a tall order. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.