Back yesterday from Critter Cove in Nootka. Crew for this trip was the wife who has been on several fishing trips now, and my 69 year old mother who has never salmon fished before but has spent a fair bit of time on sail boats down in New Zealand. Usual setup is the wife drives the boat while we troll and I run the gear. More or less the same this trip too, except my mother god love her always wants to be helpful and involved, which sometimes leads to some interesting results sometimes.
Thursday July 17 - 5 Fish Total
Launched in Gold River around 6am, uneventful run out. Water looked quite harmless when we got to Camel Rock so we decided to head west and see how far we could go and still be fishable in a 17' Arima with all of our gear, coolers, food, bags etc. on board as check in time at Critter Cove wasn't until 2pm. Ended up fishing the lighthouse and Friendly Cove area. Conditions were definitely workable - once around the corner and just inside the waters were easy. Nose out to the outside and it was a little sloppier - not anything we couldn't have managed but decided to mostly fish the sheltered areas for all the reasons mentioned.
Lines in the water by probably 7:30 or so. Ended up picking up 4 between 8:30-noonish, missed a few others. Mother insisted on trying to pull the rod out of the holder and off the clip herself, usually resulting in her fighting it for 30 seconds or so before I grabbed it, most often the fish would be gone by then. What we got was a mix of sizes mostly on the smaller side 8-10 lbs sort of thing, but the wife managed to land what would end up being the largest of the trip at 21 lbs according to Critter Cove dock scale. Was the largest fish she has landed to date, and was a bit of a gong show with her fighting the fish and my mother trying to keep the boat straight pounding out into some decent chop but we got it in the boat. Winds started to pick by then so we started slowly trolling back inside as far as Saavedra Islands with not much action other than descending a few rock fish. White hoochie with a bit of green, behind a yellow "green mist" flasher was getting most of the hits on the outside for us. I had given my mother some fishing books to study up before the trip, and she had picked up this setup from Harbour Chandler based on what she read - so much bragging ensued. We were fishing in deeper water than most as the wife gets nervous in the pack and tight to the rocks when conditions are not ideal - 150 to 300 feet of water, with fish between 77 and 99 on the riggers.
Got checked in and settled and headed out after dinner for the 7:00-9:00 evening fish, starting at San Carlos and trolling up to Beer Can, where we tagged another 14 lbs and one smaller one, so 6 for the day total. Same white hoochie and flasher for the bigger one, smaller one came on a gold Betsy flasher and gold nugget skinny g and was released. 60-70' in 200' of water.
Friday July 18 - 3 Fish Total
Slower for us, and it seemed like for most people. Lots of talk at the docks about fishing being hit and miss all season so far, and general sizes being on the small end - with tracked with our experience on Friday. Weather still looked workable so we headed back out to the Lighthouse for the second morning, and the water on the outside was laid down enough the crew was ok with going around the corner and tacking back and forth between Wash Rock and the Lighthouse. I tried the
@codfather method of really bouncing the downrigger balls in the mud, but with limited success. Only one fish boated, before I even got both riggers down which was again on the smaller side. That was on a white micro flash fly, 88 feet in 100 feet of water. I couple other half hearted taps the rest of the morning but not much other excitement. Eventually the winds picked up and we headed in for an early lunch.
After lunch the winds were coming down the sound pretty good, we tried fishing Hoiss but it was too sloppy to keep the crew in good spirits, so we tucked in around the corner at Coopte/Strange, which a few other boats had the same idea. A few misses in there, and one good hook up that was lost to a less than ideal net job. Oh well - it was no monster and no fish to clean before dinner.
Friday evening before we went out I had sent my mother to the cleaning table to "get some intel" (ie keep her occupied) and she was told about a "white and black spoon with a red eye", which she was convinced would turn our luck around. So off she marched to the Critter Cove store and procured herself a cop car Skinny G. The winds were still blowing pretty good so we tucked in on the South East side of Camel and took advantage of the shelter from Bligh Island. First hour no bites but came on in the last 30 minutes before dark. Much to her pleasure she boated two more on that Skinny G including a 14lb that tested her arms and my patience. "Rod tip up mom! Up!" She didn't seem to understand I can't net a fish 6 feet under water. We landed it though finally. Again there was much bragging about her expert tackle picking abilities.
Saturday July 19th - 3 salmon, 1 ling total
Check out day for us, so we only fished a few hours in the morning - 6 to 9. Even though there were 3 of us, we made a miscalculation on how we had been allocating fish to licenses over the days, so long story short we only had space for 11 fish instead of 12 without going over a daily limit. We went back to Beer Can where we had picked some up the first evening, and in short order had all 3 in the boat. Blue/Silver Wee G for me, mom's "magic" Skinny G on the other side. 55' in 160'.
As we were limited on chinook but still had an hour to fish, I had noted some structure in the area and decided to try jigging some swim baits just for kicks. Have never tried for bottom fish on the inside, never really hear anyone else talk about doing it, so had low expectations. Well, guess who hits a nice size ling after only about 10 minutes jigging? A blue one too. At least I picked out the swim bait for her this time. Hit a couple really large rock fish too - large enough to feel guilty about their age and breeding potential so back down they went. Only spent about 45 minutes jigging so not sure if we just got lucky with that ling or if it would have produced more had we kept at it.
All in all a great trip. Weather was better than forecasted as we weren't sure we'd be able to get outside at all. Had to grind a bit and some of the fish we kept would have not been keepable in the Straight of Georgia, but we had a few mid-high teens and that 21 in the mix too. Bonus ling. Critter Cove great as usual. No complaints here.
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