2025 Port Renfrew Reports

[ReelSlim]

School starting soon so kids wanted to have an 'epic' day of fishing. I figured Port Renfrew would be the place of choice. So we got up around 3 am had a quick meal and set off to our trip about 3:30. We arrived at boat launch at 5:45 not as busy as last trip we thought. Only a handful of boats leaving marina. Fog is really thick this morning when we got out of the bay and radar was able to take a 'look' at campers and realize it's not that marina is not as busy it's because we're late!! We counted a good 20+ contacts on screen!
After about an hour ride out to swiftsure we saw only 4 contacts on screen within 4nm radius. That's very quiet. We were tad worried fishing might not be 'epic'.
Since we're here we setup our rods and drop them down to 90'. Before rigger reach 90' top rod popped off. Line slack I thought damn this must be too early otherwise why would I not have clip line into clipper properly. Son reeled in the rod and suddenly line peeling. He almost lost grip as didn't expect a fish on it. He got it in and it was a #10 hatch coho!! Nice start. For the next hour we never had the chance to lower rigger to our planned fishing depth and one or even two rods would get pulled away. Even those that were left drifting 10' behind boat waiting to be clipped to rigger would get yank away! Within that hour we had nxwild coho, 4 hatch coho and 4 mackerels. The largest wild coho we released in that hour is about 67cm!!!I would say 12-13 lb?

Coho frenzy finally slowed down. We dropped line down to 120' in one rigger and 80' in the other. Not long rod 3 got a hard pull down, pin popped and run!! I was resting after that hour of rod set, reset I needed a rest so son and daughter went have fun. Son had a good tag of war with the fish and told his sister to grub the big net she grubbed it and passed it to me. Little one had the fish in good control he got it to glide right into the net it was a beauty spring. 88cm!!! High 5s high 10s and a good squeal from daughter. Man hope boats in the vicinity didn't think it was a siren screaming. We were able to pick up more springs and hatch coho in the next two hours and finally come to our last spring. We since we already had 5 we wanted one of good size. All this time fish finder had been picking up big markings near bottom. So we decided to give those marking a try see what they were. 227' down the lines go. We pulled up a 67cm ling, numerous large grade wild coho. Daughter said to them see you in sooke in October!! Rod 4 has some vibration and kids that line tangle and got the rod and pop it off he reeled and reeled and said it's kind of heavyyyyyyyy fish came alive and was taking line. Fish then decided to charge to surface he had to really reel hard then slack.... there was a moment of silence I thought fish popped off but the son yelled its still on!! The fish now swim quickly side well and all over the place. Finally it got tired and son was able to get near boat and he was going to tighten reel brake to bring it in faster daughter yelled at him don't you dare change any settings!! Sure enough as it saw us it went flap and took another run. That was close. We finally netted the spring and taped out to be 80cm. Kids fell fast asleep on the ride back to ramp.

Kids happy dad's tired but it's an epic fishing trip to be remembered for a long time. The two of them have their grandma flanked and for the past 20 min their telling her how exciting the fishing trip has been.

Great write up!

I've had a lot of Epic days out there. The best ones have been with the kids....

 

[kingspring]

Any recent reports?

 

[brutus]

Report from today , slowwwww

 

[kingspring]

Report from today , slowwww

 

[kingspring]

It will pick up, been a great run down the stretch, lots of super scrappy fish 15/25lbs.
Big bait getting their attention now.

So last week off Walbran rigger pops, reel down to a crazy weight and line zinging.
On bait fishing in 75 ft gear was at 45ish so not snagged, rigger ball is up.

Fish did respond to pressure and did come up a bit, moved boat close to over it, fish tugging hard , then straight down then straight to Neah bay!
Thinking big Hali, line finally snapped at hook.

Other contender would be salmon shark, or seal or lion… but no heads popped up for 20 minutes.

 

[The Hunter12]

Any recent reports?

I was out drift fishing today around the Chicken Ranch and the J Buoy for about 5 hours, targeting halibut in about 317 feet of water. It was an extremely slow day—flat calm and beautiful out there, but I didn’t have any luck. Still wondering if I was doing something wrong. It was my first time out there though, so I can’t really complain

 

[billygoat812]

Mooched nitnat bar wed,2 small springs 15lb,road in is graded a beauty
almost bailed for walbran heard it’s still good.the lake was quiet and the river mouth was 66 degrees ocean 58 ish(just info)
opinion on mystery fish for the king…big springs head for Japan,I call it the nitnat sleigh ride.guys disappear and come back a hour later with a slab…or sad n quiet…been there lol.unless you felt the up n down of a big Hali…just a guess gl all

 

[Original]

Got out to the bank with Lightning Luke on Thursday in the fog. Coho bite was off the chart triple headers were the norm but finding the clipped ones took some time. Springs weren’t very interested but we did find one and a nice Ling for by catch. We dropped the Hali gear and back trolled and we’re able to find a few chickens but no big ones took the rubber topped with a belly.
Wild Coast Wilderness really looked after us again.Thanks for that and I’ll be back next yr. I’ve been on 2 of the 3 silver streaks now and they are a dream to fish on.