2025 Secret Cove, Pender Harbour and Texada Reports

[adanac]

Anchored up and rounded out the two day limit this morning , 4 spring ( one 80cm on the dot ) 8 hatch, plus two for a buddy who hopped on , one beauty ling and a few rockcod. Flat calm , just love this fishery .

 

[Bruno]

Great reports by Adanac. Thank you. Size, colour and weight of flat fall jigs??

 

[adanac]

We were using 80 g - 130 g , holographic green and black

 

[Sea.S.I]

Went for a quick troll last night around Ackland Rock, hour before slack and found several large chinook, a tank wild coho, and two hatcheries. Kept one 72 cm Spring. Lost 2 huge chinook that made 3 long screaming reel runs before I long line released them . Beautiful night. See Jordans330 tips on depths and recommended gear!

 

[EAGLE ROCK]

Epsom was on fire today, had a total of 54 fish to the boat and limited out 6 licenses. Biggest chinook being 86cm released. Biggest kept was 80cm. 100ft to 188ft on the downrigger, turd, no bananas and anchovie.

Serious question from less experienced fishers .. how do you quickly measure them? Do you net them? After unhooking do you briefly lie them in the boat and try to hold them still? It can be pretty difficult!!

 

[Cptn_Adventure]

Went out last night around slack - ran one line deep and one line shallow to see what we could find. Found 3 hatchery hoes in a row at Epsom before all the boats started converging on the trough for the evening fish. We decided to zip down to Pirate Rock to escape the chaos.

Found 3 more hatcheries, a few small spring and a bunch of wild coho. Ended the evening with 3 coho limits and 3 happy fisherman. No big chinook on our boat, but lots of fun out there.

 

[Sea.S.I]

Serious question from less experienced fishers .. how do you quickly measure them? Do you net them? After unhooking do you briefly lie them in the boat and try to hold them still? It can be

Jordan330 will have his method but a couple suggestions are free stick-on measuring tapes on the gunwhale and/or a gaff with a 62cm handle.

 

[Cptn_Adventure]

Jordan330 will have his method but a couple suggestions are free stick-on measuring tapes on the gunwhale and/or a gaff with a 62cm handle.

I like that gaff suggestion! We've traditionally netted and brought it in if it was close, otherwise, gaff release and let it swim to see another day.

 

[Sea.S.I]

I like that gaff suggestion! We've traditionally netted and brought it in if it was close, otherwise, gaff release and let it swim to see

After learning how to gaff release I’ve gotten lazy and lost some nice fish. If the coho bite is on I start to grab the line to check if hatchery or not, and when I see a marked fish I pull the line into the boat instead of grabbing the net, losing some nice fish at the side of the boat! .

 

[Girica]

Serious question from less experienced fishers .. how do you quickly measure them? Do you net them? After unhooking do you briefly lie them in the boat and try to hold them still? It can be pretty difficult!!

Great question and really hoping to dial this in myself... Currently I use a rubberized net to prevent scale loss (I've seen first hand improvements here since switching over) + a stick with markings of 62-80cm on it, as well as a 65 for ling. If I'm fishing solo, once the fish is in the net, I keep it in the water with one hand on the net pole and use the stick to measure it's length with the other hand. If it's tight and hard to tell, like near 62 or 80, I'll bring it up on the gunwale where the measuring sticker is for an exact measurement. If I'm with the buddy, still keep it in the net while the other person measures it with either the stick or one of these awesome little measuring tapes. All of this is so much easier if you play the fish and tire it out so it's not thrashing around in the net... and as an aside, way easier to net them solo when they're tired.

 

[Aces]

Serious question from less experienced fishers .. how do you quickly measure them? Do you net them? After unhooking do you briefly lie them in the boat and try to hold them still? It can be pretty difficult!!

Make yourself a stick with both the minimum and the max measurements on it

 

[Girica]

This impaled warrior had been carrying this fly around for god knows how long before I caught him. A salmon with bling, a first for me.

 

[Cptn_Adventure]

Great question and really hoping to dial this in myself... Currently I use a rubberized net to prevent scale loss (I've seen first hand improvements here since switching over) + a stick with markings of 62-80cm on it, as well as a 65 for ling. If I'm fishing solo, once the fish is in the net, I keep it in the water with one hand on the net pole and use the stick to measure it's length with the other hand. If it's tight and hard to tell, like near 62 or 80, I'll bring it up on the gunwale where the measuring sticker is for an exact measurement. If I'm with the buddy, still keep it in the net while the other person measures it with either the stick or one of these awesome little measuring tapes. All of this is so much easier if you play the fish and tire it out so it's not thrashing around in the net... and as an aside, way easier to net them solo when they're tired.

We switched to a rubberized net this year, and I can't believe the difference. There are barely any scales left on the boat when we bring a fish in - huge improvement over the old nylon version that would take all sort of scales off.

 

[Weatherall]

Serious question from less experienced fishers .. how do you quickly measure them? Do you net them? After unhooking do you briefly lie them in the boat and try to hold them still? It can be pretty difficult!!

Net the fish on the side of the boat, and keep it in the water. A string tied onto the back of your gaff with min and max marked. This also works for halibut fishing, with a different (or the same) 102cm marked.