A day with the "Cuba Libre"

Sitkaspruce

Well-Known Member
A couple of weeks ago I was invited by a good friend of mine to go fishing on his new boat. You might remeber him as the "Concerned Angler" who has changed his name to match his new boat "Cuba Libre"

I met him and his fishing partner, Chuck, at the wharf at 6 am for a day of fishing. We headed out and went to where he had caught some hali's before. We had not been fishing 10 minutes when Chuck hit the first fish. As I was reeling up, I hit fish number two and then CL hit a fish and then lost it. Would have been cool to get a tripple header on hali's. With two in the boat we fished another 45 minutes or so before we pulled our lines and headed for salmon. After fishing for and losing two springs (that would be me who lost both, one just got off and the other straightned the hook, but it was only my rod and bait that got the strikes:D[:p];)), we pulled the gear and went back looking for lings and what have you. The first spot we hit produced a couple of quillbacks, a nice 7-8 lbs ling and a nice yelloweye, along with you know who loosing another fish, this time one that started pulling and only quite when it got off. I could feel the dirty looks from across the boat.:)

When the wind came up and was blowing us off the "spot" we decided to pull the gear and head back to the hali hole from this morning. We were no sooner there when we hit and boated another hali. After fishing for about another 20 minutes, we hit and boated our 4th hali of the day, a beauty of 97 lbs (taken from the IPHC Length/weight chart). We fished for a bit longer, than decided to call it a day and headed home.

In total we caught a 97 lbs, a couple of 23 lbs and a 18 lbs hali, a big Yellow Eye, a few rock fish and a nice eating ling. It was great day on the water and even better spending it with good friends.

Fishing08006.jpg


Thanks Bryan aka "Cuba Libre"

Cheers

SS

Oh by the way the "Cuba Libre" is a great boat to fish out of, it just needs some salmon blood in it to make it a "real" fishing boat.[:p]:D

Fishing001.jpg
 
Nice Pics Sitka, Can,t wait to get out there, 13 more sleeps...



C-Ballz
 
They are still catching, another reasonable butt today.
 
Excellent fishing story.

And good name change too, Cuba Libre. That's in the "wish I thought of it" boat name file.:D
 
David

I will be back out there with the wife on Saturday. She wants to see the whales, if they are still around, plus do a little fishing and see some different country. Will give you a shout on the radio or try and catch up with you.

Cheers

SS
(Ken)

Fishing001.jpg
 
Gonna have to get me one of those length/weight charts. My buddy got a hali last year in Nootka that was at least a third again larger than that one and it only tipped the scales at 95. (Actually 92 but we rounded up a hair since the tail was just touching the dock). Same scale has weighed several fish for us in the 40-45 pound range which were smaller than the one in the pic but no way were they 50 lbs lighter. Bad scale or is the chart generous?;)
 
Its the standard table that was produced by the Internation Pacific Halibut Commission. Many. many fish were weighed and measured over the years to come up with it. The Halibut Commission says it is very accurate.
http://www.iphc.washington.edu/HALCOM/pubs/bulletin/lenwtimpchart.htm

And as far as the rest of the trip-- great weather, great fishing---- except for chinooks. As we were told by a couple of guides ( including Serngetti Dave) the fishing is tough, but if you stick it out you will eventually connect.

But we didnt have the patience to do that. Other than the day that Sitka was out with us,( and he was playing almost catch and release!) we didnt spend the time needed to get a bunch of chinook blood in the boat. I admit it-- we were weak!!! Just couldnt resist thwe temptation to drop the chovies and switch to powerbait and go for the bottom grazers... But it paid off. Personally, I am done for butts for the year, but my partners may not agree :D

We did pick up a few pinks in the harbour on Friday morning before heading home, so at least we did get SOME salmon--- just much smaller than we were hoping for.

I'll be up in August Serngetti, so maybe we will finally get to meet other than a wave over the water... ps- seen that grey whale that tried to run us over??? [8D] and Kelly-- the snapper was about 16lbs.. just a baby by Port Hardy standards




20ft Alumaweld Intruder
 
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