Heavyc
Active Member
File this under, "A bad day fishing is better than a good day doing anything else"
My dad and I planned a two day trip to fish out of Coal Harbour Thursday/Friday last week. We like to drive up the night before (driving up from Campbell River). Then we'd launch early, set crab traps in the harbour, run the narrows down quatsino to spincast for the coho at the kelp beds by McAllister Islet by Cliffe Point. In the evening we'd go back to Coal, check the traps and either leave or go stay in the rest area by the port alice turn off (now referred to as the outhouse hilton)
So Wednesday we get ready, the upgraded weather report comes in so we're a bit hesitant to go but we leave anyways. We go up late afternoon(I had to work the morning shift) get some grub in Hardy and settle in at the outhouse hilton for the night sleeping in the back of our suburban.
Thursday morning we get up early, launch by 7 and on grounds by shortly past 8. Look for feed boiling near the kelp line, but the only we find is a seal. Did a couple of casts where we usually fish, no dice. Did some zinger trolls around the islet, a couple of black rockfish. Jig up a couple of Lings and decide to try the mahatta. Go to the Mahatta. Troll around a bit looking for jumpers, get one decent coho. The rain came up so we decided to pack it in around 4, head back to Coal. Before we dock up and head back to the outhouse hilton we check the traps. All three traps have crab, but the last trap had 5 in it. 4 females and one male, literally the largest dungeoness crab I have ever seen in my life. So while I didn't get any salmon I figured at least the next day will end well because of that monster in trap #3.
Friday morning. I get up all excited, because of the slow day we decided to go to rupert and cast/troll for them. The few people we'd talked to told us about all the activity going on there the day previous. We get there, first cast my dad has one on. Nice start. We see several other boats who're doing various forms of fishing. One guy in a canoe casting. A few guys fly casting for them. Some deep trolling, some surface trolling, and a couple of guys fly rod trolling. Everyone seems to be chasing the fish, with only a few getting caught. My dad hooks another smaller blueback. Then we spend the rest of the day trolling/casting/jigging trying to catch another. The only one I had on was lost at the boat. It hit my surface troll line as it sunk to the bottom when we stopped to cast. We have 1 downrigger on our boat but there were 2 big problems trying to get it to work. 1, our motor doesn't like to slow troll. Its slowest maintainable speed is between 2.7 and 3 knots. Any slower and it stalls (its an 85 horse POC). 2nd, we weren't equipped with any of the current style downrigger clips to attatch the line. Something I could have solved by spending a whole 10 bucks would have solved this. Teach me for being cheap. So I fought for over an hour, trying to troll at 2.8 knots and setting a manual downrigger with the old pin style line releases. By the time I gave up I almost threw all of it overboard. I tried every conceivable combination of gear jig hoochie buzzbomb that I had in my tackle box, but we didn't get so much as a sniff. At 2pm we'd had enough and we head back to Coal Harbour to go home.
Then the motor quits. It starts again after a little fiddling, but then it is running really rough. "What more could go wrong?"
We go to our 1st trap, we pull up to the floats. They pull up right on the nose, but I lose sight of them. The motor stalls out. So I'm looking for floats and my dad is fiddling with the motor some more. We both got our answers together, the floats were under the transom right by the motor. Luckily we get it all up without incident. Get the motor started and head to trap #2. Pull it up and a few more keepers. Engine stalls out once or twice more enroute to trap 3. I am all amped thinking that the day will end on a good note with my king kong sized crab. I pull up the trap, and its empty.
W .. T ...F?!?
Bait was still in it so it must've been emptied within a few hours of us getting back.
Angrily we get back to the dock, but the engine now is acting so badly that we don't even know if it'll get onto the trailer. We got it on and settled down to head home.
Before I get my turn to pull the boat I talked a bit with the guy at Air Cab. He tells me there is an algae bloom in rupert right now and in order to get any consistant action you need to be fishing below it. So had I have spent $10 on a downrigger clip I'd have had a different day. At least it would've yielded better salmon production.
All in all we got 2 lings, one was about 3 feet and thick. 2 nice sized black rockfish, 2 Coho 8 and 4 lbs, and 11 crab. Not a terrible haul, but a somewhat turbulent trip.
Oh, and I forgot, the crotch in my rainpants got ripped during the day so the only place that I ended up getting wet made it look like I peed my pants.
My dad and I planned a two day trip to fish out of Coal Harbour Thursday/Friday last week. We like to drive up the night before (driving up from Campbell River). Then we'd launch early, set crab traps in the harbour, run the narrows down quatsino to spincast for the coho at the kelp beds by McAllister Islet by Cliffe Point. In the evening we'd go back to Coal, check the traps and either leave or go stay in the rest area by the port alice turn off (now referred to as the outhouse hilton)
So Wednesday we get ready, the upgraded weather report comes in so we're a bit hesitant to go but we leave anyways. We go up late afternoon(I had to work the morning shift) get some grub in Hardy and settle in at the outhouse hilton for the night sleeping in the back of our suburban.
Thursday morning we get up early, launch by 7 and on grounds by shortly past 8. Look for feed boiling near the kelp line, but the only we find is a seal. Did a couple of casts where we usually fish, no dice. Did some zinger trolls around the islet, a couple of black rockfish. Jig up a couple of Lings and decide to try the mahatta. Go to the Mahatta. Troll around a bit looking for jumpers, get one decent coho. The rain came up so we decided to pack it in around 4, head back to Coal. Before we dock up and head back to the outhouse hilton we check the traps. All three traps have crab, but the last trap had 5 in it. 4 females and one male, literally the largest dungeoness crab I have ever seen in my life. So while I didn't get any salmon I figured at least the next day will end well because of that monster in trap #3.
Friday morning. I get up all excited, because of the slow day we decided to go to rupert and cast/troll for them. The few people we'd talked to told us about all the activity going on there the day previous. We get there, first cast my dad has one on. Nice start. We see several other boats who're doing various forms of fishing. One guy in a canoe casting. A few guys fly casting for them. Some deep trolling, some surface trolling, and a couple of guys fly rod trolling. Everyone seems to be chasing the fish, with only a few getting caught. My dad hooks another smaller blueback. Then we spend the rest of the day trolling/casting/jigging trying to catch another. The only one I had on was lost at the boat. It hit my surface troll line as it sunk to the bottom when we stopped to cast. We have 1 downrigger on our boat but there were 2 big problems trying to get it to work. 1, our motor doesn't like to slow troll. Its slowest maintainable speed is between 2.7 and 3 knots. Any slower and it stalls (its an 85 horse POC). 2nd, we weren't equipped with any of the current style downrigger clips to attatch the line. Something I could have solved by spending a whole 10 bucks would have solved this. Teach me for being cheap. So I fought for over an hour, trying to troll at 2.8 knots and setting a manual downrigger with the old pin style line releases. By the time I gave up I almost threw all of it overboard. I tried every conceivable combination of gear jig hoochie buzzbomb that I had in my tackle box, but we didn't get so much as a sniff. At 2pm we'd had enough and we head back to Coal Harbour to go home.
Then the motor quits. It starts again after a little fiddling, but then it is running really rough. "What more could go wrong?"
We go to our 1st trap, we pull up to the floats. They pull up right on the nose, but I lose sight of them. The motor stalls out. So I'm looking for floats and my dad is fiddling with the motor some more. We both got our answers together, the floats were under the transom right by the motor. Luckily we get it all up without incident. Get the motor started and head to trap #2. Pull it up and a few more keepers. Engine stalls out once or twice more enroute to trap 3. I am all amped thinking that the day will end on a good note with my king kong sized crab. I pull up the trap, and its empty.
W .. T ...F?!?
Bait was still in it so it must've been emptied within a few hours of us getting back.
Angrily we get back to the dock, but the engine now is acting so badly that we don't even know if it'll get onto the trailer. We got it on and settled down to head home.
Before I get my turn to pull the boat I talked a bit with the guy at Air Cab. He tells me there is an algae bloom in rupert right now and in order to get any consistant action you need to be fishing below it. So had I have spent $10 on a downrigger clip I'd have had a different day. At least it would've yielded better salmon production.
All in all we got 2 lings, one was about 3 feet and thick. 2 nice sized black rockfish, 2 Coho 8 and 4 lbs, and 11 crab. Not a terrible haul, but a somewhat turbulent trip.
Oh, and I forgot, the crotch in my rainpants got ripped during the day so the only place that I ended up getting wet made it look like I peed my pants.
