Sooke 2013 Fishing Reports

It takes a brave man to put an islander in the hands of a toddler. Woops, sorry dad!

Looks like a great day. I can't wait to get the kids out but I think the islanders will stay at home that day!

Nah GDW, gotta let them fish with the goods..... Otherwise why have it?
 
There are also a few very prominent guides who are catching and keeping over 85cm springs and then either lying when asked where they caught it or they run up to Sheringham after landing the fish to make a story less contestable. I just shake my head...these are the same guys who do sh&t when it comes to helping either with fish/habitat work or with the fights we have as sport fishermen dealing with restrictions. They have never set aside a Sunday afternoon and volunteered their knowledge and boat for the Pink Salmon Festival, don't spend $40 to support those fighting for their rights to fish, don't show up to SFAB meeting unless their fishing expectations are threatened...... they do nothing except use and abuse. I have distanced myself from all of these individuals, don't have much time for them anymore.

rollie,i was fishing sherringham last saturday in june,seen your boat out there fishing,i noticed that about 11am a boat came full bore into sherringham then made a quick turn out back to otter,i presume,,that he had caught a larger than 85cm fish then said that he caught it at sherringham,,now it's legal,,i presume he caught it at otter or muir,what the f__k is going on here,,we need more police on the water,,it"s these assholes that are going to screw us regular fisherman that fish all of the time and spend all kinds of money on fishing,we can't let these guys get away with these things,,what are we to do??
 
I can only speak to the guys who I know for sure are behaving this way. I've been fishing along side most of these guys to long for them to fool me. I know certain guys would never run up to Sheringham when there are fish being caught at Otter or Muir. All I can say is that you are right about them screwing you. Next year DFO may not be so generous with the 85cm upper limit and the boundary at Sheringham. They can't be out there everyday to enforce so their only solution to get the target numbers will be to lower the size back to 67cm and put the boundary back to Jordon River. You can then thank them personally for screwing you and everyone else.
 
I know the 20-6 area loop hole was supposed to have been dealt with this spring and that area added to the restricted zone. DFO knows some guys are fishing Possession Pt and the Island, keeping over the slot size springs but claiming they caught them in the shallow waters of 20-6. It didn't get dealt with because the halibut changes took all of their time and they were pressed to get the licenses out.
 
the 20-6 loophole is with the text only - the area maps clearly show that is in the slot zone, so that may be a hard one to win in court, even if DFO has that screwed up in text. That said, what does DFO expect when there are 100 different scenarios we have to memorize down here and even the sharpest of fishermen can have trouble keeping it all straight if they aren't on the water every day!
 
Too many rules for some of the casual fishers I agree, but we are talking about the guys who do know but choose to make their own rules.
 
I know the 20-6 area loop hole was supposed to have been dealt with this spring and that area added to the restricted zone. DFO knows some guys are fishing Possession Pt and the Island, keeping over the slot size springs but claiming they caught them in the shallow waters of 20-6. It didn't get dealt with because the halibut changes took all of their time and they were pressed to get the licenses out.

That just it, its a loop hole. The same fish caught illegally at muir would be legal a few miles away at sheringham, conservation wise it makes no difference.
 
the 20-6 loophole is with the text only - the area maps clearly show that is in the slot zone, so that may be a hard one to win in court, even if DFO has that screwed up in text. That said, what does DFO expect when there are 100 different scenarios we have to memorize down here and even the sharpest of fishermen can have trouble keeping it all straight if they aren't on the water every day!

First off I have to say that this discussion makes me nervious in a public forum especially the crap on alledged boundry cheaters because it helps DFO rationalize a future closure for past Sheringham. I would suggest it stop. DFO is taking a lot of pressure to free these fish up for Fraser River commercial sales legal or otherwise and even though we have never taken a significant amount hitting us gives the illusion of addressing the problem in a manner that is politically safe.

I have only been down way past Sheringham this year for a Derby in good weather. And only then after taking out shares in Exon to help cover the fuel bill. We did manage to catch some teens down there. But I want to be able to hold onto it as an option and if we lose that I will be pissed off enough to push for equality of restrictions everywhere all the way to Alaska, and for DFO to be held accountable for the out of control and uncontrolled commercial fishery in the Fraser that is the primary reason for these slots in the first place along with habitat degradation and earlier commercial fishing.

It also looks to me like DFO may have screwed up the 20-5/20-6 boundary issue because they have always described the slot for area 20 as being limited to 20-5 but now show the map going all the way to the light house on the spit which is part of 20-6 so that it would seem there is some contradiction there. By the way I would never have commented on this if it was not already posted. If the intent was to stop people retaining Chinook over slot in that little fishable narrow strip on the other side of the boundary that is West of the RCA up to Possession Point or stop people catching a large Chinook elsewhere and saying they caught it in 20-6, then it looks rather confused and poorly planned to me.

Normally come August 1st you cannot retain Chinook past the Muir Point to Possession Point boundary line 20-5/20-6 which I would think was the reason that 20-6 exists as a separate zone the purpose of which was to protect the transplanted Sooke River Chinook spawners. If I read it correctly then the new boundary is now the lighthouse and we can now retain Chinook after Aug first all the way to the light house.

It is looking like DFO is creating such complex regulations for their perennial whipping boy (Victoria/Sooke and JDF in general) to solve political problems shrouded in politically protective conservation rationalizations, that even they don’t understand them.
 
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Tues

Pre-work fish for a couple hours....possession, secretary, out into deeper water. No springs, but steady hits of coho and pinks. All wild, felt bad letting go a couple bleeders. Very sloppy off Possession...west wind and ebb tide, the boat was a rockin. Thick fog too. A whale glided close to us out in the deep water....grey or humpback, not sure, nice tail show as it dove. All in all, more fun than sleeping, like those army ads, "I did more by 8am than most people do all day". ;-)
 
So are you saying that makes it OK ??? conservation wise it makes no difference.

I'm not saying its ok but if you're really worried about the fish stocks n question ithen you shouldn't be fishing sherringham either, its a loop hole.
 
these regs never about conservation only about special interests. why do you think its opening at the bottom of the fraser on the 16 when we are still closed
here all those fish released if they survived get to be caught a the bottom, upper fraser fish bs.20-6 are sooke river fish and i would go to court to fight any fine if you read the in season updates they specifically say 20-5 19-1 to 19-4. in fact i printed off a copy if/when the penguin dfo clown ever talks to me i can show him the regs.

that said we did good off sooke on the weekend getting a acouple legal springs at otter first light 50ft down .

sorry for the rant
 
Wow, despite an apparent calm 5 k forecast from BigWaveDave for most of the morning, it was pretty wild out there. Fog, wind and a heavy chop all at once!! The chop started right past Whiffen and that was maybe understandable on the ebb in the mouth there, but what was with the short period 4-6 foot swells further out?? Really tough to keep one's balance when messing with the rods.

Anyway fished 8:30 until 11:30 and we managed 7 pinks and a single hatch coho. Released 4 unclipped coho. All our fish were at 80-90 feet in water 90-150 feet. May have got more coho if we had gone further out but water looked even worse out there!! Things were calming down as we left but we had a nice lunch of cold chicken and nacho chips floating in the basin in the sun to relax after the maelstrom. Firing up the smoker again tomorrow!!
 
After dropping a cannon ball in the chop off Beachie Head at 6am this morning (bloody fumble fingers ! ),fishing was calm and easy.
I have no idea where I was because of the fog. Limited out in 1 hour from 1 rod. No springs.
 
Wow I guess you can do it ,we all can and say they were badly hooked. Good fishing for sockeye in Port Alberni the only place to keep them.
 
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Always sucks throwing back fish that will clearly not survive. Keep in mind total allowable combined catch is 4 per day also. Will be in Sooke Friday to fish there for the first time, hope the good fishing continues.
 
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