Sooke Reports - Spring and Summer 2012

[casper5280]

Went out yesterday Late morning to limit out on Clipped Coho in an hour or so. Fun! Right out from the harbour just past secretary anywhere from bucktails up top to 45 ft on the rigger, spoons, army truck hoochy, flies, If it mooved, It was good to go! Got two on my 6wt fly rod. After the first epic battle with a little guy, (4 pounds Maby...) I wanted more! Unfortunitly the second fish on my fly rod felt like a freaking seal! after a arm numbing battle, finally got to to the back of the boat to find a 8ish lbs fish snagged right on its side! No wonder I couldnt get it to the boat!!
Felt bad for the fish, but lotsa fun! Speaking about feeling bad for the fish, We saw one coho swin past the boat with a flasher following it. Check your knots guys!! Kept 6 clipped, released ONLY 2 Wild! Yeahoo! Lost half a dozen.
After the Coho bonanza we got serious and powed up the big motor to take us to otter in search for some knuckle busters!
We fished tight to the bottom from about 12-2pm, anywhere from 60-150 ft of water. Around 1ish we picked up a Great spring Right off the point right after a turn around. Im thinking high teens? after it was landed, we circled around to the same spot, and got another one on, but never got to see it. And that was our day! AWSOME!

If it was a green betsy flasher and a betsy head, it may have been mine. We had a double header and were getting hammered on bait so was just putting the 3 rod away. I was just unclipping it from my mainline when it hit and pulled it out of my hand.

 

[outback]

Plenty of Coho and some decent (teenager) springs coming in from Church\|Whirl\Bedfords based on what I saw yesterday and today at the cleaning tables. Probably not as crazy for Coho as what the folks Beechy to Secretary are seeing but most anglers seem to have no problem getting their fish. The Coho appear to be more out in front of Church on the flood, and either in Whirl or towards and past the Bedfords on the ebb.

That being said, with the recent forecasts there's no way I'd head out there from Pedder in a smaller tinny in anything more than about 10 kn of wind, especially on an ebb.

Rumour has it that there has been a decent evening (top of flood) bite in Pedder Bay for springs. Haven't done it myself lately, but the info comes from what I consider to be a credible source. Try that, and live to fish another day...

CP

thanks for the info. heading out tommorow and hopefully the weathers cooperative and i can make it over to church
my boat isnt really small... 16ft ironwood. pretty darn sturdy.

 

[Lipripper]

Any one heading out tomorrow....

There are two large yachts anchored right inside the Wiffin spit lighthouse.. If its foggy (early) tomorrow... A heads up.

Wolfie laughed at me today too..

 

[Englishman]

What's with BigWaveDave??

,all in all it was a great day on the water concidering that big wave dave had it blowing a bit more then what it did,,tight lines boys

Yeah, right on Rook. Last night BWD had it 15Km winds from the off (6am) and 20K by 11am at Gordon's Beach. Then this morning around 730 am it was updated to 10K at 6 and 7 am and then 15K. By 10am this morning it was updated to 5K winds early ,then 1Ok from 9-11 and then 15K. So last night the morning wind prediction was a factor of three out!! The updates are all very well but by the time they get done it is kind of obvious the previous ones were wrong because it is dead calm out there. Same last Tuesday when 15 k winds were called for and it was calm all day. Pity the poor wind surfers who go looking for winds that are not there and annoying for us boaters who make alternate plans and then find we could have gone out anyway. BWD is a great site and I know it is voluntary contributions that keep the site going, but either the data he's is getting is coming from another source and is poorer quality than it used to be, or his model is not working very well any more. He is certainly not as accurate as he used to be.......???

 

[sammyslabber]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO0ZD_ZqovQ

Shiver Me Timbers!!! If it's to windy too fish.. you can always play...

 

[juandesooka]

wind predicing

Yeah, right on Rook. Last night BWD had it 15Km winds from the off (6am) and 20K by 11am at Gordon's Beach. Then this morning around 730 am it was updated to 10K at 6 and 7 am and then 15K. By 10am this morning it was updated to 5K winds early ,then 1Ok from 9-11 and then 15K. So last night the morning wind prediction was a factor of three out!! The updates are all very well but by the time they get done it is kind of obvious the previous ones were wrong because it is dead calm out there. Same last Tuesday when 15 k winds were called for and it was calm all day. Pity the poor wind surfers who go looking for winds that are not there and annoying for us boaters who make alternate plans and then find we could have gone out anyway. BWD is a great site and I know it is voluntary contributions that keep the site going, but either the data he's is getting is coming from another source and is poorer quality than it used to be, or his model is not working very well any more. He is certainly not as accurate as he used to be.......???

I have been learning to kite this summer at Gordons, so watching the wind forecasts very closely. It was way off Sat night, but spot on tonight. One thing I've noticed is that the bwd model recalibrates several times during the day, based on different runs of the WRF model it is based on. I believe it switches between 36km to 12km to 4km ranges, each with different levels of predictive accuracy -- what I noticed is that between 9am and 10am many days, the wind forecast is seriously downgraded, then it bumps back up after 10am. So watch for that.

I think Washington Marine Forecast, central strait jdf, is quite a reliable forecast for sooke waters: http://www.atmos.washington.edu/data/marine_report

Oh, and as this is a fishing report thread....saw lots of bait fish jumping off Gordons this evening. ;-) And had a coho fest off Otter on Saturday, in the deep water east of the point....probably played 40 fish, kept 6 hatchery. Weird thing is, the keepers came in two flurries, right at start, then at end....with all wild in between. Guess those hatcheries must stick together? Fished springs from otter to muir for 4 or 5 hours, 1 or 2 bites that didn't stick; didn't see any nets come out.

 

[Deewar25]

lol, good point JDS...mentioned the derby, but not the report - me, driller, weinstein started out Saturday tight to Otter on trailer park side, several BIG fish marking for first hour or so - weinstein hit the first good one at 17.5 on green glow flash and green glow teaser, then had a leader breaker short time after on betsy/bloody - didn't get a chance to determine size. In tight no coho, but as soon as you were tacking 90' deeper, they were pretty nonstop. Problem for us all wild - by end of day maybe got into 20 of them, only 3 hatch and they were small - all the wilds shook off pretty easy though. Once flood turned on, worked the rocks - not much luck and quite a bit of salad to deal with. Only saw a few decent fish netted in that time. Was picking up at 12 to head to Secretary for coho, released the line off the rigger and let it float up and 1/2 way to surface, another spring hit just east of the point - good fight for the size, ended up 15.5 and avoided the walk of shame at the derby at least - betsy gold and jdf oki. Got to Secretary, hi-fives secret coho hootchy didn't do the job for me so switched to spoon and they were the ticket, copcar, green glow coyote, and driller on a short stubby spoon he was using - pretty consistent for the remaining hour until we had to pack it in - finished on a double header - 55 seemed the best depth with other pockets at 90. Haven't got out that much this year, but i've been hitting springs most trips so no complaints.

 

[fish stalker]

Still good coho fishing, limits before noon. Nice big ones, think there getting bigger. Clipped 3 to 1. Saw my first spring at the cleaning table. BWD changed to this morning 5-10's then when out was pretty snotty checked again when I got back and I guess it changed again. What is with that weird water out there? Really choppy nasty areas then open boiling flat areas. Is that just what its like?

 

[Lynck]

Still good coho fishing, limits before noon. Nice big ones, think there getting bigger. Clipped 3 to 1. Saw my first spring at the cleaning table. BWD changed to this morning 5-10's then when out was pretty snotty checked again when I got back and I guess it changed again. What is with that weird water out there? Really choppy nasty areas then open boiling flat areas. Is that just what its like?

Yep. I'm guessing it is mostly tide rip.

Would love to think it's caused by the quantity of fish out there right now

 

[Seafever]

An alternative to Big Wave Dave's is this site:-

SwellWatch
http://forecasts.surfingmagazine.com/

has wind and swell predictions........easy to use when you figure it out.

Also Windfinder is another choice.
http://www.windfinder.com/

 

[ReelAffair]

out for a fish today, had a decent Spring hit and the fight was on, then it started ripping out line a Sea Lion surfaced 100 yards behind the boat, I guess he won

 

[Lipripper]

Nice Coho.... And yup I think the sea lion sunk your battleship.

 

[Karma-Kazi]

You would think they would be full from the Coho.

 

[SteelyDan]

Late report but fished Sooke for the first time this weekend. Got out late friday afternoon and headed to otter pt and got skunked. It was rough and windy. Saturday headed back to otter first light and nailed 4 hatch coho in a row in under 10 minutes top water off the third rod on a green/white coho killer. fog was heavy and lots of boats out so we headed to Secretary and got a 18 red and a 16 white on chovies in a bloody nose teaser head. Also nailed a tone more cohos all gaff released. Saturday afternoon headed back out and fished the back side of secretary for some more coho action, they were thick to 90 feet. Lots of shaker springs too. Sunday morning headed to the Trap Shack first light in the heavy fog and got a 8lb red spring at 5:30 am on a 3" brads super cut plug (black jack). Bonk! Trolled back to secretary and limited out on coho and got a 24lb red on the back side of the island at 45ft on a brads cut plug again which impressed me of this lure, outfished chovies on the other rigger that day. Best flashers for us were the Gold Fever, Purple onion, Kinetic Purple, and Purple haze in that order. All in all it was a great weekend and we will be back for sure. Seen a few of the members out there. It was real buisy for sure but for the most part everyone was able to fish without too much difficulty but there where the odd few idiots who would troll across everyone or against the grain and we had a run in with a guide who thought he had more rights to cut us off on more than one occasion so we had words lol... Back to the rivers for me

 

[wolf]

HHHMMM I know that wasnt me LOL LOL
were you in a explorer?? good report and congrats on a 24 as them are rare I know of only a few true 30 + being caught the evg seems to be that 16 to 22 lb range right now there are coming in a lot more now my susscees to get to net is hurting a bit right now just some very bad luck LOL
(thats fishing) all I can say is check your leaders got a bit lazy with the coho etc threw it back down big spring on TINK gone teaser head and all dont be lazy and YES I know better...


Wolf

 

[outback]

fished inside pedder, managed one fish.. about a 4 lb coho(hatchery) at about 10. fished from 5:45 till noon... i need a bigger boat!

 

[SteelyDan]

HHHMMM I know that wasnt me LOL LOL
were you in a explorer?? good report and congrats on a 24 as them are rare I know of only a few true 30 + being caught the evg seems to be that 16 to 22 lb range right now

Wolf

Haha, nope definitely was not you, he was running a navy blue kingfisher out of pedder I recon. We were fishing out of a Tan 17.5 Double Eagle.

 

[juandesooka]

Got a 12 pounder or so off Possession, 6 am. Red glow flasher, bloody nose teaser, 60 feet. Marking tons of bait around the hump off Possession.
We trolled for coho for a couple hours, had one double header, both lost ... but couldn't find the school for that steady action.

 

[Xena]

Out at 8 till noon, plenty of strikes the first hour, small coho and jack springs all shook the hook before we could release them. Managed one keeper spring for the nephew visiting from Alberta. floated around in the fog for a couple of hours and then the tide was making us go backwards and called it a day. Good thing I had some prawns and another chunk of salmon in the freezer to give to my brother!! How come whenever the relatives come for a fish, the fishing gets slow? Xena

 

[Tsquared]

Fished the head from 10-1 . Lots of coho and sockeye for the first hour but only 1 keeper.
T2