Where to Halibut fish around Sidney and a question on anchor setup?

smokedvw

smokedvw

Active Member
So I have searched through the entire forum and tried to gather info on spots around Sidney. It seems like the consensus is somewhere south of D'arcy Island towards Zero rock and Discovery Island. I also noticed people talking about north of D'arcy island and between Sidney Island and Halibut Island, must be Halibut there right ;). Depth sounds 150-200 but I am unsure where where to really fish it. We plan to do tomorrow and play around with some weights and hooks to see if we can test the location to see if its sandy vs rocky (ie stuck) bottom but I was hoping someone might be able to recommend which of those sites listed A,B,C,D,E has the best chance for us. You can DM me too if you dont want to give away your spot ;).

This will be our first time out. My father in law is out from Toronto area and very excited about fishing. We have 2 jig setups with spreader bars so hoping to actually find a sandy bottom, not hook and loose our stuff. The 3lb ball will be on mono in case it does catch and we can hopefully just lose that vs everything but who knows.

1655611128493.png

We had planned to drift and go out during the slack tides next week for 1.5 hours it seems early in the morning with only .1m change. I also have enough weighted line (450 feet) I use for pawning, a danforth anchor and 50 feet of chain if we wanted to make an anchor system as well. We just thought our first time we would float and time the tides but curious what peoples recommendation would be. (I know weighted line is probably not idea for a end setup but thought it could work for now). Will the weighted line work and is 450 feet enough?

I saw this setup
looks great and I think I have everything to do this at home tomorrow. Looks like a great way to pull the anchor up too at the end.

Thank you and hopefully we will post a great photo when we head out and catch our first Halibut!
 
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I would find someone with anchoring experience and go with them 3 or more times before trying on you own. 6 times may be even better. My buddy wrapped his around his prop and was fortunate to cut the line before flipping his boat, I had shown him once or twice. The current are fast around Sidney, so I feel like the risks will increase.

I caught a derby winner south of E so that is where I’d go.

The low slack would be worth trying, might be a quick window today and have to backtroll to get down.

Good luck and enjoy.
 
‘A‘ can get some weird current flow so be careful anchoring there. Use the current tables (Kellet Bluffs gives an idea) as opposed to tide tables and if I were you I’d anchor up or Drift around Zero Rock.
 
I have caught halibut at "B" and the protection you get from Sidney and D'arcy Island usually means that the currents are lighter there. Not sure why but the Sidney area generally has been really slow for halibut over the past several years.
 
Ok sounds like we will pass on the anchor this time and thanks on the current tables and not just tides.
 
Went out today, got 4 dog fish. Beautiful day on the water but no luck with halibut. Tomorrow I think we'll try further south.

We were at a depth of 300 to 240 feet.

If we are getting dogfish does that mean we are not onntge right area?

Also how do halibut bite, do we have to set the hook or just leave it in the holder until they swallow it?

We saw a few times bites, tired to hook them but they would get off. Could have also been more dogfish.
 
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scott craven said:
Dogfish bite lightly causing the rod tip to bounce lightly..
Usually when a Halibut bites it's more violent, the rod will bend deeply,
the reel will start screaming as the fish takes line.
Sometimes the rod will bend and stop as the Halibut doesn't know it's hooked.
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Thank you for the info.
Any tips to not get dogfish?
 
smokedvw said:
I think the only ones we have are artificial squids.

Any other recommendations?

The guys at trotac recommended spreader bars and herring but if it's non stop dogfish we might have to change it up.
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Use salmon heads or large bait that doggies can’t easily get in their mouth. They will still try but you won’t be hooking and cranking them up constantly
 
Slabbedout said:
Use salmon heads or large bait that doggies can’t easily get in their mouth. They will still try but you won’t be hooking and cranking them up constantly
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We had large herring but it looks like they were nibbling away at it until they finally got hooked.

Ill see if I can find some Salmon heads anywhere.
 
I moved to Sidney 5 years ago and have tried for halibut many times without luck. I did catch one last year trolling for salmon though. Nowadays I try for halibut down towards oak Bay or Victoria where they are more plentiful.
 
So we decided to hit a few spots

C, D, E and B.

Was a beautiful day, there was a pod of orcas going from Oak Bay towards Sidney that passed by us. We then caught up to them to watch them in the sunset.

0 wind, little current and we didnt loose anything except once where my father in law thinks he got a halibut but I think he may have got bottom. We lost one hook there. Caught 3 dogfish, 1 quite large and made fish and chip out of them. Without home made tartar sauce they were OK, with the sauce very tasty or was that just the sauce ;)

We could not even tell if the dog fish were on there with 2lb cannon balls so I think we will switch to 1/2lb but I guess that is condition dependent.

I think we will try again this week but the conditions were great and not sure they will be the same.

We will report back if we get anything ;)
 
smokedvw said:
So we decided to hit a few spots

C, D, E and B.

Was a beautiful day, there was a pod of orcas going from Oak Bay towards Sidney that passed by us. We then caught up to them to watch them in the sunset.

0 wind, little current and we didnt loose anything except once where my father in law thinks he got a halibut but I think he may have got bottom. We lost one hook there. Caught 3 dogfish, 1 quite large and made fish and chip out of them. Without home made tartar sauce they were OK, with the sauce very tasty or was that just the sauce ;)

We could not even tell if the dog fish were on there with 2lb cannon balls so I think we will switch to 1/2lb but I guess that is condition dependent.

I think we will try again this week but the conditions were great and not sure they will be the same.

We will report back if we get anything ;)
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I used to fish that area many years ago. It was good in early spring but once the comercial prawn boats moved in it was over. The slamming weights on the bottom of aluminum boats makes huge noise, also the hundreds of baited traps all over the area might have something to do with it. I think we went only once in June and we landed over 40 dogfish. Personally the best dogfish setup is salmon head on one road. Let them enjoy biting it and on the other rod chunk of octopus. Dogfish have hard time eating octopus. If you want to try the white powergrabber than add small chunk of octopus on the side. Personally I think summer Halibut fishing is better closer to Race Rocks. I think the Dogs dont like rocky bottom. Did you try trolling very slow? keep the herring or green spoon right at the bottom and troll. I put the kicker in gear and out of gear and I did catch many fish that way. Mostly small 20 lb halibuts but its fun catching them on light salmon road.
 
Fresh Coffee said:
I used to fish that area many years ago. It was good in early spring but once the comercial prawn boats moved in it was over. The slamming weights on the bottom of aluminum boats makes huge noise, also the hundreds of baited traps all over the area might have something to do with it. I think we went only once in June and we landed over 40 dogfish. Personally the best dogfish setup is salmon head on one road. Let them enjoy biting it and on the other rod chunk of octopus. Dogfish have hard time eating octopus. If you want to try the white powergrabber than add small chunk of octopus on the side. Personally I think summer Halibut fishing is better closer to Race Rocks. I think the Dogs dont like rocky bottom. Did you try trolling very slow? keep the herring or green spoon right at the bottom and troll. I put the kicker in gear and out of gear and I did catch many fish that way. Mostly small 20 lb halibuts but its fun catching them on light salmon road.
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We were not trolling but I could try. I threw back about 15 octopus from prawning this season. Wish I kept them. I might go set a trap in an area I know and get some then use those.

Yeah I feel like we might just have to try a different area. If we take the smaller boat it's pretty economical. Probably next to pull the boat out and trailer it though.
 
I used to fish halibut occasionally in that area. Best spot for me was to anchor on that 156’ pinnacle near the bottom of your picture. With the anchor fully out the current had my boat in around 350’ of water. Anchoring can be dangerous but if you use your head it isn’t bad. You need to know the currents and watch your ball and your rods closely and you’ll see when the current starts to pick up. The water will start moving quicker around your Scotsman and your lines will start to blow out a bit. When that happens it’s time to go. Sometimes you only get a couple hours on the hook in those areas. Last time I was there I was solo and was just dropping my second rod when the first one took off. I grabbed it and reeled up the biggest skate I’ve ever seen. I got it to the boat and while dealing with it the other rod took off and it was a 40 lb halibut. I tie my halibut stuff with 2 hooks and a giant glow hootchie and use either a full salmon head or if it’s from a really big fish ill cut it in half. On the second hook I usually run one of those plastic white scented baits that have a little tail on them. Unless things have changed, trailering to Peddar bay and fishing the flats out there is probably going to up your chances a lot.
 
smokedvw said:
We were not trolling but I could try. I threw back about 15 octopus from prawning this season. Wish I kept them. I might go set a trap in an area I know and get some then use those.

Yeah I feel like we might just have to try a different area. If we take the smaller boat it's pretty economical. Probably next to pull the boat out and trailer it though.
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Do you have ANY idea how good octopus taste ?
 
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