Winter Harbour Report
- Thread starter 17 ft sea ranger
- Start date
Sculpin
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the info Ted.
Olivers Sportfishing
New Member
I am heading up there on sunday morning for a few days. This will be my first time in the area. Going to take my wife and kids for their first time to the west coast to fish for salmon. How is the coho fishing I would like to get the kids into a few so they can have some fun.
cheers
Oliver
cheers
Oliver
Olivers Sportfishing
New Member
Thank you
Pretty excited to head up there!
Pretty excited to head up there!
Halibut-face
Member
A pic from our trip to winter harbour this week. Was a complete bloodbath.
17 ft sea ranger
Active Member
Nice pic Haliface.......how far did you have to go to find them?
jeffywestcoast
Well-Known Member
Gotta love the Tuna massacre.. Quite a tidy deck you have there.. Lol
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sculpin
Well-Known Member
What a blast!!!
Firelight, my son Jake, and myself just got back from a very cool trip up to Winter Harbour. Todd has fished up there for the last 4 years or so but it was our first time in that neck of the woods. It is always cool fishing new spots and we were pretty excited about this adventure. With all the talk of tuna fishing close in we were determined to give them a whirl and set that as our number one goal. Second on our list was to experience the bottom fishing up there with all the humps and pinnacles that are around that area. Well let me tell you the place delivered both of those experiences big time. What a blast!!!
We drove 5 hrs up Island to Coal Harbour to launch the Sculpin.
Loaded for bear lol! I don't think we have ever packed that much stuff in her before. She handled it like a champ.
The boat launch is kinda different up there in that they use a forklift to retrieve and launch float planes. They have priority over boats and we were fortunate not to have to wait. The parking lot was packed with trucks and trailers and I had to park up on the upper street.
Leaving Coal Harbour and our one hour boat ride down Quatsino Sound begins.
Continued...
Firelight, my son Jake, and myself just got back from a very cool trip up to Winter Harbour. Todd has fished up there for the last 4 years or so but it was our first time in that neck of the woods. It is always cool fishing new spots and we were pretty excited about this adventure. With all the talk of tuna fishing close in we were determined to give them a whirl and set that as our number one goal. Second on our list was to experience the bottom fishing up there with all the humps and pinnacles that are around that area. Well let me tell you the place delivered both of those experiences big time. What a blast!!!
We drove 5 hrs up Island to Coal Harbour to launch the Sculpin.
Loaded for bear lol! I don't think we have ever packed that much stuff in her before. She handled it like a champ.
The boat launch is kinda different up there in that they use a forklift to retrieve and launch float planes. They have priority over boats and we were fortunate not to have to wait. The parking lot was packed with trucks and trailers and I had to park up on the upper street.
Leaving Coal Harbour and our one hour boat ride down Quatsino Sound begins.
Continued...
Sculpin
Well-Known Member
The ride down the Sound was very nice. It is similar to running the Alberni Canal but different at the same time. Very nice scenery. We hit the narrows on pretty slack tide and it was interesting to see all the inlets and small patches of communities along the way.
Cliff Point, Kains Island, and the entrance to Winter Harbour dead ahead.
Todd booked us a cabin with "Dicks Last Resort" just around the corner from the light entering Winter Harbour.
We had the brown one second from the light.
It had all the features a fisherman needs without the fashion lol. The outside breezeway was nice with a deep freeze and a place to hang up your rain gear and put your boots.
Inside had a bedroom with a bunk bed and a double bed, a washroom with shower, and a big open living room/kitchen with a hide bed.
The view from our porch and my gal tucked away for bed on the dock out front.
Continued....
Cliff Point, Kains Island, and the entrance to Winter Harbour dead ahead.
Todd booked us a cabin with "Dicks Last Resort" just around the corner from the light entering Winter Harbour.
We had the brown one second from the light.
It had all the features a fisherman needs without the fashion lol. The outside breezeway was nice with a deep freeze and a place to hang up your rain gear and put your boots.
Inside had a bedroom with a bunk bed and a double bed, a washroom with shower, and a big open living room/kitchen with a hide bed.
The view from our porch and my gal tucked away for bed on the dock out front.
Continued....
Sculpin
Well-Known Member
We knew Friday was going to be snotty out there so we just headed out to see which direction we were going to go that day. The skies were really cool up there with the different weather we experienced through out the trip.
Looking down towards Brooks first thing in the morning.
We started to go uphill first thing but decided to head down offshore of Lawn Point from some reports we had heard. It was fairly lumpy out there but totally fishable. We all decided to dawn the inflatables this day.
We're fishing and Todd checking out the sounder.
The really cool part about bottom fishing up there is that there is no discrimination with species and colors lol.
There were brown fish with big teeth.
There were nice orange ones with yellow eyes.
There were multi coloured ones.
Even the halibut didn't mind if you caught two at a time lol
!
We were mighty impressed with the bottom fishing and ended our day with 3 halibut, some nice sized rock fish, some nice eating sized ling cod, and one teener spring. We fished Kains for a bit on the way back in and lost one salmon and released one undersize. We decided to call it a day. We had to stop in front of Kains to check Buoyweather and Terrafin because Saturday was Tuna day.
Continued....
Looking down towards Brooks first thing in the morning.
We started to go uphill first thing but decided to head down offshore of Lawn Point from some reports we had heard. It was fairly lumpy out there but totally fishable. We all decided to dawn the inflatables this day.
We're fishing and Todd checking out the sounder.
The really cool part about bottom fishing up there is that there is no discrimination with species and colors lol.
There were brown fish with big teeth.
There were nice orange ones with yellow eyes.
There were multi coloured ones.
Even the halibut didn't mind if you caught two at a time lol
!
We were mighty impressed with the bottom fishing and ended our day with 3 halibut, some nice sized rock fish, some nice eating sized ling cod, and one teener spring. We fished Kains for a bit on the way back in and lost one salmon and released one undersize. We decided to call it a day. We had to stop in front of Kains to check Buoyweather and Terrafin because Saturday was Tuna day.
Continued....
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Sculpin
Well-Known Member
The next morning we headed out for what we came up here for. With a good two day forecast on Buoyweather and the swell coming down in the afternoon we headed out to Pisces Canyon with a sliver of a Terrafin shot lol. There was talk the night before of some other boats heading out but we saw no one else on the way out.
Hole in the sky with the sun raining through. Early morn tuna fishing. Gotta love it.
The first vessel we came across about 3/4 of the way out.
Some of the pictures don't show it but the swells in the morning were very tightly stacked together and we had to pound into them the whole way out. We only managed 12 miles an hour most of the way. We kept going and going for 3 hours!!! The temp break had moved off and we had to find it. As most first trips of the year we were getting a little concerned with the lack of life out there and it just being a big ocean. This is the most frustrating part of tuna fishing. It was taking forever to find the break and blue water and there was very little life out there except for a large migration of whales at about the 1/2 way mark. We did see a couple of little tuna birds here and there and then we saw another boat. We started to head towards it and the temp started to climb finally!!! As we got closer we realized it was a commercial tuna boat and the closer we got the warmer and bluer the water became. When we were about 2 miles off his starboard side and the water hit 59.5 we said " game on" and deployed the gear.
As we were deploying the gear, Todd turns to me and asks "where are the rod holders?". I knew we had forgotten something and it dawned on me right there and then
. Oh well, make due with what you have. We stuck two in the old outrigger brackets and two in the rocket launchers overhead ha ha.
This was my sons first tuna trip and we popped his cherry BIG TIME. Within 10 minutes of dropping the gear we were into a 4 banger!!! We put 11 in the boat in the first hour.
So how do you like this tuna fishing Jake?...
The aftermath.
Continued.....
Hole in the sky with the sun raining through. Early morn tuna fishing. Gotta love it.
The first vessel we came across about 3/4 of the way out.
Some of the pictures don't show it but the swells in the morning were very tightly stacked together and we had to pound into them the whole way out. We only managed 12 miles an hour most of the way. We kept going and going for 3 hours!!! The temp break had moved off and we had to find it. As most first trips of the year we were getting a little concerned with the lack of life out there and it just being a big ocean. This is the most frustrating part of tuna fishing. It was taking forever to find the break and blue water and there was very little life out there except for a large migration of whales at about the 1/2 way mark. We did see a couple of little tuna birds here and there and then we saw another boat. We started to head towards it and the temp started to climb finally!!! As we got closer we realized it was a commercial tuna boat and the closer we got the warmer and bluer the water became. When we were about 2 miles off his starboard side and the water hit 59.5 we said " game on" and deployed the gear.
As we were deploying the gear, Todd turns to me and asks "where are the rod holders?". I knew we had forgotten something and it dawned on me right there and then
. Oh well, make due with what you have. We stuck two in the old outrigger brackets and two in the rocket launchers overhead ha ha.
This was my sons first tuna trip and we popped his cherry BIG TIME. Within 10 minutes of dropping the gear we were into a 4 banger!!! We put 11 in the boat in the first hour.
So how do you like this tuna fishing Jake?...
The aftermath.
Continued.....
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Sculpin
Well-Known Member
Jake reeled in quite a few fish and was getting a bit tired near the end. Sitting down seemed to help ha ha.
This guy was so hungry that after being caught on a rod and was being reeled in past the dive board decided to hit it as well with one hook in his mouth already!!!
I love the blue water fishing offshore. Pure magic.
We ended up with blackjack 21 and had enough ice for them all to be packed away nicely. The double half tote system I came up with this year works really well.
Emptying the slush bucket and packing up.
Todd really liked the new double half tote system as well. His bed on the ride in got that much bigger lol.
Closer to shore we came down a steep swell and buried the bow pretty good. A huge wall of water came over the roof and woke him up pretty quick ha ha.
Continued....
This guy was so hungry that after being caught on a rod and was being reeled in past the dive board decided to hit it as well with one hook in his mouth already!!!
I love the blue water fishing offshore. Pure magic.
We ended up with blackjack 21 and had enough ice for them all to be packed away nicely. The double half tote system I came up with this year works really well.
Emptying the slush bucket and packing up.
Todd really liked the new double half tote system as well. His bed on the ride in got that much bigger lol.
Closer to shore we came down a steep swell and buried the bow pretty good. A huge wall of water came over the roof and woke him up pretty quick ha ha.
Continued....
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Sculpin
Well-Known Member
We had a great time on this adventure and we met some really great folks while up there. Thank you to everyone for the hospitality, tips, and good conversation. We will definitely be back again and look forward to next year.
Looking back at Kains Island on such a beautiful day, we truly did not want to leave. The seas were flat on Sunday and the sun was shining. It was a perfect day for fishing!
Just before leaving we stopped to call home and let our loved ones know we were on our way. We happened to be sitting right over top of a nice 75 ft pinnacle and Todd said "how bout one more for the road"........
.
Till next year.
Cheers,
Sculpin and crew
Looking back at Kains Island on such a beautiful day, we truly did not want to leave. The seas were flat on Sunday and the sun was shining. It was a perfect day for fishing!
Just before leaving we stopped to call home and let our loved ones know we were on our way. We happened to be sitting right over top of a nice 75 ft pinnacle and Todd said "how bout one more for the road"........
.
Till next year.
Cheers,
Sculpin and crew
Last edited by a moderator:
Aces
Well-Known Member
We had a great time on this adventure and we met some really great folks while up there. Thank you to everyone for the hospitality, tips, and good conversation. We will definitely be back again and look forward to next year.
Looking back at Kains Island on such a beautiful day, we truly did not want to leave. The seas were flat on Sunday and the sun was shining. It was a perfect day for fishing!
Just before leaving we stopped to call home and let our loved ones know we were on our way. We happened to be sitting right over top of a nice 75 ft pinnacle and Todd said "how bout one more for the road"........
Till next year.
Cheers,
Sculpin and crew
You texted me that same pic of Todd . I must be a loved one!!!
TyeeSlayer
Member
Wonderful report - THANK YOU!
spring fever
Well-Known Member
Great report Sculpin-my favourite place to fish!! Roughly how far out were you?
SpringVelocity
Crew Member
You texted me that same pic of Todd . I must be a loved one!!!
Wow thats cool..... Looks like a very good time...
