Winter Harbour Report

spring fever said:
Great report Sculpin-my favourite place to fish!! Roughly how far out were you?
Click to expand...

This is roughly where we were Mike. It's a shot from Todd's CMAP app on his phone.

a7f0b0f09b94a80c875bbef29b50a78b.jpg



Todd said "if we see the Charlottes, can we stop? I always wanted to go there" LOL :D.
 
Great report John!!!

Were you driving up island on Thursday? I think I may have passed you around Sayward headed south. Noted an aluminum boat and the big blue barrel stood out in my mirror....said to my gal, "someone's going tuna fishing".
 
Pippen said:
Great report John!!!

Were you driving up island on Thursday? I think I may have passed you around Sayward headed south. Noted an aluminum boat and the big blue barrel stood out in my mirror....said to my gal, "someone's going tuna fishing".
Click to expand...

That would have been us :).
 
spring fever said:
Thanks John-bringing my tuna clones home for next year!!
Click to expand...

Sounds like a good plan :).

Funny thing is that a run like that is short for us down South out of Ukee and apparently a very long one for up there. I think most of them thought we were nuts :p. We really wanted to get in on that close in action a week or so ago but we were dealt different cards.
 
Awesome trip John!!!

I really love fishing out of WH!!! And to add Tuna to the area makes it even better!!

Thanks for bringing us along and posting the trip!!

Next year???

Cheers

SS
 
and a big shout out to Rob at Qualicum Rivers, he kept us in enough ice to be able to fish Tuna, of all the things that need to line up right to be able to do this fishery you can't do it without ice. We use most of a tote per day of fishing and those skunk days you get to have a beer and watch it melt.

thanks,
 
Awesome write up and pictures as usual. Thanks sculpin! Gets me pumped up to one day get out there after some albacore for my self!!
 
Haha I also saw the Sculpin roll by in Campbell River on Thursday. Was kinda wondering what you were doing up this way.makes sense now! Quite the distinguishable boat. Quatsino / WH is a great spot. Wish I had more time to explore that area. I split my available time between ECVi and Nootka.
 
I like Sculpin as he is one of a few that gets it, and actually will drive around island to fish other places (not afraid of mountains like Malalat LOL LOL)... One thing about these places they are really not that far, and so many guys dont explore there own island. I have to get up there one of these days....
 
I received intel on thursday morn the Sculpin was heading northbound out of Nanaimo with a large blue 45 gallon drum on the back ... Hah i knew exactly
What was going on...glad to see you guys got onto them and Glad Jake is hooked on tuna fishing now ... Great report man !


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Reporting back:) Tale of 2 different fishing trips- 1 prior to a big westerly and 1 after. The early part saw very few salmon onshore and having to resort to fishing in deep water on the highway at depths to 370' on the downrigger. Springs to 20 lbs on tide changes on large spoons and glow hootchies. Last weekend after a blow saw fish on beach. Had a 32 and two at 20 and some teenagers at Kains. Coho moved in and were easy to catch on just about anything so we ran dummy flashers and light gear and had fun. Picked up our best springs in the middle of sunny afternoons up high in the water. The crew was assembling at Cliffe too. Halis and lings in the usual spots but still have to travel a way to get to them. Met Sculpin and his tuna crew and enjoyed hearing about their day offshore.
 
Spring Fever your PM box is full. Here's the location of the peanut 50 15.914N 128 5.628w (5.9NM SW of Lawn Point)

The guide I spoke to said they've been hammering the springs there in the mornings. 200 ft down.

As far as our trip it yielded limited results. 2 springs and 4 hos off cliffe point. Green teaser chovy and army truck hoochie were #1 and #2 producers for hits/action for our trip.

Happy Hunting.
 
Launched at Cole Harbour wed at noon with a pretty decent swell watch forecast. Beautiful day-going through the Narrows saw a guy hook -up so knew the coho were in. Nice run down to Cliffe point-Heavy C spotted the Orca and gave us directions to the "Peanut" off-shore hotspot. Fairly flat-the old girl with the new 300 ate up the miles at 30 mph. Still I was a little surprised there were no boats anywhere-other than a fair number of commercials a few miles seaward of us. Water temperature was 62 F-I suspected tuna boats but I don't know what a commercial tuna boat looks like-These looked like Draggers of some sort but they did move fairly rapidly for a dragger!! Got the chovie down to 220 ft of wire in 420ft of water (gotta love networking!) At 460 ft depth got the first fish pretty nice 18ish with attitude-lot of coho in the 9 to 11 lb range. We were in the over 45cm area The anchovie was doing all the heavy lifting so I gave my partner in crime my new McRocket strip in a Rhys Davis strip holder-put on a smear of super Gel herring scent and it was "game on!" We had a fabulous afternoon in the sunshine-not fast but steady and great looking fish. Hooked up for the night and knew we would find the exact mentioned "peanut" when the fleet went out next morning. Latched onto a Grady for a nice ride a few hundred feet back in his wake. He was heading exactly where we had come from the night before. Little farther south than we had been and not so far out. The day was gorgeous-Solander looked pretty cool-we were certainly not alone. 12 boats max-just us and a bunch of hungry fish- seemed to be more of a coho play rather than Springs so picked up and moved seaward and North a couple of miles and we were back into the Springs we had the night before. Nice fish but I never found any 30's that were talked about. Knocked it on the head for a tide change to do some bottom fishing-God I hate bottom fishing but still I promised "SWMBO" (she who must be obeyed) some white meat! Did Ok but no Hali!! Our advanced age, lack of food and 7hrs sunshine finally caught up with us so we left the scene to more hardy souls to clean fish, have a meal and a nice nap. Nobody was fishing behind Kain Island-the tide was right (flooding) so we gave it a go!! Picked up 1spring and 2 nice coho right on the kelp at dusk. Great ending to a perfect day!! I had purposely left 2 holes for coho on our licenses for fri so we had an excuse to fish salmon before trying for the accursed bottom fish!! The weather had changed-the skies were overcast and there was a good SW swell running. Tied up on a fish buoy I know -with dreams of another great day. Not to be!!! Heavy rain started at mid-night and very strong winds were blowing by 4 am. A great breakfast while we debated our course of action-listened to the guide boats who decided (wisely) that since it was blowing SE 35 to 45KNOTS at Solander-Cliffe point might be the option d'jour!! Ours-- was to have another coffee! At full light when I could see the logs we made an uneventful crossing to Cliffe point-since we were limited on Springs we pushed on up quotsino to Koskimo creek-the water was like a mirror, rain had stopped but very heavy overcast-very eerie and strangely beautiful. I must have been slow getting the chovies out of the ice chest-next thing I know the McRocket strip is leaving the boat on the end of a screaming reel-this is no coho-released a very nice mid-teens Spring. I still don't have my chovie in the holder yet. He puts out the MCRocket gets an instant surface take before the rigger is dropped. Nice coho about 9 lbs-I let those 2 guys sort out the net and the coho and get my chovie finally over side! Bingo!! That's it for us! The skies open(of course-time to pull traps!!) Reasonable crab-a very wet 4 hour drive home and a pretty good ending for the long range fishing season for me!! I have no connection to McRocket lures in any way-just an ongoing interest to find a lure as good as an anchovy. They worked in Nootka inside and they certainly work off-shore. The only drawback is you have to watch your rod like an anchovie because if hit they deform and are not fishing. They can quickly be re-tuned and sent back down. The one I gave to my shipmate had at least 15 fish on it and was showing no real sign of wear. I had 3 big Springs on in Nootka on an early model which I was given-it looked pretty rough after. Check them out on this website http://www.mcrocket.com/ PS 3 springs of 12 were white!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Great report SF, I'm glad those strips worked out well for you. Who would of thaught, fake stips from Ontario...:p
Maybe some other tackle from lake Ontario would work on WCVI salmon?

Eston
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

B
Kitimat/ Douglas channel end of May
Replies
3
Views
481
mikep
M
B
Winter Harbour Forecast
Replies
1
Views
574
N2013
N2013
adanac
Goals / plans for 2025 summer / fall season
Replies
74
Views
6K
the force
the force
Captain PartyMarty
Fishing Charter Donations
Replies
5
Views
814
Gong Show
Gong Show
trophy fisher
Boat repair Winter Harbour
Replies
4
Views
639
Damn Ugly
Damn Ugly
Back
Top