[malvarez]

Fished the upper part of Howe Sound Wednesday last week - Defence Islands, Furry Creek, and into Minaty Bay (before it gets closed end of May). Nothing to get excited about - couple of rockfish and one small sole plus one decent hit off of Furry Creek in about 130' of water - was running riggers between 80 and 100, army truck hootchie and flasher one side, Coyote spoon on the other (hit came on the hootchie). Water is really silted up from the runoff.

Previous trips down the sound have produced lots of long cod (including a number of nice big ones in th 12lbs+ range) and quite a few rockfish....but no salmon. Nice to see the bottom fish doing well.

Planning on heading down for Tunstall Bay tomorrow, possibly Gower Pt. Let me know if anybody has any suggestions....this dry spell is driving me nuts!

 

[tsweet129]

Fish the Sound on the low slack tide....an hour before and an hour after or your just burning fuel....at Defence fish the south side of the big island right on the shelf where it shallows up to about 40 ft...but you want to be in the deeper water off that shelf...try anchovy....i've had good luck there the last 6 weeks...

At Tunstall same thing on the low slack....i've hit quite a few in the high teens there in the last month...

 

[rln]

next time try fishing at portuea cove right along the boundary of the marine park. DFO releases net pen chinook there and they start showing up at this time of year. If you run into a school of them swimming about going nowhere, you can get some decent fishing.

 

[tsweet129]

there should be a decent porteau run this year...there were so many jacks out there last year that you couldn't keep your line clear of them....

 

[malvarez]

Thanks for the info guys - I'll give it another shot in the coming weeks. I'm a sucker for getting out in the boat, the "fishing" is more important than the "catching" as the saying goes.

Anyway, I made the run down to Tunstall (from Squamish) on Friday - nice-ish day....bit choppy and wind came up in the PM, but managed to boat two springs 17 and 8 pounds. As noted - both came within an hour or so of low tide - was fishing the 100' shelf and weights at 90 and 80.....both on hootchies (dill pickle and army truck). Nice to break the dry spell!

Hope to get out again this week, work permitting. Will keep you posted.

..../Alvar

 

[ralfish]

Just a reminder about the RCA's in the area, these are "no fishing" zones: http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/recfish/Restricted_Areas/RCAs/Areas/Area28_page_e.htm

 

[malvarez]

Don't you just love playing "RCA Roulette".....think we'll all need internet installed in our boats soon and monitor the changes in realtime.....on the bright side, I've been picking up at least half a dozen ling cod and/or rockfish every time I go....some pretty nice big ones, so hopefully things are turning around.

Anyway, I keep a copy of the RCA zones to hand in the boat and steer clear....guess the upside is that if you manage to work through all the legals, you pretty much get the water to yourself as so many other people can't be bothered!

 

[ralfish]

Went up Jervis a week ago with a bud who used to guide on the Sunshine Coast. We got one legal spring and a few ling ( trolling with hootchies, any time we got too close to the bottom we would pick up ling). It wasn't open yet for ling, but they were legal size at least. Talked to a Fisheries and Oceans lady that was doing a survey. She said that last season she was on the dock 5 days a week doing creel surveys in Egmont. The entire season she saw 5 salmon come in. Unfreekin' believable, as that area used to be salmon central. Neither one of us had fished up there in about 10 years, but we were targetting water that used to hold a run of big springs this time of year, but the times have changed, no wonder we didn't see anyone else on the water...