Headed to the Island this past weekend for a little fishing with the father-in-law. We installed a new tri-beam sounder in the boat Friday night, as the last trip we lost the primary and the back-up within a few hours of each other. We decided to head to Pt. Alberni the next day to “test” the sounder.
The next morning we were chatting with one of the boat launch staff in Alberni and she was saying very little was coming in – most likely because of the commercial openings that week. We changed our plans and quickly decided to do the run out to Bamfield. In our haste to launch we forgot to put the plug in the boat … after a little commotion we got it out of the water, drained, plugged and back in the water without any engine damage (luckily).
The weather was incredible both days – warm and sunny, shorts and t-shirt weather and NO FOG - totally rare for the time of year given where we were.
We had our lines in the water by noon – shortly after that we landed a 20lb Chinook, an hour later a 40lb Chinook and as the sun started to drop we landed 4 Coho ranging between 4 to 8lbs.
The next morning we were back at it at first light – we were the first ones out of Poet Nook Marina and made a stop in a little bay that we call “our hole”. We had a nice 20lb Chinook in the boat 10 minutes in and were quickly surrounded by 10 boats with 10 different directions – lemmings. As we headed away from the mayhem a pod of grey whales came through – no doubt spooking anything around. As we headed across the channel, about mid-channel, the port rod started to bang and scream, another Chinook on and to the boat in the net … but the father-in-law got the net hung up on a cabin canvass button and I watched helplessly as it flopped back out.
When we hit the other side of the channel (with the other 10 boats still pounding the same spot – with no luck as we found out later) we had another on. It was our first Northern Coho – 14lbs. That was it for about an hour then it got interesting. I put a cop car flasher and spoon on the shallow rod – and “bam” as soon as it hit 37ft another Northern on. As the father-in-law was cleaning the latest catch, the same rod starts to bounce, I run out of the cabin (as he was not noticing) and start reeling in another. He pulls the starboard rod out of the rigger clip and realizes that he needs to net what I have on and put the rod on the deck. As soon as it’s in the net the rod that just got pulled and is lying on the deck with everything trailing 100 feet behind us starts to get pulled out of the boat. I make a dive for it and realize the reason it’s leaving the boat is because there is another Northern on it. I reel it in quickly, the father-in-law nearly looses the net as his hands are quite slimy from cleaning his fish and finally it gets netted (barely). After the 3 minute fire drill, I looked down at 3 beautiful fish and realize that we had our limit of Coho.
What a trip. I have photos and will post this eve.
Cheers,
Justin.
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Topic: West Coast, Bamfield, Sept 10 & 11th (Read 1263 times)