Fresh Barkley Sound Fishing Reports

It's been a grind lately, after the hot weather we had. Today though we found the fish and lots of them. Nice back eddy off of chrowe Island that holds lots of bait and today the bait of choice was squid. The fish we harvested was loaded down with big fresh white squid and when I matched the hatch it wa game on. Checked the prawn as well before fishing and unfortunately someone had poached me but I still managed to get 117 jumbos from one of the strings they didn't poach. There's a special place for people that do that kind of stuff.

Last few days have been a blast out on "the graveyard of the Pacific" Was able to get offshore and hook into some jumbo halibut, fortunately/unfortunately they were to big, so they are swimming free to make millions of babies. Salmon fishing, inshore, kind of spotty. Some days it's on fire some it's a grind but we still got it done. Redcan and great bear have been the spots with a needle fish hoochie. Ling cod and rockfish have been cooperative and have gotten limits for some of my guests. The prawn however have been spectacular! Jumbos! And lots of them. An overnight soak paid off for George and Wayne and they both got to take home a fair share of prawn for their freezers.

Sick day off, what did I choose to do with it? Well go fishing of course. Went out at 10a to check and rebait prawn traps, got my share of jumbos, so off to the salmon grounds. The status quo hadn't been working the greatest this year, so the other day I happened to find a new spot that really panned out. In front of little beach, the pinnacles create a triangle and in the triangle seems to be slack water that's loaded with bait and fish. 3 hours of fishing, 5 double headers, 20-25 Chinook to the boat. Avg 8-10#s biggest being 12#s or so. Not huge but lots of action. Lots. Status quo tells you to drop to the bottom with a needle fish, status quo was barely getting hit. Once to every 10 fish on the small herring aide spoon set at 9 84ft in 140fow. Smashed em, couldn't keep them off the hooks and eventually was only fishing with one rod because everytime I reset one it would pop off with a fish. Controlled chaos, if you will. Definitely wasn't relaxing for a sick day, worked really hard, had a ton of fun and brought home 10 meals worth of sea food with only 2 fish harvested and some prawn. Moral of the story, don't follow the status quo or you won't have as much fun. What a blast! Ps if anyone can find these herring aids in that size specifically, I'll take you fishing if you bring me a dozen of them. Nowhere on the island sells them anymore and I'm down to 2. Not entirely sure what's attracting them to it anymore since they're so beat up but still consistently working.

I have been out a few times this week and it has been a blast. lots of fish, lots of action and the sun finally came out after the last rounds of storms. biggest salmon landed this week was 15 or so #s and there have been abunch of other screamers that won the fight, the way she goes sometimes. brought this beautiful hatchery chinook home for dinner, maybe 8 or so #s. I try and advocate for the release of wild fish and take the fish that are made to be harvested. Lots of action at the usual spots, great bear and alley rock. lots of fish at sail rock as well. huge herring and squid both showed back up this week and the needle fish recently hatched too. lots of bait for all of these fish. I heard reports that 4 and 5 year old fish will be the majority this year and I would have to say that is true due to the size of some of these fish already. can't wait for Hog-ust but the way it is going, i am sure someone will pull a tyee in long before that.

Went out to check for prawn and rebait the traps and decided to drop my lines down for awhile. I have a super secret prawn spot that now has turned into a secret fishing spot. trolled over the pinnacle where I set my traps and hooked up with 2 keeper lingcod right off the bat, released to go back to their dens. got off the pinnacle and the back side of it was holding tons of bait and chinook were aggressively feeding on the back end of them. I dropped down to the bait at 170 deep and blamo! fish on! as I was playing that one, the second rod popped off and started screaming out line. The second fish seemed bigger so I loosened the drag on the first one and put it back in the rod holder to play the bigger of the two. lost it at the side of the boat, so I went back to paying the first one and got it in and released to swim another day. reset the lines and immediately got another double header of some nicer fish 10 or so #s. harvested one for dinner and went to reset the lines and before the second one was down the first one popped off the clip again and it was game on. 5 nice chinook salmon in about 15minutes so I decided to let them do their thing and head in, as the afternoon wind and swell picked up. It is so nice finding new fishing spots that no one ever fishes, one of the benefits of fishing here year round and getting to explore on my free time.

I went out yesterday, solo trip, to change buoys around, per new DFO regulations. decided to drop my lines in, since I was already out there, of course and got into some thick fish. Trolling between alley rock and great bear rock in 120 feet of water, I had a needle fish dragging bottom and my old faithful herring spoon set at 69feet. day dreaming of summer days and hyper focused on the needle fish, on the bottom, and all of a sudden the herring aid went off. What a screamer! great fight and huge fish for this time of year. I circled back around and blamo! it was game on again with another big salmon. released both of them but I would guess they weighed 15 or so pounds each. There is an early run of chinook in Toquart Bay, in April and those local fish are starting to show up, after the herring spawn. There still aren't tons of fish around but it is only a matter of time before the rest of them show up for the year but the fish that are around are quality fish.