The 2011 fishing season is now over and we just want to say thanks to all who came out and visited us. We had a great summer of fishing. The Chinook fishing in 2011 as a whole was probably the best we have experienced in the last 6 years, maybe more. And this was all done in probably the worst weather conditions we have seen in the same number of years. The consistancy of catches throughout the day was amazing .... you could catch all day long and the hot spots seemed to be consistent throughout the summer.
Definitely the hotspots at the start of the season were Borrowman Bay and Kettle Inlet. From the end of May when we first drropped a hook until well into the later weeks of July, the Chinook numbers pulled from these two areas were phenomenal. As the season progressed other spots picked up in action like Arnie's Hole and the Darkside to the North and also Funky Rock and Trenamen Island to the South. All these spots along with Kettle and Borrowman, were fished hard and for good reason ... they all produced copious amounts of Chinook salmon. Along with the consistancy in the fishing spots another constant factor came into play: fast trolling hardware at a depth of more then 30 feet was the most effective way to attract a bite. The hardware which seemed to work better then any other were Diamond Lance Trolling Spoons (chrome) and 6" Luhr Jenson Coyote Spoon in patterns such as Party Girl, Watermelon, Mongoose and UV. There were more, and as we did this year, in the future we will update you as quick as we can on what the "taste of the week" will be.
When August hit the whole fishing game changed. It was like we found a time machine and transported back to 6 years ago. The Chinook had turned their heads away from the glimmering piece of metal shooting past their heads at what seemed a million miles an hour, even to the fishermen, and started hitting hard on mooching cut bait at speeds that now felt like a crawl. The fish also started to congregate in some of the favoured "Old Faithful" spots like number 2, Nob Hill, Number 5 and the Honey Hole. The change in fishing was based on size of bait in the area. There was an unimaginable amount of bait around all summer, but in the first 6 weeks most of it was needlefish, generally no longer then 5 inches long hence why the spoons were working so well. This is not typical in the slightest and was kind of perplexing to our professional guides why it stayed this way for so long. For the remaining five weeks, the bait was herring and quite large at that, so that's why cut plug was working so well.
The Coho salmon in 2011 was fairly consistent from end of June on. There was some peaks through out the season which were experienced more so on the top end of Rennison and Aristazabal Island but the Coho were caught all over the map especially in the later weeks of the summer. The size of Coho never reached expectations by the end of the summer with an annual average of 8 to 12 pounds but none the less topped anglers salmon quotas.
When conditions allowed for everyone to get offshore and bottomfishing for Lingcod and Snapper, it was surely taken advantage of. Along with the phenomenal Salmon catches, the amount of Groundfish brought in was right in line. The hot spots changed frequently but few anglers came in anything but amazed on how much fish they had caught in such short amounts of time.
The Halibut fishing was funny in the way that most of the better fishing could be done on inside waters. And different from years past, drifting banks and channeles seemed to be the best. Parker Passage this year, produced more then 90% of the bigger halibut with virtually none coming in from the offshore banks and reefs.
In the end I guess two words explained the fishing from this past season "HEAVY" and "STEADY". And based on what we had seen for average Chinook size being about 16 to 28 pounds for the first part of the summer. We should have a great return next year especially in the earlier weeks in June. We can't wait already and are looking forward to seeing all those who are joining us for hopefully another action packed season.
Check out the detailed bi-weekly reports below from 2011.
For local weather please click here at the Environment Canada website.
