Wayne in BC
New member
Some time ago my longtime best friend Grant and i decided that it was past time for some "fish therapy", and a couple of "mental health" days. It took several weeks for both of us to arrange our schedules, then hope for a weather window as the type of fishing we enjoy most involves a very long boat trip, 30 miles out a long narrow inlet,to reach the starting point on the West coast of this island, then traveling offshore some 30 miles to reach the "Halibut bank".
When fishing for these big bad boys, special tackle is required. A short stout rod, heavy duty reel, and at least 300 yards of fine diameter 100 lb test "tuff line". We must fish very deep, starting at 200 ft and often down to 300 ft.The lures we use range from 24 to 36 0z. in weight and one can only keep them at that depth when the tide is slack and no wind is blowing. Thus all conditions must come together or a long planned and costly trip can be ruined by a simple weather change.
We left home at 8 am monday morning, and drove an hour to launch Grants 24 ft welded aluminum boat at the river mouth in the small city of Port Alberni. A friend of Grants who has recently moved here from Alberta came along. He had never fished the ocean, but was excited to try. The plan was to travel the first 30 miles that day, fish for some Salmon along the outer coast, then anchor in a sheltered cove and sleep on the boat, then get a 4 am start and hope for good weather on the next leg of the trip offshore 30 miles.
All went well monday and we arrived on the edge of the open Pacific around 11 am, then as we rigged up for Salmon the wind started! That is actually kind of normal as the westerly winds come up every day about that time, usually as just a good breeze, tuesday they were much stronger of course, just our luck! We were not going to let that change our precious trip and rigged for Salmon while bouncing about in 8-10 foot swells with some cross-chop between and Mike our greenhorn was getting seasick! A couple more pills and he was coping but looked a bit green
It was only 30 minutes and a couple of small 5 lb Salmon lost at the boat later that Mikes rod doubled over and began screeching as something very big and angry tried to strip his reel of line! A lot of advice and 15 minutes of "wows" interspersed with "what do i do nows?" later had a lovely 30+ lb Chinook (King) Salmon at the boat and a very happy Mike who had forgotten he was seasick
.
We took several more good Salmon that day, feasting on fresh fillets monday night in a secluded cove while hoping the weather report on the marine radio was correct. It said the forecast for tuesday was "light to moderate" northwest winds, just fine for our purposes, and we bedded down onboard at about midnight for a few hours of sleep, silly asses! At our ages you would think we would be smart enough not to stay up gabbing all night!
By 4 am we were all wide awake and after some coffee decide to start early. As we ventured out into the channel there was only a slight breeze but some left over chop and manageable swells and we headed offshore in the predawn dimness, aided by our 16 mile Radar, a quality GPS with seamaps and enthusiasm we travelled to the first "bank", 12 miles out, a shallow area of about 200 ft average depth. The sea was getting rougher and now the radio was saying there was a change in forecast with heavy winds expected! Now going out to the 30 mile bank where we knew the fishing to be good was quite out of the question, we can be silly but not stupid! It was time to quickly try this bank, there were less Halibut here usually, but they tended to be larger. Where the far bank produced large numbers of what we called "chicken Halibut" in the 15-20 lb range, this place held fish to 200lbs plus with many in the 40 lb range but the fishing was much slower. We had little time as there were now storm warnings out and we needed to be getting back very soon, just our luck!
Quickly rigging rods, we found our GPS waypoints and marks where we had caught fish in the past and put the stern of the boat into the rising breeze and put the kicker motor into reverse, idling to hold us in position. The wind and currents have to be factored in when you are trying to keep even a very heavy lure on the bottom at these depths.
It took a few minutes to get the lures down but Mike had a fish on right off, it was heavy and fighting hard, likely a Halibut. It takes hard work and time to bring up a fighting fish from such deep water and when we saw it......poor Mike had a 5ft Shark! Sand Sharks are a common nuisance in this kind of fishing, and after the initial surprise and awe he angrily cut it loose and was dropping his lure down just as i had the stout rod nearly jerked out of my hands by something big!
Another 15 minutes of heaving and winding brought a large brown shadow up and i yelled to Grant to grab the harpoon! You simply do not try to hand land or gaff a big Halibut if you have a choice, they can can create havoc in a boat and hurt you a bunch while thrashing around with a large treble hook in their jaw! We speared it at the side of the boat, waited for it to stop thrashing, then threw a loop of light cable around its broad tail then with a special tool for the purpose, ran the cable through its gills and out of the mouth and cinched it into a "u" shape, effectively preventing it from flapping and hauled it into the boat. Some happy words were said, then down went the lures again. Grant soon had a 30 lb fish and i a 20, Mike had another Shark
After an hour of fishing we had done well when the wind came up so suddenly that we were shocked and worried! Up came the lines and we headed for safety. It was an hour and a half of hanging on in a bucking plunging boat to get back the twelve miles to shore and poor Mike was real "green" by then
It reasonably calm in the shelter of the islands and we fished Salmon for a bit before heading home down the long inlet in calm water and sunshine while wishing we had time offshore. Maybe next time huh? But heck we had lots of fine eating fish and had an adventure, pretty good for a bunch over hill guys
I have not captioned the pics, but you will get the 'picture" i am sure Me with the Halibut and Mike with his Salmon, plus some scenery. Now i have to go get some work done after playing hookey for a couple days and i'm stiff and sore!
Wayne
When fishing for these big bad boys, special tackle is required. A short stout rod, heavy duty reel, and at least 300 yards of fine diameter 100 lb test "tuff line". We must fish very deep, starting at 200 ft and often down to 300 ft.The lures we use range from 24 to 36 0z. in weight and one can only keep them at that depth when the tide is slack and no wind is blowing. Thus all conditions must come together or a long planned and costly trip can be ruined by a simple weather change.
We left home at 8 am monday morning, and drove an hour to launch Grants 24 ft welded aluminum boat at the river mouth in the small city of Port Alberni. A friend of Grants who has recently moved here from Alberta came along. He had never fished the ocean, but was excited to try. The plan was to travel the first 30 miles that day, fish for some Salmon along the outer coast, then anchor in a sheltered cove and sleep on the boat, then get a 4 am start and hope for good weather on the next leg of the trip offshore 30 miles.
All went well monday and we arrived on the edge of the open Pacific around 11 am, then as we rigged up for Salmon the wind started! That is actually kind of normal as the westerly winds come up every day about that time, usually as just a good breeze, tuesday they were much stronger of course, just our luck! We were not going to let that change our precious trip and rigged for Salmon while bouncing about in 8-10 foot swells with some cross-chop between and Mike our greenhorn was getting seasick! A couple more pills and he was coping but looked a bit green
It was only 30 minutes and a couple of small 5 lb Salmon lost at the boat later that Mikes rod doubled over and began screeching as something very big and angry tried to strip his reel of line! A lot of advice and 15 minutes of "wows" interspersed with "what do i do nows?" later had a lovely 30+ lb Chinook (King) Salmon at the boat and a very happy Mike who had forgotten he was seasick
.We took several more good Salmon that day, feasting on fresh fillets monday night in a secluded cove while hoping the weather report on the marine radio was correct. It said the forecast for tuesday was "light to moderate" northwest winds, just fine for our purposes, and we bedded down onboard at about midnight for a few hours of sleep, silly asses! At our ages you would think we would be smart enough not to stay up gabbing all night!
By 4 am we were all wide awake and after some coffee decide to start early. As we ventured out into the channel there was only a slight breeze but some left over chop and manageable swells and we headed offshore in the predawn dimness, aided by our 16 mile Radar, a quality GPS with seamaps and enthusiasm we travelled to the first "bank", 12 miles out, a shallow area of about 200 ft average depth. The sea was getting rougher and now the radio was saying there was a change in forecast with heavy winds expected! Now going out to the 30 mile bank where we knew the fishing to be good was quite out of the question, we can be silly but not stupid! It was time to quickly try this bank, there were less Halibut here usually, but they tended to be larger. Where the far bank produced large numbers of what we called "chicken Halibut" in the 15-20 lb range, this place held fish to 200lbs plus with many in the 40 lb range but the fishing was much slower. We had little time as there were now storm warnings out and we needed to be getting back very soon, just our luck!
Quickly rigging rods, we found our GPS waypoints and marks where we had caught fish in the past and put the stern of the boat into the rising breeze and put the kicker motor into reverse, idling to hold us in position. The wind and currents have to be factored in when you are trying to keep even a very heavy lure on the bottom at these depths.
It took a few minutes to get the lures down but Mike had a fish on right off, it was heavy and fighting hard, likely a Halibut. It takes hard work and time to bring up a fighting fish from such deep water and when we saw it......poor Mike had a 5ft Shark! Sand Sharks are a common nuisance in this kind of fishing, and after the initial surprise and awe he angrily cut it loose and was dropping his lure down just as i had the stout rod nearly jerked out of my hands by something big!
Another 15 minutes of heaving and winding brought a large brown shadow up and i yelled to Grant to grab the harpoon! You simply do not try to hand land or gaff a big Halibut if you have a choice, they can can create havoc in a boat and hurt you a bunch while thrashing around with a large treble hook in their jaw! We speared it at the side of the boat, waited for it to stop thrashing, then threw a loop of light cable around its broad tail then with a special tool for the purpose, ran the cable through its gills and out of the mouth and cinched it into a "u" shape, effectively preventing it from flapping and hauled it into the boat. Some happy words were said, then down went the lures again. Grant soon had a 30 lb fish and i a 20, Mike had another Shark
After an hour of fishing we had done well when the wind came up so suddenly that we were shocked and worried! Up came the lines and we headed for safety. It was an hour and a half of hanging on in a bucking plunging boat to get back the twelve miles to shore and poor Mike was real "green" by then
It reasonably calm in the shelter of the islands and we fished Salmon for a bit before heading home down the long inlet in calm water and sunshine while wishing we had time offshore. Maybe next time huh? But heck we had lots of fine eating fish and had an adventure, pretty good for a bunch over hill guys
I have not captioned the pics, but you will get the 'picture" i am sure
Me with the Halibut and Mike with his Salmon, plus some scenery. Now i have to go get some work done after playing hookey for a couple days and i'm stiff and sore!Wayne
