FISHING REPORT

Fishing report for September 4, 2006:

Bamfield was a huge success!!!  The salmon and halibut fishing was just awesome.

Day one we headed off to big bank.  Using GPS navionics map, and radar, we work our way out.  When we arrive, we see lots of other boats fishing around us, seemingly trolling around aimlessly as this is such a huge area.  We set up a downrigger, and as I set up the second rod I'm half expecting the first one to start bouncing as I've heard that it can be hard to get out two or three rods at times.  Sure enough the rod starts hammering - it pops free and starts peeling line...and the games have begun!!!   I am a very busy man for the next 6 hours as I try to get out three lines.  Most of the time I would get out two maybe three, and then we'd have a fish on.  Especially during slack tide would the action get busy, and this is the time when you would get most of your big springs and halibut.  We decide to end the day by finding the halibut hole, and jigging for hali's.  We find it and drop down two Berkley 8" power grubs. We had two limits of chickens 15 - 25lbs in under 2 hours.  This was a ton of work though bringing up 25lb halibut from 400ft. down. So the next day we tried dragging the mud while we were salmon fishing.

Most of big bank is around 200ft. deep, so we ran one downrigger on the bottom.  The result was 3 - 6 halibut plus a bunch of springs every day on that one rod, and it was a whole lot easier to let the downrigger do the work for you.  Sure if your just going to get halibut you will get more fish jigging in the "chicken coop", but this technique killed two birds with one stone so to speak, and everybody loved to figure out what was going to hit the deep line next.

Average catches offshore were 12 - 25 coho, 6 - 10 springs, and 3 - 6 halibut per day.

Inshore fishing started a bit late this year, around the middle of August.  The fish wait for rain to swell the rivers, and dilute the saltwater to tell them when to start migrating inshore to their home rivers.  We never did get rain the whole time I was there, which is unheard of. However the fish have to spawn, and they did start to slowly come in.  We were averaging 3 - 6 springs per day, close to home.  The fishing was always best at daylight, and the first slack tide after daylight.  Inshore fishing was starting to pick up when we left about the third week of August, and the Coho would be moving in September.

I will definitely be making this an annual trip.  Everybody who came out this year, has already booked for next.

When I got home I had one day to get ready for four days of walleye fishing on the Columbia. Limits plus of walleye, and the trout are smashing hoppers. This will continue through September.

Time to start planning for big rainbows on Kootenay Lake. Only 5 or 6 weeks till prime time fishing starts.

Tight Lines ... Brad
www.kootenaykingfisher.com
1-800-838-5269

Mail:        Kootenay KingFisher Guiding Services
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