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43 lbs. Trophy chinook salmon
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David E. Kelley with Simon, Barbara and his 43 lb. trophy chinook salmon guided by Pete Norie.
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Picasa
Jim A. enjoying a fine Cuban cigar after landing his trophy 15 lb. coho.
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Guide Scotty "Dawg" and Dennis N. (aka Santa) with his 73 lb. halibut.
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Bob S. and Jim G. celebrate the success of Bob's 43 lb. chinook salmon with a caesar.
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Simon's son Kieran and his trophy 22 lb. ling cod.
By Simon Kelly
As mentioned in our previous Newsletter, awesome was the most commonly used word by guests at the Sportsman's Club to describe the fishing in 2013.
Almost every day all season, our guests went out & had a fantastic time catching lots of fish. The fishing was so hot every guest had the opportunity to retain their limit of eight salmon to take home. The hardest part was deciding which salmon to catch and keep and which ones to release. Nobody wanted to be out on the water without at least one spot left on their fish tally for that giant Rivers Inlet trophy salmon.
All salmon fishing methods worked well whether mooching with cut plug herring, teaser head, hoochie, spoon, with or without flashers, close to the surface or going deeper with the help of the downriggers. Even fly fisherman using dry and wet flies were successful and double headers were not unusual. You can image the excitement when both fishermen are fighting a fish and trying to run the motor, get both fish to the boat and net the fish. The coho (silver) fishing was the best that we have seen in our 30 years of operation. However, our chinook (king) salmon fishing never really "turned on" like it has in the past few years.
Even at the head of Rivers Inlet where we sometimes go when the fishing is on was dead most of the season. Part of the lack of chinook salmon was that there were so many coho around that it was difficult to get through them to get to the big ones. This was a good problem to have and most anglers were happy with the non-stop coho action. There were still enough big chinook hanging on our scales to keep that high anticipation level of getting the "big one". The good news was that the fish were, for the most part, on our side of Rivers Inlet at the Wall only minutes from the lodge. Occasionally we would make the 20 minutes crossing over to Calvert Island to catch the bite there but it wasn't necessary as the best fishing was within five minutes from the lodge. The largest chinook salmon for the season was a tie with David E. Kelley & Bob S. both bagging a 43 pounder.
It was the same for the halibut, with the most successful fishing just off Paddle Rocks only 15 minutes from the lodge. As usual, you had to sift through the 10-20 lbs. "chicken halis" (which are the best eating anyway) to get to the big ones. There were quite a few taken in the 50 lbs. range. Dennis N. boated the largest of the season tipping the scale with a whopping 73 pounder.
When guests reached near their limit of salmon & halibut, they made time to try other endeavors like fly fishing or using our fleet of spin casters with "bass gear" to target top water fish like black rock fish and smaller ling cod that lurk in the shallows of the kelp beds. Other anglers used my secret ling cod set-up to go a bit deeper to get the lunker lings between 100-150 ft. My son Kieran got the largest lingcod of the season at 22 lbs.
At times, with such great fishing, some guests left their fishing rods behind and toured around sightseeing in their boat. Not having to stare at their rod tip and deal with you fishing gear gave them more time to simply enjoy the wildlife and scenery viewing whales, seals, sea lions, river otters, eagles, sea birds all amidst the majestic back-drop of the central coast of beautiful British Columbia.
We hope to see you at the lodge next summer.
Contact Simon today to play your 2014 fishing adventure - 1-800-663-2644 or 250-923-2689.