I supose it is time I got to the fishing experience in Canada, it was four 10 hour days on the water, 5-30 wake up and on the boats at 7am. The boats are 18 ft fibreglass with an inboard motor and an outboard for trolling.
Map of Naden Harbour and the fishing spots up the coast
A half hour to the fishing spots outside the Naden harbour. The rods are very whippy 10ft with a marine vertion of a fly fishing reel, and 30lb line, 2 fished off downriggers and one or two rods with 8oz sinkers then an 8ft trace with two 5/0 hooks, and for bait, 6inch herrings with the head and guts removed. These are hooked head end first, so that they spin slowly in the current, set at different depths in about 40ft of water and trolled slowly just outside the bull kelp line often only 50ft from the rocks. The herring shoals shelter from the current as do the salmon.
The boats follow each other in a circle, taking turns for the favoured run along the kelp line, when a fish is hooked the boat eases out of the circle to land it
We fished two to a boat and each of the skippers had their favoured spots at each stage of tide. Similar to NZ, the tidal range was about 10ft. It was high tide 6am the first day, so the idea was to fish for king salmon for a few hours. We took it turn about for each hooked fish, and Kevin was first up with a good 15lb salmon which he kept, I was next, another of about 12 lbs which I released. We each caught a pink salmon which are only any good for eating straight away, an hour after they are caught the flesh goes mushy, so these were released.
Pink salmon
Now time to motor out 15 minutes to 300ft of water, a bank called the peanut, as it is the shape of a peanut shell. This is more serious fishing, heavy boat rods and 80lb braid, terminal tackle was 24oz of lead, with an outrigger 6in up and a herring or two on a big circle hook on a 6in trace. Our skipper only fished one rod at a time, other skippers 2, the boat is kept over the bait with the outboard, though at low tide hardly any current. We could both have fished with lighter gear, but the lodge record halibut was 250lb, a 50, 60, and 80lb halibut were released in our group, any over 115cm have to be released by non Canadian anglers
First up a spiny cod released
Then a small halibut each, about 10lbs, both released.
After the current strengthened, we headed back in to a group of boats over a school of Coho salmon, I had only put the bait in the water and was letting it down when the first one was on, soon landed, a good fish of 11 lbs, I later had a smaller one at 7 lbs. I kept these to take home.
I will send this before "murphy" looses it
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