CH Report: Game On! - July 28, 2023

Here we go, another report of the goings on here on Langara Island. Great weather, plenty of fish, it’s game on for sure!Although the chinook fishing has slowed down since the big days we had in June, there are still tyee class fish being released here at the Clubhouse. Brent had a very nice fish, hooked right across from the lodge, his favourite spot, Channel Reef. Below is the pic he forwarded me, a chunky 39 lb specimen he released.

The shoreline between Pillar Bay and Gunia has dried up to say the least. That said, Evan and his guest grabbed a mid thirties off the slide in 60 feet of water. Not really any action was the report, but a nice surprise on a slower morning.

The West Bank has been productive for a couple weeks, but suddenly things dried up this trip for whatever reason. We were grabbing nice mid twenties fish with the odd tyee being hit on the ebb tides. Here is a pic of Karen G. and Mark Z. happily holding a nice fish before release.

We grabbed several nice chinook deep, with the bonus being halibut! Downriggers give you a huge advantage in this fishery. When the bite slows, drop er' to the bottom, many times the reward will be a nice halibut like this. Mark is no fan of running to big water and dropping meat sticks lol, but he does like the light gear and and the halibut we trolled up.

Norm Pitcher and his family paid us a visit in JULY, all in all we had a good trip, and lots of Lucy time on the boat. As you can see, Lucy warmed up to them rather quickly.

Fishing was good and everyone was busy for sure.

Just married! What a happy couple right there!

The Parnigian group once again joined us we had some great fishing over the course of three days. Brent guided the big chinook, my contribution was the large halibut, pictured below.

Currently, we are scattered around Langara in search of chinook. We are finding them trickling by Boulder, showing at Marchand, and grinding away in the Bowel. Alexander S. and his father Juergen had a great first day, with this double header late in the day.

Both fish smashed our cut plugs at the same time, both mid twenties. Now thats the way to start a trip.On the coho front things have been crazy, staggering numbers swimming up off the highway. These fish are currently 7 to 9 lbs, 10 to 12 are the big ones. They are on the surface all the way through the water column. Yes, I am hitting coho down to 200 feet. At times they make chinook fishing impossible. We are also being stormed by the pink salmon run, best advice? Move to another area if keeping a herring on your hook is important to you. As I boated around the island today, I witnessed miles and miles of pink salmon schooling on the surface. More on the way guides, hold your cool. Sore hands and busy, busy, guides when these fish show in these kinds of numbers.

So as you can gather from this report, the fishing is very good overall. You will be busy, I promise. All the guides are hitting fish, those searching halibut are finding them out west. Things look promising as we head for August, and look out for the next report. We should be seeing some fish in the fourties’ very soon if history repeats itself.And for me? Time to put two dogs to bed and get some much needed rest, so long for now, see you all soon!

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Good night from the Clubhouse,

Mike Tonnesen

Head Guide