CH Report: "Mid-Season Report" - July 15, 2018

A cloudy day in here today with calm seas and a new set of guests joining us as it is changeover day here at The Clubhouse.We are running the special foodie trip this week, with guest chefs joining us on the fishing grounds and in the galley, so I will be updating you on both as we get the week underway.The last week has seen the chinook fishery drop off somewhat. We were on fire up until July 12th when the massive run of chinook visiting us on the outside passed through. For six days we had incredible fishing out in 40 fathoms of water between Lacy and the lighthouse. Fishing off the downriggers we were all into heaps of fish, 20 to 40 plus a day between 12 and 24 lbs.Below are a few pics of the DC Morse group, Rick Wilson, Brent Jones, Bud and myself were guiding. The first pic is of a chunky mid twenties Rick is showing off, this one grabbing a Tomic plug, a 500. The plugs were working extremely well and with the amount of bites happening, mercy effective and fast fishing.

Rick Wilson digging in on a large halibut, look at those calm seas.

DC Morse on the chinook, Rick Wilson on the halibut, calm seas and the bite was on!

A boxed chunky low twenties for Henry Issak.Here is an action shot of Austin Soars and his guest slipping a nice mid twenties into the net off Lacy early in the week. A great bite at Lacy for a week, now suddenly dead.

A panicky Austin Soars clearing lines, fish on.

Success! A mid twenties safely in the bag.As the trip went on and with the weather fantastic the guests soon were talking hali, so we dropped our hali gear on the same tack in 280 feet of water and immediately had a triple header of hali and chinook, one hali over 125 lbs. nice to see the boys sweating and digging in dragging up those fish, it got to a point no one wanted a hali hookup. DC grabbed the big hali with help, soon released and was quick to grab a mooching rod set at ten pulls with two ounces of weight and a cut plug, after twenty five minutes landing a low twenties chinook.

A quick stop in the bowel and a 22 lber for Henry!Rick Wilson grabbed a 114 cm hali, and reminded me he hates halibut fishing. I hear ya Rick. Below is a pic of our hali and spring on the deck and a couple action shots of the boys working my Avet reels hard.

A nice result out on a quick halibut charter near the lighthouse, Morse group.Our weekend trip that just concluded was on the slow side for chinook, but there was good coho and halibut fishing. The west side died off. The coho were thickest off the Jalun out beyond the 40 fathom contour. There are commercial trollers on the tack, remember they have the right of way. The coho have been shallow for myself, others finding them deep as 100 feet.The halibut continue relatively strong, below is a pic of Tim, visiting from The U.K. with a nice halibut we jigged up in short order off the west side.

Tim from the U.K. with a nice take home hali at 106 cm look at that weather!We stopped in to work the bowel and after a few passes Henry grabbed this nice low twenties chinook, but otherwise it was slow in there. Not much to mention in the way of tyees right now.So we will see what the week ahead turns up on the chinook front. I just received the news Jack Charles released a thirty at the Reef. So that is a positive sign. This was on the high slack.I am off to socialize and stoke the fire in the Clubhouse, have my eyes on some bone dry spruce out on the deck, should have the place cooking in short order. Stand by for our next report later in the week. We have a guest photographer up this week, see what he finds out there. Thanks for checking in and goodnight from the Clubhouse.Mike Tonnesen, Head Guide, Screamer