Eddie Matthei:
After an interesting week of weather with wind and even a good a good dump of snow I finally got back on the water with some nice weather. My opportunity came in the way of a very good fishing buddy taking me out on his new ride. A brand new very nicely equipped 27′ Aluminum Kingfisher. The weather had turned from overcast and snow to sunny and quite mild overnight as we set out on our shake down cruise in the morning. After dropping the prawn traps we doubled back to start of the QB marker. We found a lot of bait and arches indicating fish but no takers.
We had arrived a little late for the first low tide and trolled towards the mouth of the Capilano river and joined 4-5 other boats. Unfortunately no one had seen a fish and not much showing on the sounder either that day. We picked up the lines and went back to the QB. About midway from the QB to Point Atkinson we finally landed the boat’s first fish! Undersized but I was the only fish I’d heard about so the new boat seems fishy. It came on a 4″ Army truck spoon but with no flasher at 140′ in 185′ of water.
The sun was starting to set so we pulled up the traps and split up 196 fat prawns between us. We decided to go out again yesterday and once again had great conditions. We started a little further west of the QB and the water looked fishy. Not far from us and closer to fisheries a fishing associate got a legal fish on a 4″ Irish Cream spoon at 120′ in 150′ of water. Soon after we also hit a couple of fish but too small to keep. One off the bottom and the other at least 1/3 of the bottom in anywhere from 120′ to 185″ of water, which is also where we were marking a lot of the bait.
We hung around until the next high slack tide and hooked three more shakers. Best spoons were the 4″ Irish Cream, Green Glos and the Army truck. I have been running some spoons with no flasher which is nice for playing the undersized fish and shakers and I love hooking a big fish that way.
Unfortunately there was only the one legal fish caught yesterday but I did hear about a boat earlier in the week that had multiple fish on and managed to land one in the mid to high teens. It was taken off at the mile markers in Point Grey. I have also been hearing a few reports of Tunsell Bay and west of Bowen Island but fishing fishing lately has been a little spotty. It definitely seems more bait has come in locally and there are fish there but it’s a matter of being at the right place at the right time for sure. I also noticed the days I fished had very quick bites exactly at the slack.
We pulled the traps and got more prawns to replace the ones we feasted on the day before. Overall be had a good couple of days enjoying the sun, scenery, wildlife and testing out a new boat.
Tight lines,
Eddie