Canada Day fishing at QCL proved to be just the latest highlight of the 2014 season with glassy calm water, a little liquid sunshine and 2 new members joining the 50 Pounder Club.  Al Slaughter and his son Steven proved it was worth getting out early Tuesday as they worked the kelp beds between Klashwun Point and Yatze.  The result was a handsome Tyee which tipped the scale just over 50 pounds, the 5^th at QCL this season.  Late in the day Kraig Coulter was doing a little after-hours fishing with fellow guides Matt Williams and Trevor Harris when they hooked up with a silver giant at Klashwun Point.  After a quick measurement Kraig carefully revived the big Chinook and released it with a score of 52 pounds.  Well done guys!

We’ve seen tons of bait in close throughout the fishing grounds this past week, drawing hungry salmon to favourite points like Cape Naden and Parker.  The tasty mix of needlefish and herring in these spots has provided excellent catches of both Chinook and Coho.  Plentiful feeder springs still dominate much of the activity, regularly punctuated by twenty-somethings and the occasional Tyee-class fish over 30 pounds.  In recent years late June has provided a very solid Coho fishery and guests at the lodge have been happy to add a few of these scrappy gamefish to their catch. While the typical Coho this time of year is around 8 pounds, we’ve seen several fish up to 12.

Our halibut fishery continues to provide extra excitement for lodge guests, with fish in the 30 – 60 pound class showing up at the Bell Ringer regularly. The guides are getting very good at in-the-water measurements using old rods as yardsticks.  Veteran QCL angler Dennis McCann released a big fish measuring 108 pounds on the weekend while Francis Moezinia sent back an 87 and Robert Rand released one scoring 142 pounds.  It’s quite a thrill to see these giants come up alongside the boat and it’s fantastic that they are so quick to swim back down once released!  The flipside is the plentiful supply of 15 – 25 pounders that are so perfect to take home for the dinner table!

We’re posting lots of great photos weekly to our Flickr page so be sure to visit often and see what’s going on up here!  Go to qclshooter to check it out!