Today marked the second day of our Kingfisher Derby. Leaving the dock this morning with my guests, I had a great feeling about how the day would end up. We couldn’t wait for the 7 am shotgun start to get the lines wet and look for that monster cannon. The seas were rough from the northwest winds, but the fishing was spectacular!! Lots of fish like we’ve seen the last few days ranging between 14-19 pounds. We put back dozens of beautiful salmon, looking for that one special beast to rip the line off the reel.

We rounded Bird 1 this afternoon and sure enough the line screamed off the rigger! Fish on!! And it was taking all the line we had. I had to get all 500 horsepower fired up to chase the beast just so we didn’t lose all the line! After a 10 minute fight we got the beauty in the net. We called the weigh master over to take the fish and find out what it weighed… 27.1 pounds, the second biggest fish for the derby today! So it was an amazing day. Tomorrow will be the final day for the derby and I can’t wait to get out there to find that big one that’ll win us the derby!

A day without fishing is like a day without sunshine

Randy “the Hitman” Zinck

As our 13th annual Kingfisher Derby kicked off yesterday there was a nervous energy in the air surrounding the 41 participants as they prepared for the noontime starting horn from Cape Naden.  With a grand prize of $40000 for the largest released salmon they had reason to be excited!  While there is always a strong contingent of annual entrants, many of this year’s anglers are in it for the first time.

Our signature annual derby is primarily a catch & release event where contestants call a derby Marshall on the water to come over and receive their fish as soon as they’ve netted it.  The Marshall exchanges an empty net with the angler’s netted fish and then carefully measures the fish to assign a score before reviving and releasing it.  There are prizes for daily catch and one prize for the largest killed salmon as well.  It all makes for some interesting strategies and the suspense builds continuously until the final horn on Sunday evening.  Last year’s winning fish was caught in the last 90 minutes of the derby!

While yesterday’s entries were all in the mid to high 20’s, the whole game got considerably more interesting when a non-derby boat arrived at the Bell Ringer around 8:30.  Long time QCL angler Russ Burmatoff and his fishing partner Britt Vossenaar opened their fish locker to reveal a lot of gleaming chrome!  And they didn’t have many fish!  Everyone gathered around the scale as Britt’s stunning Tyee weighed out to 37 pounds and he celebrated by ringing the Tyee bell 3 times.  When Russ’s heavy shouldered fish tipped the digital scale at 50.3 pounds he realized a dream that he’s been chasing for many years and many visits to QCL.  He’d boated several fish over 40 but membership in the QCL 50 Pounder Club had eluded him!  There was a roar of applause when Russ cracked the bell 5 times and took high fives all around.  Congratulations Russ!

But the appearance of a 50 pounder at the start of the derby has definitely got all of the contestants primed for 2 more days of pretty intense fishing!  Stay tuned!

This week’s north west winds have brought in a huge new run of fish!  The entire fleet was hammering springs like it was going out of style today!  On the 109 we had 35 springs to the boat and all were in the 17 – 25 lb. class, with multiple double headers mixed in. It became too busy to run bait… So it was a double spoons show… There was also the odd hog showing up along  with a beauty 41 pound Chinook landed at B2.  Today was stellar and if this continues this season will be unreal!

Until next time,  Remember if it don’t glow it don’t go!

Tight lines Red decks and silver smiles.

“The Show”

The fishing is outrageous up here!     I’m not sure what’s going on in the ocean these days but Chinook salmon seem to like it!

For the fourth day in a row QCL anglers are experiencing epic salmon fishing.  The grounds are full of herring and needlefish and thousands of hungry salmon!  The average size is ranging from 13 to 20 pounds, though we are seeing increasing numbers of larger fish every day.

The profusion of salmon extends over our whole fishing area, from Cape Edenshaw all the way around to Green Point.  Several anglers and guides are reporting 40-plus fish days.  There are some early Coho in the area and some boats are going slightly offshore in hopes of picking up a few “bonus” fish by fishing shallow and a little quicker.  They are finding a few Coho but they still can’t get away from the Chinooks!

We had our first big Tyees last week – a few high 30’s and one over 40.  This week’s numbers are similar, with Wayne Erne boating a gorgeous 41 pounder on Tuesday while fishing with guide Alistair Bryce.  Our very own Jin Chong caught & released a beauty at Bird 2 today, right by the Driftwood, that taped out to 38 pounds – way to go Jin!  And Ross Douglas turned loose a nice 30 pounder today while fishing with guide Randy Zinck.

We’ve been able to get out to all the favourite halibut fishing holes and the results are quite impressive!  Several nice keepers between 30 and 60 pounds have had the bell ringing steadily at the Bell Ringer.  Kevin McLeod brought back a 63 pounder that taped out exactly to the max. 133 cm while fishing with guide Kraig Coulter at one of his sweet spots.  In contrast, while the Driftwood was anchored at the Mazzaredo Islands on Monday night, where they are known to jig off the side after dinner, a big halibut picked up the baits of both rods (one on either side of the ship!) and took off running.  It took a few minutes to determine that both anglers were playing the same fish but eventually our Driftwood hostess Tori mightily cranked the monster to the surface where it was measured and eventually harpooned.  Weight on the scale… 62 pounds!  (in 40 feet of water!)  So you just never know where you’ll find your dream fish!

Looking ahead to the weekend we’re expecting a bit of a Nor’westerly blow Thursday noon, but that should dissipate by evening and we’ll enjoy moderate (15-20 knot) NW winds through the weekend.  Rest up, it’s going to be a busy one!

Hello Fish Finatics!   It’s been a great first few trips through the Bell Ringer! We have seen lots of nice fish in the 30’s show up & we can’t forget about the “white gold” (halibut) that have gone up to 62 lbs at the scale! Jess is around every day to talk to guests about all the great options of how they want their fish processed.

Today the fishing was so good that the boats started returning to the dock around 4 o’clock! Anglers were bragging about how sore their arms were! Our fishing grounds are full of bait and we currently are seeing huge numbers of feeder Chinooks, averaging 12 to 18 pounds. It’s like Coho fishing on steroids; these fish are so strong and feisty! Many boats were into 50 Chinooks today. Let’s hope that they stay around for a while!

We are welcoming Sage to the RBT (Red Boot Team) as your barista in the mornings before you head out fishing & she’ll be here for when you return! Hope you’re all getting excited to get out on the water!

Catch you at the scale,

Tracey

Good afternoon QCL guests and guides! This weekend we had amazing Haida Gwaii weather and some great fishing. A ton of bait has moved into the fishing grounds and resulted in productive fishing at all major points. We had a couple of huge Halibut releases this weekend and a few Tyees made their way to the scale at the Bell Ringer. Faisal Somji released a big flattie that taped out to 121 lb. and Vance Blydo released a 100 pounder. Matt Mitchell was fishing with his buddy Barry Diebold and QCL Dock Manager Ryan Ashton when he hooked and successfully released a big 142 pound halibut. The story here is, however, that he was Buzz Bombing for lingcod when it happened! It took almost an hour of careful handling and the fish dragged them a couple of miles, but they got it to the top for Shooter to capture some cool pics before setting it free. Amazingly the little treble hook was only slightly bent when they removed it from the fish’s lip! Amazing story guys and well done Matt!

The Driftwood has been out on the grounds serving up hot lunches to guests on the water. Several humpback whales put on a show for a few guests out halibut fishing off Shag Rock and Eddie the eagle made his first appearance of the season on Eagle Rock. We look forward to the coming week and seeing new and familiar faces around the lodge.

Chelsea

Guide Report – June 6th

Coming around the dolphin this morning at 7 am there was a fishy feeling in the air! The water was pretty much glass calm and it was drizzling rain, which seemed to get fish moving because as I rounded Cape Naden I saw 3 boats with fish on. I continued on up to Big Point where I dropped the gear.

There was a little bit of junk in the water and the tide was still ebbing. Just before the tide change we smacked a beautiful high teens chromer smiley, which we released and watched swim back into the depths. After the tide change things slowed down briefly, so we trolled down into Yatze. Myself, the Red Baron and Clifford took turns grinding the kelp. It paid off! As I was watching the inside rod, it popped the clip and started sizzling line. I was right stoked and told my guest Terry that he had a real john dandy on the line! As he battled it out with this rocket, I noticed that a Rock Dog had surfaced about 100 yards away but thankfully it minded it’s own business.

We got the fish beside the boat and saw it was gassed and bleeding badly as it had gutted the wholly roller. We netted it with high fives all around as it was a solid 28 lbs!
The rest of the day was full of action and chrome for the entire QCL fleet. Halibut fishing was also pretty killer today with many boats landing some slab flatties. Hopefully the fishing continues this way for the entire season!
‘til next time…

Tight-lines, Red Decks & Silver Smiles

“The Show”

Good evening QCL guests and guides, Fishmaster here with a fishing update for you. Most of our fleet have been hanging around Bird 2, Parker Point and Bird 1 for the last couple of days getting into a few Chinook. I’ve had the pleasure of talking to all of our boats out on the water for the past few days and hearing all about their fishing experiences.

We had a Humpback and a calf breaching a ways offshore but you could see the splash all the way from Bird 2. The Driftwood came in from the fishing grounds last night and have picked up their new incoming guests this morning.
Our new Zodiac Fishmaster boat has already been put to good use delivering bait and dropping by to say hello to all the guests.

That’s all for now, see you out on the water!

Guide’s Report – May 31st

Over the past days we have seen lots of action, and days full of fun. Bird Rock 2 has been the center for most of the action, producing good Chinook bites, especially around the slack tides. The drift from Shag Rock to Bird 1 has also been producing quite well. A majority of the fish being caught are in the 15-20 lb range, but fish 25+ lb have been showing up at the scale as well.

Northwest winds have been keeping us from fully exploring our Halibut grounds. However we have seen several Halibut in the 20-40 lb range that have been caught near the Mazarredo Islands.
Today we were able to get out further onto the grounds and we saw some big fish come up! There were several nice halibut in the 30’s and 40’s and we had 4 big ones today that had to go back – 90, 109, 1120 and 150 pounders!

It has been an exciting start to the season and all of us are excited for the adventures that it will hold.

Skywalker