March 1st - Coyote Bank (#40)

Dan, Jon and I went for a Halibut fishing trip to Coyote/border bank. The forecast was good, with little wind. We basically headed due south from Oak Bay after dropping our crab taps and spent the morning bouncing the bottom in search of a halibut bit. No nibbles! But a great morning on the water, with the boat and gear working well. I think we were as close as 200 m from the border at times!
On our way back we were happy to discover that several nice legal male dungeness crabs had found our traps, so we came home with 10 good crabs.

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41 km

Feb 14th - Haro Strait (#39)

Monica and I went out south of Discovery Island to try for Halibut. We tried anchoring in two different spots, but only managed to catch some dogfish! Conditions were good and it was good to show Monica how the boat operates for hali fishing. Anchor retrieval worked well.

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35 km

February 1st - Haro Strait (#38)

Danny and Kyle went in Danny's lifetimer and Pete and I were in Natural C-lection for a halibut fishing trip out in Haro Strait. We initially headed for the border, but conditions were a bit rough, so we ended up anchoring a few miles off ten mile point. All my anchoring gear and tackle worked well but no bites for either boat... maybe next time!

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33 km

December 30th - Mill Bay (#37)

Claire, Laura and I went for a day of prawning in Saanich Inlet. We launched frpm Tsartlip ramp mid morning and dropped most of the traps between 11 and noon. After putting the traps down, we went over to Millbay where we had a nice, relaxed, lunch at Bridgemans Bistro. We started pulling the traps up around 2 PM and were back at Tsartlip Ramp by around 3:30 with around 240 nice prawns! We averaged about 30 prawns per trap using fish carcasses as bait in the 3 hour set. The tide was quite low, so it was a challenge getting the boat back on the trailer. Managed to snap the winch strap! The last foot or so of the strap gets degraded by sunlight over time. The day was cold but clear and sunny with great views of Mt Baker. Inside the cabin of Natural C-lection it was plenty warm enough even without the heater. I nice way to finish off the year of boating!

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26 km.

October 4&5 - Pedder Bay (#s 35 & 36)

Jack and I went for two magnificent days of fall coho fishing out of Pedder Bay. Conditions were calm both days and the fishing was decent. We came home with 3 coho on Saturday and 4 on Sunday. On Saturday we also had a view of a humpback cruising through the area!
You can see that we came pretty close to the US border, though we just stayed on the Canadian side!
Some of the ocean-going freighters put up a sizable wake...
The boat worked well and I love the autopilot.

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92 km

September 29th - Mill Bay (#34)

Pete, Graeme and I went for a day's prawning in Saanich inlet. I decided to try dropping some pots in Brentwood Bay and had some success there. No success in Coles bay and some success off Ardmore. 200 prawns overall in about 3 hours fishing. One trap had nothing in it and another had nothing but squat lobsters - about 15-20 feet deeper than the others...We went over to Mill Bay for lunch and had a nice meal at Bridgeman's Bistro. After lunch we tried bucktailing and trolling a spoon in the hope of coho off Cherry point, but no luck. Conditions were wonderful all day! We had fun checking out the big sea lions on the buoy in the middle of Pat Bay.

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42 km

September 16th - Pedder Bay (#33)

Martin and I went for a morning fishing trip out into the strait off of Pedder Bay. There was a bit of wind and chop but not too bad. The fishing started slowly but we eventually had 7 hookups and kept 4 nice coho!

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31 km