August 7 - 10, 2024 - Prince Rupert

August 7 - 10, 2024 - Prince Rupert

The plan for the day was a 7:00 AM departure for Bullhead Cove, however, we awoke early and decided to start off right away.  It was a foggy morning with varying degrees of visibility and as we neared Bullhead Cove, in the fog, we had calm conditions.  Realizing we would be sitting at anchor in the fog we decided to press on to Prince Rupert and arrive a day early, fortunately Cow Bay Marina was able to accomodate us.  On our way through Venn Passage, we were overtaken by a tug, SST Apache, making over 8 kts and leaving a nasty wake – not very considerate!

 

Thursday morning was spent readying the boat and provisioning in preparation for our boating friend’s, Shawn and Eve, who will be arriving at midnight on the BC ferry.  Wanderer, Willi-Waw and Ceci Kay arrived that afternoon and it was off to Wheelhouse Brewing Company for a pizza and beer and sharing of our Alaska adventures.

 

Friday, Shawn and Eve found us and we had a great time catching up on stories and strategizing on our storage plan for the fish we planned on catching on Saturday’s charter.  For a birthday celebration we walked down to Wheelhouse Brewing Company for a happy hour beer.

 

Saturday we were collected by Dustin, our fishing guide, at 7:00 AM and we were off across Chatham Sound to the north tip of Stephens Island. Arriving at 8:00 AM Lois quickly had our first fish, a Spring/King.  By 11:00 AM we had reached our combined limit with 1 King and 14 Coho (we miscounted and were shy of our limit by 1) and headed to a halibut spot near Melville Island.  We fished from noon until 2:00 PM in 260’ of water with Geary quickly bringing up a 38”/25 lbs. halibut by jigging!  The follow-on catches were also caught by jigging and were 27”/8 lbs., 26”/6 lbs. 25”/6 lbs.  Of special note was the skate that Shawn pulled up!  We had two rods with bait – neither of which caught a fish.  Heading back to the dock, we picked up the crab pot that was dropped on our way out and found about a dozen crabs, mostly female, with one or two small keepers which we choose to release.  After Dustin cleaned the fish, we took all but a two coho and two small halibut to Prince Rupert Meat Packers to have the fish filleted, vacuum packed and flash frozen for pick-up on Sunday Morning.


Raven at Cow Bay Marina

Lois, Dustin and her salmon catch

Geary with his halibut catch

Shawn bringing up his catch....

.... and. this one was a skate

Our collective catch, cleaned, vacuum packed and frozen

Shawn cleaning one of our fish for dinner


Location: Prince Rupert, BC, Canada

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