Tofino / Ucluelet Fishing Report:
Spring 2007
Vancouver Island Spring Steelhead fishing
March 16th, 2007
Finally a positive break in the weather for two whole days now on the west coast of Vancouver Island. It just hailed for an hour instead of rained for 6 yesterday.... Forecast for the weekend is back to, well,,,not so great.
Woke up to a clear sky for a remote Steelhead Fly out on Wednesday, with coastal mountains covered in that cold white stuff. River had an awesome glacial green tinge, and was running medium height and cold. Guests from Australia that had never hooked up on Steelhead before, so I knew I'd see some big grins and cold fingers by the end of the day. First run of the drift trip, the 12 year old son of my guest waits for his Dad to swing flies through first for no love....the son takes a couple casts and we release a nice 16" Rainbow. He is ready to pack it in for a while, and I tell him to put one more down and across the tailout with a Gibbs Croc spoon on 6 lb leader. His small spoon hits the water, and two seconds later he says "I've got bottom" Bottom then launches all 16 lbs of itself three feet in the air and starts to do cartwheels all over the tailout. After two wraps on the anchor rope, and a really good fight by the young buck angler, we get a couple quick photos on their camera and release the slab Wild Steelhead. The kid is seriously hooked and shaking after this first fish of the day, in the first 30 minutes. He really fought the fish well for a young guy on his first B.C. Steelhead trip.
Downstream and hour later, we release a couple more nice trout, and then its his Dad's turn. He swings his articulate Leech fly through the run just as I coached him, and his line stops. He says "I've got bottom" then bottom starts to move slowly, very slowly upstream with his 8 wt. fly rod pumping like a Halibut was swimming along with it. The fish swims 2 feet past the raft very slow and steady, and we are all looking at each other waiting to catch a glimpse. As he keeps the line tight, the rod starts to pump hard, peel about 6 feet of line and a big chrome Buck Steelhead launches (not as high as the first one) out of the water right beside the raft and we are looking into the eyes of this beauty while it spits the fly right out in mid air with a violent head shake. If that fish wasn't over 18 lbs. I'd be really surprised....
After one hour, these two Aussies are really hooked on Steelheading, really spoiled by the cooperative fish and conditions, and starting to not believe me that the average size is normally 7-10 lbs.
I purposely watched the look on the boy's face later in the day when I helped him release a chrome 6 lb hen Steelhead. He was pretty much going through the motions with such a "small" fish, but his attitude towards the whole experience stayed first class the whole time.
Among other action, (and smoked Salmon cream cheese and Bagels for lunch) the last run of the day I made Robert the father work the run methodically with down across step etc. etc. feed more line, change from bright to dark pattern,....... Finally, he is getting ready to wind up and get his frozen toes back in the raft, wham! Textbook downstream swing and slam with a chrome bullet that looked to be about 10-12 lbs spinning and dancing. The bright fish just started to run slack line through his fingers, until it tightens to the reel and pop goes the leader. We check the drag which was set fine, and he didn't seem to have any backlash loops, maybe a knicked leader or ???
Regardless, beautiful hot fish that headed straight for the ocean and didn't want anything to do with us.
Great flight home to Tofino and great stories for them to tell to friends at home in Australia.
We had a Salmon trip out Tuesday as well, but did not get photos of the trip to share on this report page. They fished inlet waters near Tofino for numerous Chinook Salmon, but most were less than a 10 lb. average. He'll be going pretty steady and will try to get some more fresh images for next report. Check back soon for the next updated Tofino B.C. fishing report.
Jay
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