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[gman]

My Dad and I spent a few days up at Browns Bay, north of Campbell River camping and fishing. It was our first time downrigger fishing with our own boat, so it was a bit of a learning experience. Stayed at Ripple Rock RV park, and moored the boat at the nearby Browns Bay Marina. It's a nice place, on the water, with nice views, and good facilities (clubhouse, hot tub, fish freezers, barbeques, showers etc).

Started off fishing the first day and the first fish landed was.....  a sockeye! that bit on an anchovy. That was the only sockeye we got, but we did catch lots of pinks, a number of big coho (all wild), and some decent springs, all in the high teens and low twenties (bigggest 22). We hoped for a chum so we could have all five on the trip, but it didn't happen. Pinks were plentiful if you targeted them, but you'd only get the odd one when fishing spring spots and depths. Most of the time we fished an anchovy on one side, and a hootchy on the other side.

Some days we fished nearby, other days we explored up the Passage and into parts of lower Johnstone straight and Nodales channel.  Beautiful Scenery up there. Our early morning run to a hotspot up that way made us the first boat on the scene, only to see a pod of 20 killer ways fishing the area. It was a steep wall dropping into the ocean and the whales were swimming so that they seemed to actually touch the shore. It was quite a sight, but did mess up our fishing plans that morning.

Here's a couple of fish pics:
http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z259/gmanpictures/IMG_0362.jpg
http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z259/gmanpictures/IMG_0372.jpg

Some lessons learned:
- Do not use the premade pink hootchy leaders with a small hook, or else a big spring will bite and straighten the hook. Tie on a bigger hook first.
- If you fish with a hootchie with a straightened hook you will not catch anything
- Inspect the wires on your downrigger regularly. Mine are only two years old, and barely used, but somehow had nicks and I lost two balls before removing the damaged wire sections completely.

All in all a very good trip...

[bbronswyk2000]

Excellent report. Browns Bay holds a Chum Derby in October. I have gone twice. If you enjoyed it this time you should think about entering the derby.



The chum love the pink and black or pink and blue hoochies.

[kellya]

awsome pics cant beat chromers. What are ypu running? looks pretty darn nice and new

[Fish Assassin]

A sockeye on an anchovie. Who would have thunk ?

[gman]

bbronswyk, yes I remember reading the posts about the chum derby last year. It sounded great, and I would certainly like to go this year if I can. We'll see...

Kellya, my boat is an 18' Hewescraft Sportsman. It is a welded aluminum boat that has a flat bottom design typical of the river boats you would see running jets on the Fraser river.  I run a 75 Hp Yamaha (prop).  It is 2 years old and I have used it for the Fraser river, lower mainland crabbing, lake fishing, as well as water skiiing and tubing. It is a bit of a compromise to use it for all these things, but it works for me. On this trip the flat bottom (as opposed to a V hull) made for a bit of a rough ride when running the boat when the waves came up. Other than that it worked great for the saltwater downrigger fishing in inside waters.

[kellya]

hmmmm hows the speed on that its a sweet fishing ride? and gas effiency? Sorry for all the questions but were lookin at a new boat in that size but im trying to tell my parents we cant get anything with more than 115hp or were gonna be working non stop just to pay the gas bill. 75-115hp sounds just right

[firstlight]

I have the 90 Yamaha 4 stroke and gas isnt an issue Kelly.
Im sure my old 25 2 stroke had worse mileage.
It is on a 16 ft aluminum.

[gman]

Kellya,

The top speed of the boat was 30 miles per hour. I added a prop guard to help on the Fraser (the flat bar kind that sits just below the prop) and now the top speed seems to be 28 or 29 miles per hour, depending on how its loaded. However if the seas are even a bit rough you have to back off the throttle or you just pound those waves because of the flat hull design. It does not use a lot of gas.

I have a 8 hp kicker that I use for trolling on lakes, but found I did not use it for saltwater fishing. The big  75 hp motor was able to get to trolling speed and gave me more control when the currents and wind came up. There is also a 90 Hp version of the Yamaha inthe same "size". It stlll felt safer to have the kicker as a backup when we had those longer travel days up North.

If you want the boat mostly for saltwater you will probably find that another boat would be a better choice. If you are interested in a compromise boat for fishing on lakes and rivers as well as some salt use, along with waterskiiing, then it would be worth considering.

Also consider where you will keep the boat. The boat does not fit in my garage, but does fit in my Dads garage, so thats where we keep it. It is definitely nice if you can fit it in a garage.

[tulliman]

Hey Gman!

Excellent post.

Can you tell me how far you had to run to get the fish?  We have a few days coming up and want to head north rather than to the West.

Thanks!

[gman]

Tulliman,

We did run as far North as Chatham and Ripple Points, and NorthEast as far as Thurston Bay and Hall Points. Some of this was just exploring though, and we actually did most of our fishing, and caught most of our fish at the popular spots very near Browns Bay (the wall just North of Browns Bay, Separation Head and Deepwater Bay).

Good luck if you go.

[dead head]

Hi you ever fish by that light house in campbell river?I  allways see alot of boats there.I have tried on the fishing pier with not much luck but I have seen some nice springs caught there though.