Great and Affordable Fishing on the West Coast

I just got off the phone with my friend Wayne Ridley, who guides salmon and halibut charters out of Winter Harbour, an hour and a half west of Port Hardy on Vancouver Island. The springs are in and recently his guests have being going home with limits of springs and halibut. "Most of the springs range between 20 and 30 pounds. The halibut can get much bigger, and on the last trip out a guest picked up a 45. The fishing is only going to get better as the summer progresses," he comments. I love going to Wayne's because it's affordable, which is a big plus and the fishing is great. I've been to his place three times and every time I come home with a huge marine cooler full of salmon and bottom fish. This year I booked a trip in May, but had to postpone it. May is traditionally considered the early season, but not early on the super fishing.

In May the waters are rich with chinook and if you're willing to drop a hook down through the depths, there's all the bottom fish you could want. The only thing missing in the early season would be the cohos, which usually show up around mid June. From mid June through August the fishing is unbelievable with 20 to 30 pound chinook being the norm, six to fifteen pound coho being plentiful and halibut larger than life being caught regularly.

Postponing the May trip, however, wasn't a bad thing. I was lucky and managed to reschedule it to one of the last bookings of the season. I'll be there near the end of August, early September when the coho fishing will be out of sight. The big northerns flood through the waters off Winter Harbour in amazing numbers and have nothing but eating on their minds. And for us that will mean nothing but red hot fishing for silver salmon.

But that's the nature of fishing around Winter Harbour. The fishing season runs from May through early September and the fishing is fantastic from start to finish. On my upcoming trip to the coast I guarantee that besides the coho fishing, I'll be dropping the big jigs to the bottom to get in on the excellent bottom fishing. Large halibut lurk in the waters around Winter Harbour. A 40 pounder is a nice fish, but every year flatties over a hundred pounds are landed. Add to the mix an abundance of lingcod, red snapper and other rockfish and a truly amazing adventure awaits.

If you've ever considered your own adventure to the West Coast to catch salmon and bottom fish, this is one worth taking.

Making Contact

Wayne Ridley Fishing Charters
PH: (250) 969-4200
PH: (604) 792-4268
www.ridleyfishingcharters.com