Next big adventure - Desolation Sound

Tomorrow morning we'll leave Cow Bay at daylight in order to catch the slack current at Gabriola Passage.* As long as the Strait looks manageable we should be in Pender Harbour tomorrow evening.* That's more or less familiar water but after that its all new to us.*

Lucky you. Some of the most beautiful country awaits.

I would recommend a couple of cruising guides, dreamspeaker is pretty good as they have sketches of anchorages and show fairly detailed spots to sneak your boat in.

Prawning is great, fishing can be pretty good, but watch for the 'no bottom fishing zones'. Later in the summer the water in some spots gets nice and warm for swimming.

We plan to depart the US the last week of June, making for the Broughtons directly with a couple of week stop in Desolation on the way back in mid August.

Have fun.

Our freezer is so full of prawns we can't catch any more. I can't believe how easy they are to catch. We're pretty decent fresh water fishers but still haven't figured out this salt water deal. You're right - the rockfish preservation areas are scattered all over the place. And the locals don't even know about them. I had one telling me about this great spot to fish until I said "but that's a rockfish preservation zone!!". "Huh??"


-- Edited by bobofthenorth on Friday 17th of June 2011 10:53:47 AM

Prawning appeals to me because of the lack of skill needed in the 'fishing'. Same with crabbing. As I may be one notch up the food chain from a cod or snapper, I can usually outsmart them, and would love to pull in a 25lb halibut, but would worry about a 50+lb'r breaking my boat.

The only salmon I can catch are at Costco.

We have had prawning gear swiped in BC when we have left it to soak overnight and out of sight, and have learned to use clorox bottles and the like for floats as these blend in much better than the 'official' prawning floats requried in WA state. Have not lost any gear since making that change.

By the way, the solution to a full freezer of seafood is to have a potluck. Gotta rotate that stock.

Hope the weather holds for you.

We've had pretty good luck with no lost gear,*fishing out of Anacortes*the last two or three years since they restricted pulling crab pots to daylight hours. *Yes, we leave our gear out overnight.
*
But you will lose your gear using Clorox and antifreeze bottles or floating lines, not a good idea. They are expressly forbidden (even if painted the right colors) and WDFW (Fisheries) watches for them and will confiscate your gear when they find them.
*Their patrol boats are on our dock and we watch them come back in every night and unload the 15 - 20 confiscated pots. They throw all the floats (antifreeze bottles seems to be the most common) corks, lines and collapsible sport pots in the marina dumpsters.*(We are up there dumpster diving 2 minutes after they leave.) *
Sorry to*say that most of this gear is brand new, right out of the store and the fisherman probably didn't read the sport pamplet. *Also, several big rule changes this year, so read the fishing pamplet before you go. *It's also online now at the WDFW's website.*

I realize in WA state one must comply exactly to the 'rules'.

My reference with lost/removed gear is when one is in B.C.

We had an incident earlier this spring where a float went missing for about four days. It was before the commercial season opened and one of the local commercial guys was making recreational sets ahead of the commercial season - testing the water. Our float disappeared and one of his appeared in more or less exactly the same location. After about four days his set disappeared and ours magically reappeared. Could have been a coincidence I guess.

oWilly wrote:
In some spots we do not use floats. If the bottom is sand / grass we string a few pots together and let em go. Mark the spot on GPS. Come back and use a graple on line to recover. Have not lost any equipment doing that. Now if I could come up with a way to prawn this way !!!

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*OK - I'll bite. How deep are you fishing this way. I can see this maybe working @ 20 or 30 feet but we typically crab @ 80 or 100 feet. Can't see much hope of retrieval at that depth with a current running.

Anchorages so far:*

2 nights in Squirrel Cove

1 night behind Elworthy Island

Presently in Roscoe Bay, next stop Prideaux Haven

Having a blast except for the damn (non-stop) rain.


-- Edited by bobofthenorth on Friday 24th of June 2011 08:46:04 PM

Hey Bob

How did you access internet from Roscoe Bay??

weebobby wrote:
Hey Bob

How did you access internet from Roscoe Bay??

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We have a cellular booster system onboard that works pretty well. *It's not a Wilson or Cyfre - its fairly new technology - I think the company name might be Maxsignal - Gord May is the contact. *We went around the top of Cortes and Redonda islands and were never out of coverage. * *

We made a 12 hour run from Pender Harbour back to Cow Bay 2 nights ago.* Since we didn't leave Pender until noon we got to run after dark for the first time.* Didn't hit anything.* It was a good trip and the next time we go we'll have some places to go back to.* SWMBO even caught some fish - I got skunked in that department.