July 7, 2009 – Guides’ Day Out
Posted by admin on July 8, 2009 under Fishing Reports | 
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Strange Split-Dorsal Orca
Once in a while when the stars allign, my guide friends and I get a day on the water for ourselves. We get to fish, spot whales, and try out new space aged tackle that we would never dare test on our guests’ dime. We also get to make the same mistakes and lose as many fish as our guests do. Today was one of those days. Two of my friends from another lodge and I (and my dog Rufus) all had a day off so we hit the water for a few hours. The weather was nice and the fish were very co-operative. We ended up limiting out with 12 salmon (coho and chinook mix, with an emphasis on coho) and 3 halibut. The highlight of the day for me was the pod of Orcas that streamed around us as we fished out at 7 Mile point. There were maybe a half dozen residents, 2 of which showed us collosal breaches, coming right out of the water multiple times (Free Willy style). The picture above is of one of the jumpers porpoising near the boat. Note the interesting split dorsal fin. I have already seen this guy once this season. Very cool!
The "Cutting Board" exacts its revenge...
As for the space aged tackle…. One of my friends worked a DART; a sort of cross between a Buzz-bomb and a Rapala by jigging it near the surface as we trolled (and landed a coho with it). The other friend trolled a lure we “affectionately” call the Cutting Board; a blue, decaled curved hard plastic lure seemingly made out of the same material as plastic cutting boards and somehow landed the largest fish of the day (a chinook in the low 20’s). I won’t be adding either of these two lures to my aresenal anytime soon (except maybe using the DART to jig for coho while hali fishing), but it was still a lot of fun and just goes to show you how agressive our QCI fish can be in the Masset area.
