October 4&5 - Pedder Bay (#s 35 & 36)

Jack and I went for two magnificent days of fall coho fishing out of Pedder Bay. Conditions were calm both days and the fishing was decent. We came home with 3 coho on Saturday and 4 on Sunday. On Saturday we also had a view of a humpback cruising through the area!
You can see that we came pretty close to the US border, though we just stayed on the Canadian side!
Some of the ocean-going freighters put up a sizable wake...
The boat worked well and I love the autopilot.

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92 km

September 29th - Mill Bay (#34)

Pete, Graeme and I went for a day's prawning in Saanich inlet. I decided to try dropping some pots in Brentwood Bay and had some success there. No success in Coles bay and some success off Ardmore. 200 prawns overall in about 3 hours fishing. One trap had nothing in it and another had nothing but squat lobsters - about 15-20 feet deeper than the others...We went over to Mill Bay for lunch and had a nice meal at Bridgeman's Bistro. After lunch we tried bucktailing and trolling a spoon in the hope of coho off Cherry point, but no luck. Conditions were wonderful all day! We had fun checking out the big sea lions on the buoy in the middle of Pat Bay.

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42 km

September 16th - Pedder Bay (#33)

Martin and I went for a morning fishing trip out into the strait off of Pedder Bay. There was a bit of wind and chop but not too bad. The fishing started slowly but we eventually had 7 hookups and kept 4 nice coho!

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31 km

September 10th - Hamley Point (#32)

Martin and I went for an afternoon/evening fishing trip to Hamley Point up on the south end of Sidney Island. Conditions were nice but though we saw what we thought were fish on the sounder, we did not connect with any! Natural C-lection is working well with its new features! I love the autopilot!

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54 km

September 5th - Otter Point (#31)

Kyle and I went for an evening fishing trip to Otter point. We had a beautiful evening on the water - calm and sunny, but not much in the way of fish. we came home with one sockeye...

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28 km

September 1st - Chatham Island (#30)

Monica and I took the boat for a test drive and BBQ picnic on Chatham. This was the first trip since I had the autopilot, fuel flow sensor, and anchor windlass installed. All worked well. We looked for the sea otter at Cadboro Point twice but did not see it. The BBQ worked well as did the sensor and autopilot.

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20 km

May 16-18 - Friday Harbor (#29)

Monica, Jenny and I set out for Friday harbor to participate in the C-Brats get together. We left Friday morning and crossed Haro Strait to the south of San Juan Island. There was a bit of a chop which slowed us down and we had a visit from the Shipriders (http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/ibet-eipf/shiprider-eng.htm), a joint RCMP and US border patrol group. We passed inspection, but drifted quite a way to the south while being visited! We made it to Friday Harbor after lunch, cleared customs (we lost some tomatoes and a pepper!) and then started visiting with the "brats". We went for a nice dinner in the Grange Hall, organized by the owner of Downriggers (which burnt down since last year!). jenny and I went to the pub for an pint afterwards.On Saturday we went for a hearty breakfast and then rented a scoot-coupe and a moped  from Susie's mopeds for the day. We used these to drive down to American Camp, South beach, Cattle Point and then Lime Kiln State Park (where we ran into Alexander I, an old student of mine!). We had a great day exploring the island! In the evening we enjoyed the C-brats pot luck and good company.
On Sunday morning we made breakfast on board and then motored up to Jones Island, where we hiked around the east side trail and had lunch with several other C-Dory owners. After that we motored up to Stuart Island and went for another walk up to the old school house. We then motored back to Cadboro Bay where we cleared customs at the RVYC dock and then retrieved Natural C-lection at Cattle Point.
A Big Thank You is due to Barry and Patti who organized the event at Friday Harbor where around 40 C-dorys gathered for the weekend! It was great seeing many old friends and meeting some new ones!

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105 km

April 25th - Oak Bay Area (#28)

Martin and I went out again to look for halibut, this time in Haro Strait. The tide was not running very fast for the first while, so we decided to jig and drift. No bites from any big fish... After the current started to ebb too fast for drifting, we decided to go to the Oak Bay flats to troll for chinook. again not luck though we hooked a ling and a yellow-tail. It was a lovely sunny afternoon and more fun than working Friday afternoon!

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30 km.

April 21st - Constance Bank (#27)

Martin and I went out for an early morning trip to Constance Bank to try for chinook and halibut. Conditions were magnificent (weak tides and no wind), but we had no luck. It was basically a shake down cruise to start the new licence season! I was able to try out the halibut anchoring system which worked well except that another fisher caught my anchor line with his downriggers!
I obviously have lots to learn about halibut fishing!

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26 km.

January 25th - Winter Spring Fishing? (#26)

Pete, Kyle and I set out for a morning of winter spring fishing. The reports had been good, and conditions were forecast to be favourable. Conditions ended up being calm but very foggy. Visibility was between 100 and 300 m throughout the day! We went out to Constance Bank first and had no luck though we hooked three small ling cod. After Constance Bank (where a huge freighter was anchored) we went over towards Esquimalt, and had no luck other than a borderline legal spring which we let go. In spite of no fish to bring home, it was a nice day on the water - and not bad for January!

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56 km