August 28th 2023,
Salmon fishing turned on Fire the day retention opend on August 1st thanks in large part to the Alaska Closure of the Commercial Chinook fisher that allowed most of our Salmon to make it back to their spawning grounds this year. We hope this will continue going forward.
Mature Salmon to 26lbs most in the slot limit of under 80cm (about a 17lb fish) were plentiful and for the exception of having to leave the grounds early due to sea sickness not a single trip in August missed getting their limit of King Salmon.
There were and are still lots of pinks around and it takes special work just to try and avoid catching them.
"Some Beach Some Where"
Country super start Blake Shelton and super star wife Gwen Stefani and her 3 Boys, Kingston, Zuma and Apollo (Gwen and Zuma in this pic) were in town and made it out for a great night on the water with their limit of nice Chinooks and some great rockfish to get the full Victoria Experience. Blake was here as the headliner to "Sunfest" and next year Gwen will the draw at the "Lake town Shake Down" I hope we can get them out on the water again if time permits.
There is a mix of bait around 6 inch herring, 3 inch herring and 4 inch sandlances and lots of all of them along with fewer salmon means the ones that are here are will fed and hard to get to bite
For Pinks the reliable pink hoochie or Gibbs Delta "No bananas" skinny G work great and they both work great for the coho.
Lingcod have gotten a bit tougher to catch with more pressure on them with the salmon closure but still a few of them and Rockfish around but expect it to take some extra work as well.
Smartbaits Swimming Jesse is just slaying the Rockfish and LingCod with clients shocked at how fast one can catch them using the Smartbaits swim baits.
August and the first week of September are fully Booked but later in September and October are quite open still. Lots of big salmon still around and Sept 1st we can keep 2 per day any size over the minimum.
captain@fishoakbay.com
1-250-507-5500 Cell/text
