Ucluelet Fishing Report

We just returned from a great 4 day trip to Ucluelet BC. We stayed at a rental condo and moored the boat at the government run Ucluelet small craft harbour. We’ve never had a problem getting moorage (we’ve had to raft up to a commercial boat a couple of times) and it is relatively inexpensive.

Friday fishing was at Sail Rock, a spot on the surf line that is about 6 miles from Ucluelet Harbour, and just a stones throw from the Broken Island Group and Pacific Rim National Park in Barkley Sound. The fishing was hot and heavy. We had multiple double headers, and played at least 15 fish by 9:30 in the morning. Chinooks in the box ranged from 15 to 25 pounds. A great morning on the water! Seas were roughly 4 foot swell at around 12 seconds.

Saturday started at Sail Rock where unfortunately things had cooled off a bit. We hit a couple of nice Chinooks and then decided to go offshore as we heard rumors of a gale blowing in on Sunday. We didn’t want to miss out on a little off shore action. South Bank begins about 5 miles off of Ucluelet Harbour and continues out to sea for many miles. We headed out about 7 miles and trolled the bottom (approximately 160 feet) for Chinook and Halibut. We caught a few wild Coho Salmon in the 7-8 pound range, and managed to boat many Chinook in the 12-15 pound range. Overall, a great day of fishing, even though the average size was much smaller than the previous day.

Sunday was a short day as we had to be off the water by 11 am in order to catch our Nanaimo ferry at 3 pm. We spent the entire morning at Sail Rock where things were pretty slow. We lost a few but didn’t manage to put anything in the boat. Luckily the weather was beautiful and its never bad to float around on the North Pacific with good friends!

The hot lures for us were 4″ Coyote spoons in glow green, silver/blue, and silver/green. We ran false flashers off the downrigger canon ball so that we wouldn’t have to fight the fish and the flasher. This setup works really well and saves the arms a bit when you’re constantly having to bring up fish and gear from 160 feet down!