2008 Moutcha Reports

Wonder how things are going up in Moucha.  Anyone heard?  Seems like someone will be posting soon

Rob.

The weather started off good on Friday and just got better.  Not sure about the derby results, I'm sure those will be posted shortly.  The bite was really slow Friday and Saturday, but picked up nicely Sunday morning.  Good times.

Nice fishies there. What wieght? around 30 pounders? Looks like great weather. Good job, makes me jones even more to get some Salmon blood on my Yak.

First place went to a 27# king caught by Brian.  Zee got second with a 26 pound, 8 ounce king.  I got blanked for the derby, foul hooking 3 on Saturday (not eligible) and zilch on Sunday.  Got home late last night and I need to unpack still.  Pics and stories to dribble in when time permits.

-Allen

Congrats to the 2 B's, Brian and Bryce!  Eager to hear the tales and see some porn!!

Back in the USA and falling back into the swing of things at work... but first a report!

Had a good trip up to Moutcha w/ no snags along the way. We set up camp in some steady rain. Seemed like the same ol' Vancouver Island rain but the forecasts said it was to clear up. Fished Friday for a only a few hookups while some others did pretty well. It was very evident this wasn't the Moutcha that we knew of last year so we had our work cut out for us.

Saturday the weather got really nice and I had my first hookup pretty early on but lost it soon after. I then got a hammering hit that took the rod into serious bendo. A few jumps and realized it was a nice fish. Played it for about 30 minutes and finally got it into the net. I wasn't sure how it'd measure out but was pretty sure it was bigger than my last year's fish. Got it to the weigh boat and measured in at 26.5 pounds. Not the shiniest 'Nook but still pretty decent IMO. No other fish were mouth hooked for the day so I was alone on the leader board.



Sunday we had even more incredible weather with fully sunny skies and almost no clouds. Vancouver Island is really amazing when the clouds clear out of there!



First big hookup that I witnessed came from newbie yak angler Brian (no handle as of yet). He caught his first fish the day before that came out to a 8 pound jack. This one was no jack though as he was in full on bendo mode. He fought it for about 15 minutes or so and landed it. I thought it might be mid-size because of that until I heard him say it was a big fish. He paddled to the weigh in boat and event organizer Jim Davis mentioned it was a big fish... I knew I might be in trouble. They weighed it and it came out to 27 pounds! It beat my fish by 8 ounces!!! I got back to fishing and immediately my jig got hammered by a nice chinook. Took to the air at least four times and took some amazingly speedy runs. By the jumps it took it looked to be pretty nice size and maybe even bigger than my first. I was really putting it to the fish hoping to tire it and dragged it to leader a few times. I really wanted to land this fish and regain the top spot so tried to keep it cool. It was coming to leader again so tried to push and tire her  some more when the hook ripped out of her mouth.... No bueno... Unfortunately that was my last fish of the day and Brian's fish was left at top spot with me in second.

It was a really nice week of vacation and as usual the food and people were amazing. Great to see all the good people from last year and meet some new ones too. Just wanted to thank Pole & Jim Davis for getting this all together and all the sponsors that made it happen. Scotty threw down some amazing gear along w/ OK throwing down a shiny new trident.

I'm really looking forward to next year again!

Z

Great snaps, indeed VI is wonderful when the sun's out!  and when it's not, you gotta build a fire and dry your skivvies, as I did in Clayoquot Sound back in the day:



   How many NWKA cats made it this year?  Any bear stories???  What were the awards??

Tom (Fishin T) and I didn't get out of Seattle until around 11:00-11:30 on Thursday.  We drove to Cambell River, camped in the rain, and made it into Moutcha on Friday around 1 just in time to enjoy the beautiful, sunny weekend.  I fished pretty hard Friday evening, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning.

Friday evening I had a couple of hookups, all of which came unstuck.  Saturday I had no luck at all, Sunday morning a hook up that came unstuck.  In early the early afternoon, Tom and I decided to do some exploring and see if there were any rockfish in the inlet... fishing in 50-60 feet of water, we discovered not only where there fish, but they were stupid easy to catch.  We also managed to hook up with a couple of small lingcod.

Saturday and Sunday a crowd of power boats descended on the inlet, and it seemed to me they put the fish down and made them a good deal more cagey.  We also had some annoying conflicts, with a couple of kayak fishers (including Tom) losing salmon when power boaters dragged their down rigger cables across their lines as they were playing fish.

Monday morning was like night and day for me.  Only three other kayakers out fishing, and two power boats.  Fish were holding at about 20' down, and very active.  Quickly had two hook ups that led to some excitement, but both fish snapped my leader.  Swapped over to 30# Maxima for a leader, and hooked up a third time around 11:00 AM.  Spent the next hour playing a 25# hen, then headed back to camp to clean her and head back to Seattle.

Had some spectacular wildlife sightings, including bald eagles and black bears.  The camping situation was a little rough, but we made the best of it.  Was nice to meet some of the Seattle and Canada crew.  All in all, I had a good time. 

A few photos from the weekend:

Couple more photos:

Dang Zee, 9 ounces from glory! Nice fatty.

Too bad on the  bad hooked fishies Pole. You kept a couple though yes?

Nice fishies Three. good thing you didn't give up after sunday, eh?

I was a little down from fishing three straight days and nothing to show for it with PBer's catching them left and right around me. I'm using the same technique too !! grrr. This porn has remotivated me though. I guess i deserve a monster for all the work i'm putting in.

Great pix, Threeweight!  The eagle looks close enough to shake hands with.
Is there fresh water feeding Moutcha?  All the fish look dark, as if they've been holding in fresh or brackish water.
   Sorry to hear about the conflicts with the pb'ers---that leaves a bad taste in the mouth, fer sure, esp if it's the only hookup of the day. Hope someone gave them an earfull!

Is there fresh water feeding Moutcha?  All the fish look dark, as if they've been holding in fresh or brackish water.

Moutcha Bay is at the mouth of the Conuma River.  These fish are staging.  Weird year this year.  Last weekend matt_k caught fresh bright fish.  With the recent heavy rains up there, I was expected to see more fresh fish streaming in.  However, that wasn't the case.  There seemed to be 2 classes of fish being caught.  Some older ones turning red.  And some that were dark, but I'd guess they were the fish that were bright just last week. I kept 3 of these kind and all cut up with nice meat.

All that being said, there were some fresh silvers coming in with 2 caught in the derby and a number caught off the pb'ers.  First time that silvers made it into the derby standings.

   Sorry to hear about the conflicts with the pb'ers---that leaves a bad taste in the mouth, fer sure, esp if it's the only hookup of the day. Hope someone gave them an earfull!

For the most part, the pb'ers were pretty good.  I only heard of one cutoff, and I did have one harassing me a bit (I shut him up by landing a fish in front of him).  There sure were a lot more of them this year, sometimes as many as 12-15 or more on the water.  I guess fishing is poor on the outside with many guideboats hitting this spot early then leaving by 8 or 9-ish.  Understand that the rules of the road seemed to be a counter clockwise trolling pattern, but the wind meant that our drift caused us to either drift against this pattern or across it.  I was thinking it could have gotten a bit ugly, not kayak vs. pb, but more like jiggers vs trollers.  But it never did.

One interesting point is that the fish seems to be much more scattered this year.  I'm sure it was because of the increase in pb'ers.  Many times I'd watch the fish on my FF and when a pb'er trolled by, the school would sink 5-10' and once the pb'er was past they'd come back up.  One time a pb'er went up on step as he was getting out of there and I watched a school go from 25 feet all the way down to the bottom at 80 feet then back up.  Very interesting indeed!

-Allen

How many fish were weighed in compared to the number of entries? 

How many fish were weighed in compared to the number of entries? 

6 fish weighed.  24 official entrants and at least 6 other fishing that did not register.



-Allen

FYI ... I created a category in the Gallery for 2008 Moutcha pics here ... http://www.northwestkayakanglers.com/index.php?action=gallery;cat=4

You can go ahead an upload pics to that common area.

-Allen