March 2020 Fishing Report

March 2020 was all about trying to make good of a bad situation. With the COVID-19 virus spreading and me just making it back into Canada from Mexico before flight restrictions started I was forced to self Quarantine for two weeks. What a better time to take advantage and self quarantine on the Kingfisher. We loaded her up and headed north for Desolation sound with no return date planned. The weather was on our side and we made it up to Lund in just under 5 hours. From there we explored Desolation sound and the Toba inlet, for three days we only saw a hand full of boats. This area of the coast is absolutely breathtaking I will definitely be back and look forward to spend many more nights exploring this tranquil, calm and mysterious place. We even fished in the area where my mom and dad caught their famous 31 pounder over 40 years ago, they were shocked when I called from Stuart island and ask them for a little “family Intel” I’m pretty sure it made their day. The folks in Lund were planning to shut down the hotel and all other infrastructure other than the fuel dock and the grocery store for the year. They estimated that they would lose $2 million revenue from the pandemic, hopefully this community will be able to bounce back better than ever when the time is right. Little did we know at the beginning of March that by the end of March the world would be in a state of complete shut down.
The fishing was  slow for the remainder of the trip, we managed to land a couple springs 65 and 68 cm, the prawning and crabbing was consistent throughout the trip. We ended up putting 380 nautical miles on the boat, which put us at Silva bay on Gabriola island for a couple nights and fished thrasher rock while we waited for the wind to die down before we crossed the Georgia Street and came home.

The fishing did slow down towards the end of March, with the hope that the bite would come back on before April 1 when the anticipated DOF shut down retention of chinook salmon until mid June . It looks as though the same regulations are going to be in place in the local Vancouver waters to the East Coast of Vancouver Island as they were last year. Department of fisheries has made this decision based on their opinion that the Fraser chinook spawning at this time are endangered and need to be protected thus the sport fishing, commercial and first nations fisheries are put on hold while science and data is collected.

April is going to bring some beautiful calm days and the crabbing is always great. I will continue to go out, catch & release and enjoy our beautiful BC during this time of crisis. My family is healthy & safe and I look forward to being able to run charters and continue the business in the months to come. For now to prevent the spread of COVID-19 Kingslayer Charters will be exploring in solo missions until things get back to normal.

Stay safe,

Hicksy