British Columbia: Barkley Sound Fishing Reports

Just returned from a quick 3 day trip to Canadian Princess in Ucluelet. Very inconsistant and generally slow fishing. Salmon on the inside banks were in fair numbers with related bait schools. MacDeeps and 4oz Salmon slayers with the occasional larger (30-60#) Halibut mixed in (most all the bigger Halibut are coming from the Salmon trips on the inside: inside/outside South Bank and Lighthouse). The saddest thing we noticed was that the resort is keeping ALL Halibut on the 'Big Bank' (21-23 mile). Average size has been reduced to 7-10# with a 15#er being large. Some trips are getting only a few, 4-6, and some are limiting 25+ with most all being these tiny 7-12# fish. It was really sad. If we were fishing by ourselves we would never keep these fish. We also heard our captain grumbling that Oak Bay management is starting to 'nickle and dime' as well, chasing away all their good skippers and long term staff. We also noticed decreased options on their breakfast buffet as well as no coolers of extra water or pop on their fishing trips. Definately downgrading the product; sad actually. We were told when we enquired about reserving our group of 14 for next year, they are discontinuing the included breakfast and box lunch incentive for early booking, groups, and returning guests. Sad to see an organization that large, that sees so many guests, cheapen their product to such a degree. Oh yea, once again (third year in a row) the reservations for our group were wrong. Late flights instead of early, quad rooms instead of doubles, scheduled for Salmon rather than Halibut on 22 passenger boats rather than 14 (that's why we take a group of 14 so we can have our own boat), a mistake in not including breakfast and lunches as promissed to part of our group. No big deal, but we reserved a year in advance so they had plenty of time to get it right. Oh well, there's always next year. Maybe they will suprise us.
Tight Lines,
Jean Carufo

Set out of Bamfield in mid august myself and two buddies.Good trip.Went approx 10 miles off Beale in search for hali.Found 5 of the little guys,1 in the 30's 2 in the 40's and 2 in the 50's.Although bait was unsuccessful.I was glad to have lucky jigs and spinnow jigs.Happy fishing eh!

I've never fished the Barkley Sound area. Three of us are planning a trip next year in my 19 ft. bayliner. While mostly a salmon trip, halibut opportunities would be nice. Any chances for halibut in a smaller boat in that area (i.e. inner sound instead of the big water?)