Oak Bay Marine Group

Out of this world

The wildlife tours have been out of this world this week. They've seen it all: black Bears combing the beach, bald eagles feeding on the hake, porpoises playing in the wake. As for whales, they’ve been coming through the passage regularly. We had six or seven orca cruise by last night, there was a minke whale that swam pass April Point yesterday afternoon, plus two humpback whales in the passage about three days ago. The stellar sea lions are still here and can be seen sunbathing on the rocky beaches up and down the passage. Thanks to the full moon, the tides are ripping and rapids tours are in full force.

The fishing is starting to pick up. Our mechanics are hard at work preparing all the boats; it’s a pretty big job considering we employ the largest flee of Boston Whalers in all of North America. Keep up the good work boys!

The weather has been fantastic here. The wind has died down, the sun is shining and the rain has stopped. The sunrises have been fantastic the last couple of days, almost worth getting up at 4:30am to see them.

That’s all for today. Thanks for checkin’ in. Hope you have a wonderful day!

Megan Lane
Dock Supervisor
Painter’s Lodge

BC Sportfishing Outlook

Hey all you anxious anglers, Fishmaster Cookie here with the projections for this years salmon fishery for our Northern Resorts.

The science of predicting salmon returns is still only moderately accurate although great strides have been made in recent years. A lot of what you see in the media is only the bad reports. There are some great success stories for a lot of runs of salmon, especially here in B.C. where some rivers have rebounded from previously endangered status to stable and increasing. A great majority of Chinook runs in B.C. are at normal historical levels and some are receiving greater than average returns. Because of conservation measures taken in the last 10 years such as moratoriums, slot limits, and area closures, our Coho fishing in the north has been, and is expected to, be extraordinary this year.

The MV Marabell and MV Charlotte Princess up at Langara are expected to have excellent fishing right from the get go. All of the Queen Charlotte local runs and the masssive Skeena and Nass runs for Chinook are expected to be in abundance. That means we should see great numbers of those big 40 lb. plus Skeena and Kitimat fish with the early runs showing up in May. My personal fishing diary tells me it should be an excellent big fish year for Chinook. The Columbia River runs are going to be almost double what they were last year and those fish start to filter through Langara in June along with hundreds of other migratory runs that stop for a meal at Langara.

The Coho fishing is forecasted to be excellent and we should see some good numbers starting in the end of June. There should be an abundance of those big hook-nosed northern Coho in August as well.

The halibut and lingcod fishing was better last year than I have ever seen it. We have been actively researching this fishery so I expect that with all our expertise and the awesome new improvements on our gear and bait systems it will be the best bottom fishing year ever.

The MV Salmon Seeker in Kano Inlet is an easy one. They have had the best Chinook-per-angler ratio of any other spot on the coast for the last three years and the outlook looks even better for this year. The increase in the Columbia River run-size this year, as well as excellent returns to the Puget Sound-area rivers, should only improve an already first class fishery. Our guides deadly halibut techniques brought in more 100 lb. plus halibut last year than the Masterfisherman board could support. We expect these trends to continue.

King Salmon Resort in Rivers Inlet looks like it's in for some great fishing. The Chinook runs through the area are predicted to be at normal levels. I have an inside contact that has lived in the area for his entire life and works actively with the native hatchery program there. He expects an above average to excellent year for those giant Kilbella and Wonnock River fish. Hey, isn't King Salmon Resort right in front of the mouths of those 2 rivers?

One factor that works in our favour coast-wide is that La Nina has cooled down the ocean to premium salmon fishing temperatures. That means bait balls on the surface and 40 pounders running shallow and I can't wait.

Shawn “Cookie” Pennell
Fishmaster, MV Charlotte Princess
Langara Island, Queen Charlotte Islands

The Wonder of Whales

We’ve just wrapped up this year’s Photographers at Painter’s weekend and had a great turn out; everywhere you looked people we snapping pictures!

On Sunday we had a wonderful surprise. Just as Sunday brunch was being served, and all the photographers were outside, a pod of transient whales cruised up the Discovery Passage, right past the Painter’s Lodge docks. The weird thing was that, for the first time all weekend, none of the photographers were taking pictures; they were just standing, in awe, enjoying the wonders of the West Coast.

As for fishing, Robert Zalik brought in a nice Chinook, beating out both his brother and father. I’m sure he’ll never let them live that one down, I sure wouldn’t!

That’s all for today, thanks for checkin’ in. Hope you have a wonderful day.

Megan Lane
Dock Supervisor
Painter’s Lodge

Stellar shows

Wow! Only a few days into the season and we've already got two nice Chinook up on the catch board. Tim McLeary was the first to bring in a 9 lb. Chinook, and Karen Miller was the second of the season, landing a nice 14 lb. Chinook. Nice job both of you!

Wildlife tours have been setting out every day. There’s a huge colony of Stellar sea lions just off Jimmy Judd Island. Stellar sea lions are the largest member of seal family—adult females weigh an average of 600 pounds and males can get as big as 1200 lbs.

Our resident eagles are putting on quite the show. As the tide rises they eat the fish coming up, also known as hake. There were at least 50 of them swooping around, all looking for a bite to eat.

Megan Lane
Dock Supervisor
Painter’s Lodge

Langara Resorts Equipment Update

All winter long our Queen Charlotte Islands crew has been working to make MV Charlotte Princess and MV Marabell guests' trips even better.

MV Marabell boats get a major refit

T-Rev, Fishmaster on the MV Marabell, has been working hard on the ship's fleet of Boston Whalers over the winter.

Here's a quick look at the updates

• We have added a dark grey non-skid paint throughout the floor.
• The rest of the boat has been painted white with new decals.
• To create more room within the boat, we moved the new Yamaha gas cans forward under the each of the seats.
• We designed a new stainless steel bracket to hold the railings and added a hook to hold the net in place on the port side.
• We moved the marine radio to face the driver. It will be flush mounted in the side of the dry box and have a plexi glass roof over it.
• We rewired the entire boat.
• We changed the seat base system (no more wobbly seats!).
• We will have all new seat cushions.
• We added an additional rod holder up forward to accommodate the hali rods and an extra salmon rod.

In addition to being more asthetically pleasing, all of these changes will make the boats much more functional for our guests and we are very excited to hear what you think.

MV Charlotte Princess

Guests on the MV Charlotte Princess will notice the awesome new Lowrance X67c colour sounders. We have also purchased more halibut reels and changed our reel repair supplier, so we are expecting improved performance out of our equipment.

Both resorts

We have changed our halibut line to Jinkai, which is a commercial line that is stronger than the line we used last season, but is thinner in diameter, which equals more line on the reel.

Fishing season is almost here!

If you haven't booked your 2008 trip yet, now is the perfect time. Space is filling up fast! Call 1-800-663-7090 or contact us online to reserve your trip.

Tight lines,
Brook Castelsky
General Manager, Northern Resorts