Point Duval Lodge

[ripalip]

A buddy and myself are taking a 5 day trip to the North end of Vancouver Island in search of chinook and halibut at the end of June. The place is called Point Duval Lodge. Has anyone out there had the opportunity to try this service. If so, what did you find? :whazzup:

[nrcamo]

fished out at the islands a mile north east of duval a few years ago. small floating lodge right on the north end of the harbor at port hardy. the area was good fishing when i was there several years ago. i would fish there again except i moved up too the queen charlot islands and did even better. bottom fishing is good where you are going. try fishing around the islands north and east of duval. they are the only ones out there. watch the fog if it comes in. there is commercial traffic in the area. gps would be a good thing to have in case of fog. if there is something you don't like about duval, your about eight minutes from port hardy and anything you would need. enjoy.

[GutZ]

I fished out of Port Hardy on a Private boat in 1992. We had a fantastic adventure. It is really a neat area. We fished out of town quite aways, on Nahwitti Bar and anchored in Bull Harbor on Hope Island. (Last rock on the right!)

Anyhow, here is a great resource for BC Fishing. This link is specificly Port Hardy. Poke around and find the bulletin board. Maybe even the recent visitor here, IronNoggin will reply!

http://www.bcadventure.com/adventure.../pthardy.phtml

[FISHNAKED]

My wife,daughter and I stayed at duval point. I think it was the last/first week in jul/aug.
We were fortunate as we shared a land based cabin (rather than one of there floating cabins)with another great couple. The fishing was pretty good not awsome.Only managed one king and several pinks. The thing I really did liked was the fact that your fishing literily yards from the lodge. all in all a very good trip.

[bucketmouth]

Yes, I fished out of Point Duvall in 1996 in July. The Salmon fishing was not great but was fair. We caught alot of dog fish. They look like small sharks. Most of the fishing we did was around the Gordon Islands which are situated across a channel from the floating lodge itself. The channel is about 5 to 6 miles wide and it took about 1/2 hour to motor over to this area each morning. The boats provided were 16 foot aluminum deep vee's with 25 & 30 HP merc's. The boats had depth finders and are tiller operated. Each morning the water was smooth and like glass. Each afternoon the wind came up and swells got up to 3 feet. There is another set of islands across another channer further to the North that is about 7 or 8 miles away. We never ventured to this second set of Islands but others did and they caugtht more Salmon than we did.

Bottom fishing was great. We caught alot of rock bass of various kinds and some halibut too. Currents are very strong and the water depth for bottom fishing was at about 180 feet. It took weight of 16 ounces. We would drop our terminal tackle to the bottom as fast as we could, but by the time we hit bottom, the current had run our line out to an angle of about 30 degrees. Very tough to get or stay vertical in the strong currents.

Each time we returned to the lodge the staff would restock our coolers with frozen herring and new mooching rigs. Fishing for Salmon was basically a plug cut herring show. We caught some Silvers but no kings. Fog is heavy most mornings.

You take your own food and cook it in their kitchen. Bald Eagles everywhere. The staff freezes your catch and packs it for you so you can take it home. Alot of private boats out of port hardy were out every day. Some seemed to be doing quite well, others not so good.

All in all we had a great time.

[Swamp Critter]

Hey Ripalip:

A group of us have been up to Duvall PT the past two years and are going back again the first week of August. Send me an email and we can talk on the phone sometime to give you my 2 cents.

Its a fun trip...long drive...but really love the area.

Dave