2018 Season Wrap Up
2018 SEASON WRAP UP
Our 2018 season has ended, the lodge is buttoned up for the winter and it's time to reflect on the past summer. 2018 was our busiest season to date and we couldn't be more pleased as to how our business is growing! We would like to thank all of our valued guests that joined us for some great fishing and great camaraderie!
THE FISHING
Kyuquot lived up to it's reputation of providing, once again, the most consistent fishing on the coast! It was a bit of a different year this year though, with the early season fishery taking place predominantly on the outside waters. For some strange reason, the fish landed on the highway south of "The Reef" so we were forced to venture out to "Whale Tail" for the first few weeks of the season. However, it did produce day in and day out, providing limits of chinook and halibut until the fish started to show up closer to shore in areas like Spring Island, Thornton Island and Favourite Entrance. Once they came in closer though, they came with a vengeance, and we saw some of the best near shore fishing ever experienced in Kyuquot in for both coho and chinook!
Fishing stayed strong right till the day we ended our season on Sept 2. As per usual, about 98% of our guests limited out on chinook this season with many releasing more than they kept!
Halibut fishing was a little different this year as well as the mid size halibut were difficult to find. There were more than plenty of the "unders" around but the "overs" were just over the benchmark length of 83 cm or were too big (bigger than the 115 cm limit) and had to be released. The 30 and 40 lb halibut were hard to find. That said, if you wanted to fish halibut, it was easy to get your limit and everyone who wanted their two halibut, got 'em if they wanted to hit the outside waters! It took us a while to find the ling cod this year but once we found where they were hiding, there were some great lings caught providing our guests with what promises to be many fish and chip dinners over the coming year!
Every year is different and while the patterns were a little unusual for Kyuquot, the bottom line is that our guests caught a ton of fish and took home more than enough fish to last the winter! When compared to the other areas of the coast, the waters of Kyuquot came through once again!
THE TRANSPORTATION
While some guests still prefer to drive into Fair Harbour, the introduction of regularly scheduled flights into the lodge from Vancouver for the majority of the season was a huge hit. The majority of our guests prefer to take advantage of the quick 1 hour and 15 minute flight with Seair Seaplanes from Vancouver to our dock! The 2018 season turned out great with no major weather issues. We are happy to say that we will be continuing to offer both fly-in and drive-in trips for the 2019 season!
FLY IN DATES AVAILABLE FROM JULY 14 - AUG 28
Visit our website at https://www.walterscoveresort.com/fly-in/ for a list of our fly in dates in 2019.
DRIVE IN FROM JUNE 27 - JULY 12 AND AUG 29 - SEPT 1
We continue to learn from our guests what they want and strive to deliver that. We learned that our drive in guests all seem to want the 4 day, 3 night trip so we have discontinued offering the 5 day , 4 night trip during the time of the season that we offer drive in opportunities. Please visit our website at https://www.walterscoveresort.com/drive-in/ to see the specific dates our drive in trips are scheduled for in 2019.
BEACH BBQ
The introduction of BBQing a chinook salmon in the traditional way of the Kyuquot Chechlesaht people during our 4 day trips turned out to be a huge success. In the past, we only did a beach BBQ out on Spring Island during our 5 day trips. Last summer, we introduced a different version of the BBQ on the short trips. We all walked over to "Outside Beach" (about a 5 minute walk from the lodge) and prepared a salmon over an open fire on cedar sticks, then returned to the lodge to enjoy dinner!
With "Grandma" Daisy singing the dinner song and talking about the local culture, it provided a great cultural experience for all of our guests! It was such a hit that we will certainly be continuing to do this at outside beach during our 4 day trips and on Spring Island during our 5 day trips! Of course, this happens weather permitting! Whether at Outside Beach or at Spring Island, many guests have told us that this is the highlight of their trip!
2018 was such a success that we are already well more than half booked for next season and bookings keep pouring in every week. We expect to be about 85% sold out by the end of October and are looking at a 100% occupancy rate for 2019! We are not expanding the capacity of the lodge for next year so space is very limited! We love the small, intimate atmosphere of only entertaining 14 - 16 guests at a time and with such a limited number of guests, spaces fill up quickly. We would love to see you in 2019 and whether you are a repeat guest or looking for something new to try, you can expect a great experience!
Call or email us today.
1.844.466.9453