Just for fun / Retirement
Fishing in Vancouver is accessible and productive |
So fishing story #1, occurred on the first of these trips, back in 2000. On one day, we spotted a pod of orcas off in the distance. This was before I had a digital camera, so I quickly swapped my all-purpose lens for a 300mm, hoping to at least catch some dorsal fins or a breach. Meanwhile, our guide, JB, was casually clipping the line onto the downrigger when a Coho snatched the lure and tore the line right out of his fingers!
All of a sudden, a mother and her calf appeared about 50 metres off the back of the boat - they were chasing after the fish! JB frantically reeled the salmon in, literally surfing it along towards us. But mama and baby kept coming, and just as JB unceremoniously hoisted the fish into the back of the boat, the orcas submerged beneath our boat, only metres from the back!The second of my fish tales occurred in 2006, on my 4th trip to the Charlottes. One of the distinctions of catching a large chinook, is the power of the pull on the rod, and the angle that the line goes into the water at. A coho often runs along the top, and doesn't have the mass to strip much line off the reel. A Tyee however, will start zipping the reel almost the moment it gets hooked, and the line will be at least a 45 degree angle.So when my fishing partner hooked something and the reel started screaming, we got very excited! This was unlike any other salmon fight I'd ever encountered. After a fierce battle, the fish came close to the surface, and we saw a tall dorsal fin. Wha? (cue the Jaws music) "Salmon shark!" our guide exclaimed. This is not common - catching one of these on 20 lb. monofilament line. Salmon shark have sharp teeth and would normally cut through the wimpy mono easily, but the plug that it had taken, was jammed into the jaws.While we did not want to keep/eat the shark, the guides did. So we hauled it onboard, and sized up our catch. at about 5.5 feet, it weighed about 95 lbs., easily the biggest fish we'd ever caught on these trips (stay tuned however). Little known fact, is that salmon sharks are actually from the same family as great whites and mako sharks, and you could easily see the resemblance. This was a small one, as they typically are 400+ lbs., but can grow up to 1,000 lbs. and 10 feet long!Second useless trivia about sharks, is that their meat spoils quickly if you don't clean them immediately; something about how they urinate through their skin or something. To read more about these huge fish that most folks don't even know exist in our waters, have a look here on Wikipedia. Anyhow, so our guide ended up gutting it right there on the back of the boat, and all of the contents of its stomach and innards were dumped out onto the back of the boat. While washing away the blood, an octopus beak rolled along the deck... at least he had a tasty last meal!Ok, final fish story. This was on my final trip to the MV Salmon Seeker, so a fitting one to end with.
When we go on these fishing trips, the primary goal is to catch salmon, and lots of them. Your guide tries to get you big chinooks, and during that time you'll typically "limit out" on your coho. In a typical day on a two rod (sometimes 3) boat, you'll end up releasing 12-20 "cookie cutter" chinooks that are 20-25 lbs., keeping the big ones only, and hopefully catching your 2 cohos each. On the odd occasion, you get a bleeder, and since fish blood doesn't clot, you keep chinook even if they're under your Tyee keep range.But once you've filled the boat with your limit of salmon, and if there's time left, you go get your halibut. Normally, the guides would take us to "Aisle 13"; a GPS marked spot where it is so easy to catch them, the sea floor must be covered in hali. e.g. It's like going to the supermarket, and you go down aisle 13 to get some fresh fish. You lower your baited hook (no flashy things or injured fish imitations required), and once it hits bottom, you start reeling up. A typical "chicken" will be 15-25 lbs., sometimes up to 35 or so. Each guy catches one, and you're “back to barn” for beers on the top deck.
Sometimes you are close to other boats |
Our guide set up the hali rods, one on each side of the boat, and we waited. And waited. And waited. This kind of fishing is boring. It might have been about an hour in when my fishing partner's rod started to twitch. You have to let these big halibut really take the bait before trying to set the hook, or you'll just end up losing them. After a brief dance with his rod, the hali decided that it liked my bait more, and started to nibble away at mine.
Monster from the Deep |