456 replies to this topic

[AllseeingEye]

Great post Sparky, completely concur with the sentiments therein.

 

For me fishing brings back wonderful memories of trips with my dad and grand-dad when I was very small, including a memorable camping trip when I was 7, that took just the three of us from Hope to Cache Creek, to Kamloops, Merritt and back. I remember the first fish, a rainbow trout, I ever caught (on that trip) in the Thompson River. I remember too just dad and me fishing very early one morning when I was ten and bagging the first salmon I ever caught on my own off Saratoga Beach at the mouth of the Oyster River, after years of carefully watching and learning from my dad, who in turn had learned from his dad. 

 

Its a shared experience which I now share with the same group of good pals now for almost fifteen years; its a journey that has taken us everywhere from the Rocky Mountains in lakes so remote I don't think they had names, to the Athabasca River; to the San Juan River near Pt Renfrew to the Campbell and Quinsam Rivers further up island, to the Vedder River in the Fraser Valley, the Cheakamus and Lillooet Rivers in the Fraser Canyon to the north coast and the Great Bear Rain Forest. It allows grown men to revert back to warm memories of their childhood, but in the process also forge lasting and new life long memories and to enjoy and appreciate the awesome beauty of our home island and province. 

 

That all said as Stephen Wright, one of my favorite comedians, once said "there is a fine line between fishing...and standing on the shore looking like an idiot". That reminds me about one of the best things about mates fishing....lots and lots of laughs.

 

And really you can never take yourself too seriously after spending a ton of time, effort and energy to plan, travel, get geared up, and go deep into a pristine wilderness, and think you've "got this" - then launch a fly line and either catch a tree on the back swing or realize - too late - you used the wrong line or knot to tie the most expensive lure in your repertoire, only to watch helplessly as the knot fails and the lure sails across the river like a missile and lands deep into the forest on the other side.

 

Once on the Campbell River, complete with brand new $300 sunglasses and a Simms sun hat costing almost as much, while showing a novice friend how to tie a fly and cast out into the river I looked every bit the professional, until I quite gracelessly tripped backwards over a submerged rock I failed to see, went ass over teakettle into the drink and lost the sunglasses, the hat and about $100 worth of tools and accessories that fell out of my vest pockets. Not to mention frying my mobile phone which I put into the one pocket in my waders that wasn't waterproof. If nothing else fishing also keeps you humble.....

 

PS - Sparky you should add Prospect Lake to your local fishing spots; I bagged a 4 pound rainbow there just this morning, as well as 3 others in the 2-3 pound range. 

Edited by AllseeingEye, 21 March 2020 - 12:52 PM.

[Sparky]

When you were typing that post I was on Prospect for the first time this year giving the outboard motor it’s first exercise of the year. There were lots of people fishing off the shore, docks, tubes, and boats.

What a beautiful day.

[Sparky]

Last year.

[AllseeingEye]

Yup we have our spot where we spin cast off the shore, use the same set up each time and don't even have to cast that far out to get these big rainbows. They are much bigger fish and with much more fight in them, than what we used to experience at Durrance Lake.

[Mike K.]

Jesus H Christ this is good stuff.

[Sparky]

I am posting to this thread to preserve my sanity in these difficult times. I need a distraction from the doom and gloom.

 

During the 80's my good friend Dave and I would start our Sunday mornings before daylight by siphoning gas from Mrs. Sparky's 66 Mustang into a 5 gallon container and put that into our 20 foot Campion and head out to Trial Island in search of salmon. Rain or shine...Summer or winter.

 

In the winter we put the canvas canopy up to keep the rain off and roll up the rear and side windows and stick the rods out. Our hunt for winter Chinooks was our favourite.

 

Fishing can be summed up as follows... hours of boredom filled with moments of sheer terror.... One of my favourite memories started with Dave hooking into a sizable salmon. I put the boat into neutral and started to pull in my line so as not to interfere with his play. The next thing I know I have a strike too.

 

Double header!!!

 

My line swings quickly to the left so i have to pass my rod around the rear upright of the canvas canopy in order to play the fish from the rear instead of the side of the boat.

 

(side note this was my favourite Peetz rod and reel setup)

 

While doing just that....my rod slipped from my hands and falls into the ocean. Darn!! (or words to that affect)

 

Dave plays his fish for a half hour or so and finally lands the most beautiful 20 pound winter spring salmon that I have ever seen. 

 

Once the fish is out of the net and we club the crap out of it...I notice something strange.

 

There is a red "hoochie" lure (read hook) in it's tail...with a leader still intact. I start to pull on it and the line starts to come out of the water. I keep pulling...and pulling...on this line that is slowly coming out of the water and making a huge pile of fishing line on the deck of the boat.

 

I still remember seeing my Peetz rod and reel emerging from the deep blue sea at the end of the line. Darn!! (or words to that affect) I got my rod and reel back.

 

I never fished with that gear again. I keep it in a special place.

[DavidC]

Getting your rod and reel back was definitely the catch of the day!

Good story!

[AllseeingEye]

^ That is a great story Sparky; I think long time fishermen/women who've been at it long enough have experienced something similar although perhaps not quite as amazing considering the odds of your specific scenario transpiring. You likely couldn't duplicate that one in a thousand years if you tried, lol.

 

Our oddest 'can't believe I got it in the boat" story involved initially just a standard strike off Secretary Island north of Sooke, a nice coho, which my buddy Mark got within fifteen feet of the boat when it snapped the leader, hook, lure, swivels, line - and, unbelievably, the flasher. Hell. Oh well it happens, he resets his line and proceeds to keep fishing.

 

Half an hour later I need to pee so I stand up in the bow to do my thing. Standing up of course I now have a different - and better - view and vantage of the immediate sea near us. Fortunately it was a bright sunny day and suddenly about 50 meters away I see this distinct and very bright flash of light. And again. And yet again so I tell the guys to steer the boat in that direction to investigate.

 

Eventually after chasing it for awhile to get close enough we get within ~ five meters and determine it is a flasher. Hey - it looks like Mark's flasher. We get even closer. It is Mark's flasher. With the fifteen odd feet of line - not to mention that lovely coho - still on the other end of the line. The fish had been unable to dive with all that gear trailing behind it. We catch up to it and in spite of the fact the fish took off again Mark managed to grab the flasher then use it to hand wind the line wrapping it around the flasher and eventually getting the struggling fish into the boat. Any creature that fought that hard to survive deserved to live so naturally we revived and eventually released it. 

[Sparky]

^ Great story...although

 

...I have this vision in my head of you hanging on to your whizzer and shouting orders and pointing with your other hand towards the flasher. (pun intended)

 

It's gonna take a while to get rid of that.

[UDeMan]

Early 90s fishing off the shore at ten mile point for salmon. I was there for a few hours, not a single bite. A new guy comes down with a rod and reel special he bought at Woolco, first time fishing. A few casts later he lands a 15 pound spring. Another few casts later he lands an even bigger spring.

The next time I go to ten mile point, the guy is there again with his entire family with the video camera ready to record. I ask if he had any luck since the last time, any he said nothing. He had gone every day since and got nothing.

[Chef-eth]

   Well Sparky, and new to the sport Mike, I grew up fishing on Vancouver Island. My first steelhead in the Cowichan, others in the Englishman, and Qualicum Rivers before my parents decided they like the Sunshine Coast better and they dedicated themselves to mooching out of the Pender Harbour area. Recently, I fished in early March on the Crowsnest River in Alberta. (I follow this forum because we are getting old and will have to move to a warmer climate in the next few years. We live in the eastern side of the Rockies a bit north of Crowsnest Pass). We got out for a day on 06 March, temps were a balmy +7C. Both experienced fly fishers, we don't normally fish during winter, preferring to give our quarry a rest. But, we both had been skiing enough and we thought that since the provincial government allows year round fishing on this river, we would give it a try. We did not quite have the shack nasties but thought an outing would be of benefit. The snow flew here last September; April was already forecast to be cooler than average.

   So we meet and drive to the river, it is about +3C and the wind is blowing. For those of you not familiar, the Crowsnest Pass is super windy. There are signs along Hwy 22 which warn of high winds and give reported speeds and gusts. Every year a few semi trucks (the huge 18-30 wheelers!) blow right over. It is amazing. The forecast was for gusts up to 40 kmh... but that turned out to be optimistic. We figured we could fish the left bank of the river and hunker down a bit in the lee of the bank. That kept us down-sun of the wary and wily trout that inhabit the Crow' too. Well, it was the coldest weather I have ever fished in and early on my fingers were chilled inside the waterproof neoprene gloves... but the river was low and clear and we had driven a long way so we persisted. I was fishing with a bead head hare's ear nymph, on a 12 foot leader with a floating line. This allowed me to get the fly down fairly deep in slower current. We fished near the town of Frank, or what is left of it after the legendary landslide at the beginning of the 20th century. I have fished here before in more clement weather, ie: summer (!) and there are some nice pools there. Typically trout winter in deeper water however I saw no sign of any at all. Nary a one. Not to be deterred I continued to work my fly very thoroughly through the deeper part of the pool and used a bit of tension to slow the drift and cause the fly to rise up as it entered the shallower tail-out (downstream end) of the pool. I was in relatively calm air, and staying just warm enough to carry on. To my surprise I thought I detected a finning trout in the shallower tail out of the pool. The water there was about knee deep I reckon. I was surprised and thought maybe a bit of flotsam may have tricked me as the wind was howling in the trees overhead and lots of junk like twigs and old leaves were blowing into the water. I kept targeting that area at the end of my drifts and low and behold I was delighted when a trout took my nymph firmly! I played it quickly to reduce the impact of fatigue on the fish and reach behind me for my net... crap, I have forgotten to attach it to my vest - it was still in my car! I am fine with handling fish and the hook, barbless, was easily and cleanly removed from the firm lower jaw. Off it swam, downstream to live and feed again. It was about an 11" Brown Trout, which are not native to North America but for a variety of long and complicated reasons they were introduced at the end of the 19th century and now thrive in self sustaining wild populations all over the continent. 

   My buddy and I drove further downriver as the afternoon was waning. We scouted another pool, this one new to both of us. I offered the prime part of the pool to him as he had not caught a fish that day (yet) and minutes later he was rewarded with a Rainbow Trout, similar in size to my earlier fish, and brightly coloured and well formed. Satisfied, and thinking about the long drive home ahead, we called it a day.

   When we hit Hwy 22 the wind read out said gusts to 83kmh!!! It was some day and I reckon that along with ice fishing, I will keep with my winter pursuits of skiing and walking and leave fishing for the balmy days of summer!

Edited by Chef-eth, 04 April 2020 - 02:08 PM.

[Sparky]

^ Great fishing story. Thanks for that Chef-eth.

[Mike K.]

Nice!

That Crowsnest Pass overheated my transmission once. It never happened before, and never since.

[Langford Rat]

Many years ago we returned from a day's fishing. When I dropped my friend off at his house, his girl friend was there, working in the garden....a very nice girl but not the sharpest hook in the tackle box.  As we were unloading the gear and catch she came over and asked how the day had gone. He told her it had been a productive day and was pretty exciting and frantic when we got the double-header. She was amazed. "That's incredible!". We agreed, yes it had been a lot of fun. She seemed overly impressed and raved on and on at our amazing luck (skill?). "Well dear it was pretty cool but it's not really all that unusual" She went back to her gardening as we set about processing our catch for packaging. After a few minutes she was back again and said "I just can't believe it...you guys catch a two-headed fish and you just carry on like it's something you see everyday!"

Being a fisherman, I may be prone to a bit of exaggeration...that that is a true story...

[Mike K.]

That three eyed fish on the Simpson’s ruined a generation.

[lanforod]

We have double-headers here? I thought those are tropical

[Sparky]

"What do you mean you have never caught a steelhead?" my friend Dave shouted at me.

"No" I replied, "Where do you fish for those?"

That started our journey to Spence's Bridge on the Thompson River. Every fall there is/was a pilgrimage by diehard fishermen to stalk the overgrown sea run trout and lure them onto the shore. (pun intended)



I started our quest with a trip to Woolco to acquire a bag full of "Coho 54" spoons which apparently was the lure of choice. What did I know....I was a steelhead virgin. Apparently the lure was cast from the shore into the swiftly moving current and retrieved with a smooth or somewhat jerky motion depending on who you listened to.

The grimy little roadside no-tell motel was crammed with like minded sportsmen drinking warm "Luckys" in the evenings swapping fishing stories, scratching their manhood and tying gear that they would ultimately loose the following day.

The Coho 54 spoon would then be cast upon the water at daybreak. We stood just within earshot of each other along the river's edge casting these little bits of metal out into oblivion. If the spoon became lodged between the boulders upon retrieval then the procedure was to make an about face....tuck your rod under your arm...then walk steadfastly away from the river. One of two things would then take place. The spoon would release it's grip on the rocks...or there would be a sudden ease of pressure on the line and one would need to fish another spoon out of the Woolco bag and launch another attack on the yet unseen "steelie". (again pun intended with the word fish)

After two days of throwing a bagful of metal into the river without so much as a nibble or a strike or even a rumour of someone even seeing a steelhead....I gave up. Fishermen could often be overheard whispering the odd sportsmanlike phrase such as "I've had enough of this $hit". (or words to that effect) That was it. I was done. I headed back to the parking lot.

There was a nice first nations chap there that hung around the parking lot that would accept the odd donation to keep an eye on the fishermen's trucks and gear. He had probably been doing that since he was a boy.

"Giving up?" he said to me with a smile.

"There is no fish in that river". I shot back.

"There is in that little stream behind that hill" he said. "I catch Rainbows in there all the time. I use a worm".

What the hell, I thought...it will be a couple of hours before Dave is ready to leave so I trekked up over the hill only to find a delightful little meadow with a small stream running through it. The sun was in exactly the right position to warm my face and there was a gentle slopping bank to sit and rest. I dug a worm out of the ground with my knife, threaded it onto a hook and sloppily cast it into a spot just above a little 5 or 6 inch drop in the stream were it fed into a large pool.

When the worm went over the little ledge it started to spiral downwards deep into the pool. I remember it pulling on the line so I let it take as much as it wanted. Down it went in a somewhat circular motion. Down..down...this pool was deeper than one might imagine.

BAM!! Fish on. Holy crap. Fighting like a Tuna. It all happened so fast. My heart was racing as I slipped on the bank landing on my ass with the rod in the air...slowly nursing my catch onto the side of the bank. I didn't have a net.

And there it was. The largest and most beautiful rainbow trout I have ever seen. The colours of those rainbow scales glistening in the sun. My heart was still a flutter.

Upon close examination I discovered something that I will only see once in my life. There was an old small rusty hook lodged in his ass. There was a short leader still connected to the hook. The leader still had the loop on the end that one would fasten to a swivel or a "willow leaf".

To this day I am still wondering how it got there. Did he pass this hook through his digestive system? How else could it have gotten there? I don't know but I think this hook and leader assembly had a lot to do with his lifestyle. I don't think this guy did a lot of cross country swimming. If that loop on the end of the leader was to get caught up on a twig or something there would have been a painful reminder connected directly to his ass.... so as to keep him from going very far or for that matter very fast.

He must have lived at the bottom of that pool waiting for food to come to him instead of searching for it.

I stuffed this beauty into the Woolco bag and didn't say a word to anyone.

Later that night when the boys were sucking on their Luckys and complaining about the lack of steelhead in the Thompson.....I slowly went over to the fridge and pulled out this bad boy once in a lifetime trophy....proudly displayed it to them..... and then suggested to them all that they needed to sharpen their fishing skills a little.

Priceless.

[davidN]

^ That is a great story Sparky; I think long time fishermen/women who've been at it long enough have experienced something similar although perhaps not quite as amazing considering the odds of your specific scenario transpiring. You likely couldn't duplicate that one in a thousand years if you tried, lol.

 

Our oddest 'can't believe I got it in the boat" story involved initially just a standard strike off Secretary Island north of Sooke, a nice coho, which my buddy Mark got within fifteen feet of the boat when it snapped the leader, hook, lure, swivels, line - and, unbelievably, the flasher. Hell. Oh well it happens, he resets his line and proceeds to keep fishing.

 

Half an hour later I need to pee so I stand up in the bow to do my thing. Standing up of course I now have a different - and better - view and vantage of the immediate sea near us. Fortunately it was a bright sunny day and suddenly about 50 meters away I see this distinct and very bright flash of light. And again. And yet again so I tell the guys to steer the boat in that direction to investigate.

 

Eventually after chasing it for awhile to get close enough we get within ~ five meters and determine it is a flasher. Hey - it looks like Mark's flasher. We get even closer. It is Mark's flasher. With the fifteen odd feet of line - not to mention that lovely coho - still on the other end of the line. The fish had been unable to dive with all that gear trailing behind it. We catch up to it and in spite of the fact the fish took off again Mark managed to grab the flasher then use it to hand wind the line wrapping it around the flasher and eventually getting the struggling fish into the boat. Any creature that fought that hard to survive deserved to live so naturally we revived and eventually released it. 

OK - Now my fishing story.

OOPS - I have none! 

Thus my post. 

I would like to have a story or two. I have lived in Victoria for years and recently my adult son came to me with the question  - why don't we know how to fish in our family?. Hmm - good question. Time ,lack of exposure to the sport in our family and social circle etc. etc. was my answer but that seemed rather lame.

I have been on fishing charters out of Sooke on seveal occasions and really enjoyed my time on the water. But never had the time or chance to delve into things further.

Now I do. But where to start?

Just looking to get out on the water for some recreational fishing. So many questions;

Can one bare boat charter to start?

What type of boat & engine?

Fishing rods etc.

Charts?

Licensing required?

Time of year?

Safety?

 

So many questions but the posters here seem to be a very knowledgeable group so this is probably a good place to start my enquires. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks so much.

 

D.

[Sparky]

^ Right. Now the work begins.

You are obviously planning a salt water experience. Bare boat charters used to be available at Pedder Bay Marina but a quick peek at their website shows that almost all of their services are suspended due to Covid.

In addition to that I am not sure if Island Outfitters is open again after the fire.

This might be an awkward time to get started in fishing.

Having said that I can’t think of a better way to connect with your adult son than spending time with him on the water. Don’t give up on your vision davidN ...we will get you started.

[davidN]

Thanks for your response . I look forward to your ideas.

 

D.