Trolling along. That little four stroke kicker muttering and bubbling to itself. Wake disappearing into the fog astern. Water burbling under the bow. It's not that bad really......just damp, cold and I can't see a damned thing !Suddenly, like going through a door, I'm in sunlight. Aft the fog bank lies on the water like a big cotton wool blanket. Dead ahead the Straights of Georgia the sun dancing off the water and the snow on the Olympic Mountains dazzling bright. On the port hand, not too far away, the bright green of the cedars crowding the waters edge. The sea curling against the rocky shore of East Sooke.
Within an hour the fog has completely dispersed and I am surrounded by the most benign of days as I troll by Beachy Head. This what it must be all about. No fish in the boat, except for the frozen anchovies in the cooler, but it's a beautiful day!
This abrupt change, like the switching on of a light, in the coming years, always came as a complete surprise. I knew it was going to happen. Never quite sure exactly when but you knew.....and it was always a surprise. Perhaps not quite the revelation of that first morning but a surprise nevertheless.
As the fog bank dispersed completely I became aware that there were no other boats in my immediate vicinity. They seemed to be more congregated around Secretary Island to the North and over to the Northwest. A clue Watson!!
Up with the gear. Crank up the big engine and head north to what must be the fishing ground.
Get close ! Kill the big engine. Fire up the kicker. Get the gear back in the water. Start fishing in earnest. The fish have to be here ! Everybody else is !!
A hundred yards away a cry of excitement and the flash of the sun on a flasher as it clears the water. I know enough to turn away and watch, with envy, a fish, a beautiful fish being netted, photographed and tossed in a cooler to await it's fate at the hands of the reaper with the filleting knife.
My anticipation rises. Now I'm excited. Thar's fish in them thar waters!! I've seen the proof of it.
Nothing! Fat zero. Zilch. Nada.
Over time I became the talk of the marina. Out most mornings. Some were foggy.....many not. Fill up with gas. Buy more anchovies. I remember it was hot. Occasionally cooled by an onshore breeze out of the northwest or cooler coming off the snow covered mountains of Washington State.
What I did get was a suntan!! Burnt black by the sun and the wind. I looked as though I belonged.
I fished for nine weeks, yes nine weeks, without landing anything of note......certainly not a salmon!!!
To fully understand the enormity of this you need to understand something of a salmon's life cycle.......not that I wish to bore you but......
The different specie of salmon have different life cycles some shorter than others. The shortest of them all is the pink salmon....they "run" every two years and on the west coast of Vancouver Island it's on the odd numbered years.
The waters are thick with them. You barely need a rod. You can whistle them into the boat !
This was an "odd" year! You could catch the limit before the fog burned off. Everybody is catching fish. Everybody except me! I would sit at the marina, later in the day, watching the lineup at the cleaning station. Photographs being taken. Otters and seals in abundance feeding off the leftovers of the cleaning station. (Never leave a fish out on the cutting board. An otter will have it faster than you can blink!!)
My stamina had to be admired as was my suntan. My fishing prowess was non existent. What was I doing wrong?
I had been out one morning not actually fishing. I'd taken a run up to Race Rocks in the direction of Victoria to see where the bachelor sea lions congregate before migrating south for the winter.
Back in the marina, sitting in the cockpit, enjoying the second beer of the day I was paid a visit by Ron. I remember him quite well. He only had one thumb and had been chartering for a number of years. Quite a taciturn sort of fella who tended not to socialize with the other charter fishers. He enjoyed the fishing. Always had a prosperous season........for as long as it lasted....and enjoyed home and family up the West Coast Road.
I offered him a beer and he took the other seat in the cockpit. Although he didn't have to ask he still asked me how I was doing. "I know the boat. I know the area. I'm getting used to the weather and being able to read it but I can't catch fish to save my life." I said.
"Don't worry about it too much" he said. "We've all been there at some time or another." "Some just don't like to admit it." "I have a cancellation tomorrow morning why don't I come out with you and maybe I can help you a bit?" I leaped at the opportunity. Ron was a successful charter operator and I could do nothing but learn from him. "I'll bring breakfast and coffee." I said. "See you in the morning."
For once it wasn't foggy that morning. It was dark but not dark. The stars were waining but the moon was still bright and shining like a spotlight down the water. It was as though the world was holding it's breath waiting for the sun to rise.
We left the dock in the dark and headed out across the basin. Ron tinkered with my radar which I'd added soon after my first encounter with fog. He showed me how to set the collision alarm. "One of the most important tools on this gadget." He said......not critical.
We entered the narrow marked channel running down the side of Sooke harbour, the lights winking in the distance to starboard as folk began another day. Hard to port running down Whiffen Spit. Stay within the marks. It gets awful shallow through here even at the height of the flood. Through the gap, rocks close aboard either side, big engine growling as we cleared the danger and headed out into the bay.
We ran out, chatting about the ups and downs of the business. "Head over there Peter and cut the engine" Ron says. He leant over and punched in a way point on the GPS. "For further reference." he said. "Give it a name later. You'll be able to come back to it now." First lesson !
"Set up the gear." he says. "Get two rods in the water. That's enough for now." I begin to set up the first rod. "That's on backwards" he says. Second lesson !
So began a crash course in salmon fishing. Ron reminded me a bit of an old sailing mentor Jason who taught me how to sail years ago in the south of England. Long dead but not forgotten. Ron didn't smoke when Jason was rarely seen without his pipe jutting out of his mouth like a bowsprit. He was quiet though. Rarely critical. Rarely judgemental and didn't seem overly concerned about protecting "trade secrets" as were many.
It couldn't have been ten minutes when Ron nodded in the direction of one of the down riggers. "Watch that one" he says. Wham....... the rigger gave a lurch, the release clip did it's job and line was running off the reel. We were fishing !!! I was elated. A few minutes later my first fish of the year was lying in the bottom of the boat. A pink! Just a lowly pink. The easiest of all the salmon to catch but it was a fish ! Not just a fish but a salmon!! I'd arrived.
Off and on Ron and I fished together over the course of the next five years. Particularly in the Fall when the customers had gone and kids were back in school. October was great fishing but with few customers. Fishing for the big Cohoe out in the traffic lanes. Learning every day.
I learnt how to fish the tide lines visualizing the convergence of currents below. I learned about Chinook....we call them Springs on the west coast. Americans call them King Salmon. How lazy they are and how territorial. These are the truly big salmon. The trophy fish.
I learned how to fish sockeye four to five miles out between the traffic lanes. One eye on the weather to windward the other on the freighter traffic conscious of the fact that off Sooke they do not carry a pilot.
I learnt how to quickly fillet fish and how to smoke them. I learned some of the local First Nation folklore so as I could entertain customers on quieter days. I learned about the birds, the seals and the whales. People ask questions. I wanted to appear "the old man of the sea." It was fascinating.
After learning the basics from Ron I slowly built up a customer base. Very slowly I should add. Revenue was lousy but the expense was constant. Every day I learnt a bit more. Every day a bit more confident.
In five years of chartering I only had one customer who was obnoxious. He was with his wife who never said boo. He was American and knew everything about everything. For him everything was wrong. "Don't do it that way back home" was his favorite expression. We have a couple of good fish in the cooler. One a Spring over thirty pounds as I recollect. "We're going too fast." he would say. "Are you fishing at the right depth?" He was relentless. What was his objective? Impress his wife? Looked to me as though she just tuned him out.
Hey...at the end of the day he's a customer ! He's paying $300 dollars for a morning's fishing.......but it's endless and getting boring. Tomorrow I have a rare back to back chartering day so to hell with it.
Stop the boat. Haul in the gear. Pour myself a coffee and leisurely head for home about half an hour's running time away. "What you doing" he says to me. "Heading home" I say. "You can't do that" he says sounding a little more belligerent. I haul back on the throttle and let the boat lose it's momentum in the gentle swell. I check 360 degrees. The shore is a couple of miles off.
" My boat" I say. "I'm the skipper. Don't want you on my boat any more so we're heading back to the dock. There's no charge for the morning and the fish are yours although I've no intention of cleaning them for you." Now he's getting angry. "Hey bud" I say. "You can get off here or back at the dock......I'm easy. Water's pretty darn cold though." With that I opened up the throttle and headed home quietly humming to myself.
Edging into the dock there's a couple of charter guys standing there. One helps me with the lines. I help the wife off the boat and put the fish in a green garbage bag. One of the guys on the dock starts to laugh. The other just can't help himself and totally cracks up. My non paying customer stalks off in a huff leaving disparaging remarks in his wake............but the wife does thank me!
I got the original booking through the local charter association to which all the operators belonged. This particular customer was known to the group and they had settled him on me.....the newbie.
I'd been accepted!
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