A no surprises salmon-fishing trip
Bert, the author’s guide, holds a smallish coho salmon silhouetted against a setting sun near Nootka Sound on the northwestern corner of Vancouver Island, BC.
By Jim Pearson
No financial surprises awaited the three of us this time when we went back to British Columbia salmon fishing.
It wasn’t that way a month ago when we went to east side of Vancouver Island and I told you about that.
We had a couple hundred bucks worth of “Oh, by the ways” awaiting us. Not only that, we were given no instruction on the use of the radio, GPS, nor were we shown how to hook up the anchovies they used as bait.
Help at the dock was non-existent. As a result, I tipped only the cook and his helper when we left.
This trip was different.
Tom Perry, Don Manning and I drove to Vancouver and caught the ferry to Vancouver Island, drove to Campbell River, stayed the night and the next morning, drove on in to Tahsis on the west side of the island.
Tahsis is a tiny little town nestled in a protected deep-water harbor at the end of Nootka Sound.
Captain Cook, among others, visited Tahsis in the early days. It was once home to a lumber mill, but that is closed, so now it’s a fishing town.
Bert, a young Indian from Campbell River, picked us up in a 25-foot boat and took us on a 40-minute ride to the camp in Esperanza Inlet.
The camp is run by Doug Rodgers and his wife Pam.
We fished with Bert for the remainder of that day, the following two days and a partial day before the trip ended.
The fishing was great. The three of us came home with salmon possession limits of eight fish each — only one of which was a king.
Doug had told us this would be a coho fishery and what cohos they were. Tom caught one that weighed 18 pounds and Bert said that was the biggest silver he had ever seen.
We struck out on halibut, catching dogfish (small sharks) instead, but on the next to last day, one of the guys brought in a 140-pound hali. We did take a few rockfish as a bonus.
The camp buildings are on floats anchored in a protected cove where the water is always flat.
The rooms are nice with a bathroom and shower. Breakfasts are continental and after eating, we made a sandwich, grabbed some fruit and maybe a boiled egg and it was off to the fishing at 7 each morning.
If we fished nearby, we could come in for hot soup along with our sandwich and the coffee pot was always on.
Dinner was served from 6 to 8 p.m. and we sometimes ate an early dinner and went back for a couple hours of evening fishing if we didn’t already have our daily catch limit.
We fished with Bert on the same boat he used to pick us up in Tahsis — a 24-foot fiberglass with two Yamaha outboard motors: one a 200-horse and the other a 9.9.
The big motor trolled down to a mile and a half per hour, but at 6,000 rpm, it sent the boat on its way at 40 miles per hour. The kicker motor was used mostly to keep the boat over the halibut grounds.
The weather was great, although it got rough enough on the open water to make Tom and Don a bit queasy, but it didn’t bother me. I’ve never had motion sickness. Of course, the 25-foot boat was a help. Shorter boats give a rougher ride.
We saw seals, sea lions and whales.
In fact, a humpback whale surfaced 40 feet from our boat, eyed us for moment, decided he didn’t like the company and dived.
By the time I got the camera out, it was too late.
It was a great trip and we plan to return next year.
The Rodgers are friendly, down-to-earth people. The guides, some of whom have worked for the Rodgers’ several years, are friendly and know their stuff. They want their fishermen to succeed.
At the end of the day, Bert cleaned our fish and packed them on ice.
As you probably noticed, I didn’t include names or contacts for the last trip we took, but I will this time because I recommend this trip highly.
You may email the Rodgers’ for information at info@rodgersfishinglodgecom. You may also call at (800) 429-5288.
I don’t know when they will call their season to an end, but you may still have time to catch some of those big cohos.
Short URL: http://othellooutlook.com/?p=4706
Posted by admin
on Sep 18 2009. Filed under Jim Pearson.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
