Text and photos by Mary L. Peachin with cover courtesy of West Coast Resorts and Kathy Berggren-Clive
Vol. 13. No. 8
The fish struck hard. Rose Vidas really couldn’t judge its size, this was her first ever fishing trip, and the bite, a strong one, came as a surprise.
In early June, Chinook salmon, also known as Spring or King, are just beginning their migration through Englefield Bay. According to West Coast Resort’s Lodge Manager James Norquist, “most anglers don’t realize that this unusual high pressure system combined with a northwest wind disperses bait concentrations.”
Glorious weather may be enjoyable, but, the down side is that it can slow the fishing. Near Denham Point and Cape Henry, prime locations, bait chasing salmon are challenging to find. Bottom fishing remained fairly typical for Englefield. Sangster, Romania, Hastings and Percy, and the southeast corner of Lihou were productive for halibut. The boats who fished Inskip Channel’s northern shore landed yelloweye snapper.
When seas are calm, Denham Point’s shoals are target areas for “chickens”, those tasty, smaller halibut. Guide Troy Hogg baited a circle hook with salmon belly. A level wind Penn reel holding a hundred pound test line with a one pound weight was released two to four hundred feet, just off the ocean floor. This type of fishing can produce more than just halibut.
This was not a typical fishing week, period. A last minute corporate cancelation inspired West Coast Resorts to make Englefield Bay available to women only. The majority of the gathering of fifty-some women had little, if any, fishing experience. Topping that list was Rose.
Temperatures between seventy five and eighty six (24-30 C) and calm seas, almost unheard of in the desolate and windy Charlottes, brought a show of bikinis sunning on boat decks. If the fishing was slow, the humpback whale migration wasn’t. As the whales moved north, their blow hole spouts were visible everywhere. A colony of Stellar sea lions peaked everyone interest as did soaring eagles and fish-diving pigeon guillemots.
Each day around noon, the lunch runner boat arrived in Denham Bay. Anglers congregated around the kelp beds for more than just a ham and cheese sandwich. The runner passed over a thermos of homemade soup, a salad or sandwich, cookies, and beverages. Any caught fish were transferred for an expeditious return to the lodge for cleaning.
When the fishing day was over, there was time for a hot tub, massage, a happy hour accompanied by a guitarist, followed by a gourmet dinner. Serious fishers would head to bed, but many gals partied into the night. While they could begin fishing at five in the morning, they did not feel the compulsion of a daybreak start.
West Coast Resorts provides cleaning, fileting, flash freezing, then packs the fish for the trip home. But, these ladies weren’t “meat hunters,” they came to have a good time.
Each day, West Coast provided five hours of guiding instruction. Most of the women didn’t want the responsibility of baiting, setting downriggers, and running an eighteen-foot Brideview aluminum boat with a 75 horsepower Mercury engine in the tricky currents of the Queen Charlotte Islands. Those who did not pay the premium for a two angler fully guided trip, tripled up.
Ask Coquitlam resident Rose Vidas how she enjoyed her West Coast fishing trip. That salmon she hooked was a fifty two pound trophy white fleshed Chinook. Yes, she was “beside myself, and couldn’t believe it.” Let’s hope that her salmon sets a season record.
If you go:
West Coast Resorts, www.westcoastresorts.com. Four and five day trips starting at $4,095.00 include an hour charter jet flight from Vancouver, British Columbia to Sandspit, QCI, then a twenty-minute transfer on a twenty one passenger Sikorsky S-61N helicopter.
Northern British Columbia’s Queen Charlotte Islands or Haida Gwaii is an archipelago comprised of more than one hundred fifty islands. Located approximately fifty miles southwest of Alaska, the Haida have inhabited the islands for thousands of years. In addition to the First Nation’s Argillite carvings, totem poles and ancient villages, the natural beauty of the area along with its prolific salmon migrations primarily attracts anglers-including women.