noon approached, Jake and his friends busied themselves unpacking their hampers of food and setting it out on the table in the galley. The smell of the food imposed itself on the fresh sea air, so I kept my distance and stayed as close to the stern as I could. Something about some picnic foods and the aroma of damp, limp sandwiches can turn my stomach, especially if tomatoes are involved. Sten, on the other hand, kept peering expectantly down the companionway into the galley like a wolf in search of a carcass.
The sounder was still showing dense feed so I altered the depth of the lines a few times to see whether that would draw a strike. It didn’t. I decided to change the bait from the fresh herring we were using to a Tomic plug—but only on the portside downrigger. I had a favourite beaten-up plug that often produced a fish when little else was working. I brought up the downrigger and swung the weight into the cleaning trough before unsnapping the flasher with the bait attached to it, then replaced it with my plug using an eighteen-inch leader. After lowering the weight back into the water, I watched the action of the plug for a few minutes, trying to understand why this plug worked so well. I had no idea—it seemed like all the other plugs I had in my tackle drawer. I put the line down to forty-eight feet. I wanted these people to go home with memories of catching a slug—a really big fish, the kind you might lie about—off the West Coast of Canada.
We fished through the flood tide and into the slack. The activity was good, with the bell on the downrigger continually ringing and giving everyone a chance to play a fish. By the time the tide began to turn we had five salmon on ice. We had lost as many.
Chuck and Jeannie caught a brace of salmon between them. Sten and I had both been wrong. Despite her delicate, polished appearance and her initial trepidation, Jeannie surprised me by playing her fish with easy skill, which made me realize there was depth to this young bride. She also had a sense of humour. While they didn’t break world records, they had some good fish that had fought with courage. Just before the tide started to run I suggested we pull up all our lines, find a quiet spot and finish our lunch. Everyone agreed, so Sten cruised us to a serene eddy we often used, cut the engine and came down to the galley to plough down some food. I was surprised to see him mingle with the guests since he had been adamant about remaining apart from them, but I kept my thoughts to myself. I’d remind him later that I’d won our bet.
At the stern of the boat I kept an eye on our drift; although we were in a back eddy, the tide was changing and currents could shift abruptly. This is perfect, I thought. There was just a slight breeze, the sky was a crackling blue, the Olympic Range was crystal clear from twenty-two miles away and the rumble of the changing tide was just beginning to build.
And I have a nice bunch of people. These are the good old days.
At the start of the day, I had been concerned Chuck was going to be a loudmouth who ruined the fishing for everyone; instead he’d turned out to be a thoughtful fellow with a fine sense of humour. Of course, he couldn’t let an occasion go by without pulling our legs about how much bigger and better everything was in his home state of Texas. I’d guessed him to be a rancher, but during one of our conversations he told me he owned a string of fast-food franchises—over thirty of them, Jake later told me. I did the math and realized that Chuck was in a financial comfort zone enjoyed by very few. To his credit he had done it all on his own, starting with one franchise he could barely afford to purchase and sleeping and eating in the back room. Here he was, nearly twenty years later, living the good life. How can you complain about one man’s well-earned success?
“What are you thinking, Skipper?” Chuck had come up behind me.
“I was thinking it’s about time we caught you a real Canadian salmon.”
“I don’t think you’ve got any real fish up here. If you ever come down to Texas, give me a call and I’ll take you out to catch some real fish.” There was humour in his voice and laughter in his eyes. He looked around and took a deep breath. “But it sure smells good up here, and it’s sure pretty.”
We stood quietly, soaking in the scenery and feeling the boat gently shift in the current. Without warning, an orca breached twenty feet from the stern of the boat. Behind it, a second orca propelled its glistening black and white body into the air, landing its massive nine-ton hulk on its side and seriously rocking the boat.
Chuck was thrown back, and as he braced himself against the bulkhead, I saw real fear in his eyes. “What the hell is that?” he yelled.
Without hesitating, I shouted back, “Canadian salmon!”
chapter 2
A Man of Grace
The first time Cliff fished with us, he was in a mixed group of guests aboard our newly refurbished Kalua. His sister, Alison, had made the booking based on a glowing recommendation from her friends. When she called, the only questions she asked were the time of departure and whether her brother should pack a lunch to bring with him.
Subsequently, for four consecutive years, Cliff booked at least one charter with us each summer. During that time we became good friends and he became our fishing legend. I write this with a smile because I know if he were to read these words, he would punch me in the shoulder. One of his charms was that he never took himself seriously. However, he was the consummate example of how, in life, it is important to be in the right place at the right time with the right set of skills. From our point of view, he was our man.
On his first charter, Cliff—Dr. Cliff McGee—was booked with three other people. In the group was a single fellow called Rae who was togged out in camouflage pants and shirt. He had no interest in fishing; his interest was photography. During the charter Rae spent a great deal of time at the bow of the boat with his cameras and bag, taking pictures of anything that stirred him. With his own Thermos of tea and a packet of sandwiches, he was quite content to enjoy the ride. At the end of the charter he left a fat tip for Sten and thanked us both vociferously for a marvellous experience. I never saw him again, but later that year I received a large brown envelope containing an article he had written for a national magazine that included some of the pictures he had taken while he was out with us.
The two other guests on this charter were US naval officers from a war vessel moored in Esquimalt. They introduced themselves as Ricardo and Jensen. While Rae, our photographer, and Cliff, our doctor, wore idiosyncratic clothing, these two looked as though they had picked their clothes out of someone else’s locker. There was not a hint of navy apparel in their selection. They both wore jackets and shirts better suited for portly men and pants turned up at the cuff. They explained that their shipmates had hidden their clothes as a practical joke and what they were wearing had been scrounged from more sympathetic colleagues. They certainly added an interesting element to the group.
On our way out to Race Rocks, a marine ecological reserve in the Juan de Fuca Strait, I asked everyone how they would like to fish. To a man they wanted to troll, so I told them how we rotated strikes and asked them to work out who was to be first up. We would run two lines. The tide change would happen in about an hour and a half, but I expected to land some fish before then. It was a lovely cruise out to the rocks with such an animated, optimistic group.
We saw an osprey returning to its nest carrying a grilse in its talons, and the Steller sea lions were on full display lounging on the rocks surrounding the lighthouse at Race Rocks. But they stank—there was no polite word for it. The reek of their digested fish diet was so strong it made your eyes water. In the summer months, under the right wind conditions, the smell could force you to leave the area. On this particular day, the sky was overcast with a threat of showers. Fortunately the wind was not blowing in our direction, so the smell was negligible. I had spent some time in Vietnam, and the smell reminded me of a sauce they make in that gorgeous country with anchovies and salt. In North America it is sold as fish sauce; in Vietnam it is called nuoc man.
We cruised through Race Passage up to Church Rock, where Sten turned us around to face the ebbing tide and I set the lines. Ricardo, the youngest of the naval officers, had drawn first strike so I ran him through the strike procedure. Within twenty minutes we had our first hit and our first fish in the boat. It was a beautiful eight-pound coho, sparkling clean, free of sea