British Columbia Salmon and Halibut Fishing with IWL

(This is an excerpt from Kevin’s letter to his California buddy, Ken.)

It was good to call you, Ken, to tell you about our salmon fortunes.   I hope it didn’t sound like boasting.   Perhaps that’s the reason I didn’t call the next week after we went out for halibut.  

You know the drill.   Captain Paul and I ran out to Constance Bank and anchored in about 200 feet of water.   He uses a GPS to locate a spot about the size of my house out in the middle of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.   All around us the water dropped to depths of 300 to 450 feet.  

That Saturday the currents looked good for boating some halis.   When we anchored, the current was too fast to reach the fish, but within a half hour its speed dropped, our baits dropped, and we were bumping the bottom.   The prime fishing would continue for about three hours, and then the current would stop cooperating…a good thing too, because Paul was due at a wedding of family friends twenty miles away in the early afternoon.   His wife, Joy, had issued him strong warnings and serious incentives to get there, showered, shaved, on time…well, at least, ON TIME.

The dogfish and ratfish were toying with our gear for a while.   But then, a serious yank bent my rod over.   After a ten minute tug of war, I was able to lift a 25 pound “chicken” (the BC name for the small ones) from the bottom.   After a quick gaff and tie, it became the first hali in the box.   We were off to a good start.

That first fish was joined an hour later by a nice 40 pounder that Paul yarded up from 200 feet.   Since the fish box was built for salmon, this one was spilling out of the box, even though it had been hog-tied.   These animals don’t dispatch very easily…in Alaska , they shoot them…so we usually tie them to quiet them down.   Needless to say, we were pretty pleased with ourselves.

At five minutes before the absolute ON TIME deadline he ’d calculated, Paul said, “Let’s pull the gear, yard up the anchor and hit the road (?).   I’ve a wedding to get to.”   We began the process one rod at a time so Paul could avoid Judge Judy and divorce court.  

The two port side baits were the last in the water.   Just when I started to retrieve the closest, something very big took the bait.   It swam slowly away, easily stripping line from the reel, and then the line went slack.   “It’s gone,” I said to Paul.   “Tease it,” he said back.   I wasn't the guy they’d be waiting for at the church, so I cooperated and bumped the bait back down.   Nothing.  

I kept it still for 10 seconds then started to tease it again.   We call this making the bait“act erratically” not “erotically”. On the third tap on the bottom, the rod butt kicked me in the belly and the reel started a high-pitched scream.   The yelling of the drag was added to the percussion section played by the Peetz reel’s clicker.   After the initial huge run, I started the hard work of pulling a loaded refrigerator off the bottom.   Paul’s slightly worried comment was, “Go ahead, bring it in, I’ll get the last rod in so we can really move on the way back.   Oh no!!”   I glanced over, trying to keep my fingers from being bashed by the reel’s single action knobs, and saw Paul’s problem.   “Oh no!”, we said in unison.   The last rod had hooked a halibut too!   No teasing or bumping this time…just plain doubled over rod and screaming Peetz reel.   “No one is going to believe this,” laughed Paul in between his hali’s runs.

Fifteen minutes of heavy work later, my halibut was 15 feet under the boat.   It was big, not huge, about 70 pounds.   Paul put his rod back into a rod holder so he could harpoon my fish.   He also looked at his watch and commented that he was about to lose the house in the settlement.   When I managed to bring the hali to the surface, Paul drew back the harpoon and waited for the fish’s dark side to come up.   A harpoon head through the white belly side will usually cut sideways and tear out of the fish…you can guess why I know this.  

Slowly the table top came around and turned its two eyes on us.   Paul thrust the harpoon right into the centre of the fish. As you draw the harpoon handle back after the thrust, it leaves its four-inch stainless steel head in (or hopefully, through) the fish.   The head is connected by a fifty-foot nylon rope to a boat cleat.   “Oops,” he said.

The word “Oops” never sounds good from the mouth of a surgeon or the mouth of a boat captain. The harpoon head had not come off…it had come right out of its initial entry hole.   Now I not only had a solidly hooked halibut, but a pissed-off halibut to boot.   The hali simply swam right back to the bottom and sulked.

My arms were on fire from pulling this animal up the first time, and now I had to do it again.   Meanwhile, Paul had brought his fish to the side of the boat, a paltry 40 pounder, and he gaffed it and flipped it into the box (good luck!).   When his hali flipped back out of the box, he ignored it, and began mumbling about the trouble he was in. He asked if I could be a character witness.   But I was concentrating on my own troubles…the quarter mile of fish reeling was nearing an end for me.  

The second time up was not as tough as the first.   The fish was tired, it was holed once, and so it came more cooperatively to the surface.   After a proper harpooning, we hog-tied the halibut.   The hog-tie method involves a loop around the tail, a rope through the gills, and then a lot of tightening of the connecting rope to bend the halibut.   At that point, the hali can be lifted into the boat.   Unless you cinch up a fish this size, it can wreck many things inside the boat, fishermen included.  

This halibut covered most of the fishing deck area.   We left it, pulled the anchor, and got back to Esquimalt Anglers Marina (6 nautical miles) as fast as possible.   Paul gave me some quick instructions about how to clean halibut, and as soon as we docked and trailered the boat, he was off to the wedding, mumbling his story over and over.  

I trucked the fish home and did the cleaning on a sheet of plywood on saw horses.   The fillets sell for at least $15.00 a pound Canadian at the grocery store.   We had enough for me to give many of my neighbours some fresh halibut that had been swimming only a few hours earlier.   I expect to be nominated Mayor of Metchosin by these same neighbours.

As for Paul, I’ve decided he might have some small Irish heritage.   Even though he was sunburned, late, and smelled “unusual” (to say the least!), he got to the wedding, told this same story, and remained married.

And very well-fed.

Kevin O'Neill