Our First Shark

April 13th (Monday)

In the morning I headed back over to the municipal building to add a few more items to our food order.  While I was away, Jason got us all ready to go out fishing, and when I got back we headed out.  It was a beautiful morning, partly cloudy, but the winds were light and it was lovely. 

On our way out we had some very unexpected outboard issues.  Through the winter we had some issues with getting our motor started on the cold mornings, and it has not gotten dramatically better as the temperatures have been getting warmer.  We have been doing some minor troubleshooting and we think that it might be a faulty automatic choke.  We have gotten in touch with the Yamaha service centre in Victoria that we purchased the motor from, and we are hoping for some advice.  Unfortunately with the COVID-19 restrictions that are in place it would be impossible for us to take it to a service centre, so hopefully they will be willing to help us either over the phone or by email.

The issue that we had today, however, was quite different, although possibly related.  When we are planing along we make a point of using all of the different rpm speeds from time to time, and so at this point we were running at full throttle.  Our speed suddenly dropped as we could hear the rpm of the engine drop, then it jumped back up, then dropped again, and finally died.  At first we thought the engine must have overheated, as this is a similar behaviour to when it overheats and cuts out to prevent damage, but there was nothing blocking the water intake holes.  After letting it rest awhile, we started it and it started fine.  The tell tale water stream was flowing well so we headed out again, unsure as to the problem.  After awhile we tried full throttle again since it was running well and once again it bogged down and died.  This time we made a point of checking the overheat light, and it was not illuminated.  So odd.  

We set our second prawn trap on our way out and then carried on to our fishing spot out from Wallace Bay to drift, fish, and ponder our new problem. 

There was a very slight breeze that was blowing up from the south and the tide was flooding so we figured that we would drift up the inlet and we positioned ourselves with that in mind.  As it turned out we drifted across the inlet instead of up, but it worked out okay.  After catching some little fish we got a nice bite and got a nice 26” Halibut.  Later I got a bigger bite, but it got off part way up; darn barbless hooks, but I imagine that the fish was grateful.  A little while later Jason got a nice bite, and by the way that it fought we were totally expecting it to be a Halibut; we were very surprised when it turned out to be a shark.  It was a Pacific Spiny Dogfish, and super cool.  Its eye was emerald green and shone brightly in the sunlight.  It had a solid body of muscle and its skin felt like a cat’s tongue, coarse like sandpaper, and apparently in the old days they used to use it that way.  

The Dogfish had twisted itself up in our net, and it took both of us working together to get it out.  Jason then held it firmly across his knees while I used my pliers to try and free the hooks.  It is called a Spiny Dogfish because it has one large spine in front of each of its two dorsal fins, and Jason had to be careful of them as the fish wriggled in his grip.  

We managed to get it free and although the poor guy had a hole through its cheek, it was otherwise unharmed.  

About an hour before we finished fishing I got a really good bite.  It was the kind of bite where the line just goes taught, the rod bends over, and then the fish starts taking out the line with the drag singing away.  Then, as quick as it had hit, it got off.  So disappointing, but now we know the fish is there for next time.  It was a lovely day to be out fishing.  

On our way home we pulled up and re-baited our first prawn trap.  We did not have any prawns, which is not surprising as we had not re-baited the trap last time, but we did have a very odd fish.  

We think we have identified it as a Pile Perch, although from what our fish book says Perches are usually only shallow water fish, sometimes up to 100 feet, and our prawn trap was in about 250 feet.  Very interesting.