Our Biggest Salmon Thus Far

June 7th (Sunday)  

In the morning we headed out salmon fishing.  It was a beautiful glassy calm morning and although there were many large clouds hugging up against the mountains and moving around, there were also some blue patches.  We saw one very large rain shower that looked at first like it might make its way towards us, but it ended up spreading out and dissipating, and we remained dry.  

It was not a warm morning, however, not summer like at all.  I was happy that I had bundled up, but it felt a little ridiculous to be back in my long john pants and fleece jacket layers in June.  Although we did get some periods of sunshine through the moving clouds, as the breeze began to pick up I ended up putting on an extra puffy-vest layer, and my rain jacket as a windbreaker.  

We trolled along Barba Point and ended up going further along the shoreline than we previously had.  We saw a neat looking overgrown gully that had a small stream running out of it and a very large rock right at the entrance.  Looking back through the grown up trees and undergrowth we could see that part of the cliff had long ago given way.  We also came to a very pretty waterfall.  It was tucked into the trees, almost framed within them, and we only saw it as we came right up to it.  The water tumbled down over the rocks and dropped onto a ledge that at low tide was dry, and then ran again off and into the water, but at high tide the waterfall would drop straight into the ocean.  It was quite pretty.  

There is never any warning when a fish is going to bite the hook.  One always has to hold on tight, but inevitably there are other things that one wants to do, like have a drink, eat an apple, look around, or shift position, and it is always a surprise when a big bite comes.  Jason’s bite came out of nowhere and I quickly got the outboard into neutral and started to reel in my line as Jason fought the fish.  It put up a good fight, pulling side to side, forward and back, and diving downwards, but Jason slowly worked it in towards the boat where I stood ready with the net.  It took a few passes for the fish to come close enough for me to net it, it kept zipping off this way and that and pulling out line on Jason’s reel.  As it passed the boat for the fourth time it came within reaching distance and I dipped the net and scooped it up.  As soon as the fish was out of the water I was surprised by its weight.  It had to have been close to 25 lbs.  It was 33.5 inches long and very deep.  It was definitely the largest salmon that we have caught.  Yay!!

On our way home we pulled up our prawn traps and sadly we only had three, but the door to one of the traps had been forced open.  Two of the three clips holding it closed were broken and there was a couple-inch gap part way around.  We reset the other trap and brought the broken one back to the dock to fix.  While we had it on the dock I did some repair work to the netting as well and later we took it back out to reset it.  We also took our crab trap out with the fish carcass in it because although we just froze a bunch of crab, it has been a long time since we have had a fresh crab dinner.

One of our boat neighbours, a local resident, was down working on his boat when we got home.  When he came over to admire our fish, he mentioned that he was having an electrical issue on his boat.  We ended up giving him a hand with some troubleshooting and were able to lend him some tools and offer some advice.  

Surprisingly Joey did not come by while we were cleaning the salmon, I guess she must have been out doing her own fishing.  Interestingly, the meat of the salmon was very pale compared to that of our last one.  According to one of the residents here, some of the Chinook salmon in this area are White Chinook and although they may be eating food with carotenoid antioxidant in it, they lack the ability to synthesize it.  Interesting!  Of course we had fresh salmon for dinner, and it was delicious, just as tasty, even if it was quite pale!!  It is amazing how flavorful fresh salmon is.