fishing haida gwaii

[gwaii]

folks come from all over the world to fish here,so i try to take advantage of living two minutes from the boat launch whenever i can sneak away from work.

figured i may as well put up a thread to show what's up.




boat's in the water and i'm ready to hunt the elusive halibut.



on the way out of the harbour the local bus is pulling up to the stop.these guys are pretty important to an isolated island community.



my fishing partner.better conversation than most of the people i know,and she loves to check out the catch.



my first stop is at a little hali hole off the old haida village of yan,at the north end of masset inlet.it's a good spot to get all the gear set up,and while i've pulled some really nice fish from here,this trip didn't pan out.that's ok,my plan was to head to yakan point anyway.



this is the village site.it's been abandoned since the smallpox outbreak of the late 1800s,but is still maintained by local haida families.the totem and longhouse were put up about 30 years ago.



that's the direction i'm heading.it's about 25 km to yakan,fortunately the water's realatively calm so i can make some good time.



on the way to yakan i go through the pass at entry point,where there's a large sandbar that's home to eagles and seals,as well as a variety of other transient wildlife.the zoom on the camera from a rocking boat doesn't give the clearest picture,but you can make out what they are.



here's some of the seals checking me out.they all come scrambling off the beach when a boat comes by,it's quite a sight.



at yakan i was pulling up quite a few of these little beasts,in the 10-15lb range.since there's a one fish per day limit on halibut,i like to get something bigger to improve my return on the investment of the trip out.
so,the little guys went back to the bottom to grow some more.



after several hours(and being ready to call it a bad day of fishing,this guy came along.
i fish hali with 4 rods,two hali rods at the front of the boat,and my two salmon rods at the rear mounts.this guy took the hook on my lighter salmon rod,set up with 30lb line and a barbless 4/0 hook.it was a long,carefull fight to bring it in without snapping the line,as this is a 53lb fish and these things are strong swimmers.
after it went back to the bottom only to have me drag it back up 5 times it was getting tired enough that i was able to get the spear on it.when the point went in and the float line was set,it took off so fast it snapped the leader on the tackle,but it was too late for it by then.i waited about 30 seconds for the float on the spear line to surface again,then retrieved it and pulled this beast in.
hail here get to be over 300lbs,but anything over about 80 is not very good to eat.50lbs is a nice balance of edibillity and meat return.this one gave me about 30lbs of meat....fresh hali goes for $25-30lb in vancouver,so that's some valuable freezer filler.




for those not familliar with halibut,heres a pair from the top i got earlier.these fish lay flat on the bottom,with the white side down.because of this,their left eye has migrated to the right side of their head,so both look up for potential meals swimming by.they are abush predators that swallow prey(such as crab,squid,and other bottom dwellers as well as injured fish that come to the bottom)whole.the mottled brown coloring on the top side is such good camo you can be looking right at one on the bottom and not know it's there untill it moves.

anyway,now that i've got my hali on board,it's time to get a chinook.these salmon are currently hanging around at wiah point,about a 35km boat ride from yakan,so i put the hammer down.about 40 minutes later i was there,and set up the downriggers.




as i got my gear in the water and started trolling,one of the lodge boats close by was pulling in a nice fish,so it was looking good.



about 10 minutes later i got this guy.i was satisfied with the day,so i set out for home.i'm allowed two chinook per day,but there's no need to get greedy...when i want more,i can just go out and get it.

by the way,i would have liked to have had some action shots of pulling up the fish,but my attempts at showing my fishing partner the finer points of photography have only got me pics of dog spit on the lens.