Vancouver Island - First-Time Fishing for Pink and Chinook Salmon

Thursday

After seeing all those big, beautiful Chinooks the day before, Ken, Kelly, and I were ready to fish!  I woke up, made some coffee and was treated to a beautiful sunrise looking out across the Salish Sea and the mountains of the Ts'ylos Provincial Park.

 After breakfast, Kelly took Ken and I to the Campbell River just off the Gold River Highway.  The river was busy with anglers but Kelly found a spot that would accommodate the three of us and we began casting.  I was missing a bunch of hits and then I finally caught a pink salmon.

 My first salmon!  The pressure was off.  Kelly, Ken, and I all caught pinks in the morning.  

 The Campbell River was crowded but the fishing was fun. At one point, I tail-hooked a pink and he screamed upstream peeling out line into my backing, flew to the opposite bank, and then shot downstream and tangled with the anglers below. That was exciting!
After our initial dose of pink salmon fishing we headed inland to try our luck at catching some Chinook salmon.  Along the way, we had lunch at a canyon site with beautiful green pools. 

 We continued on into the interior.  We stopped to check on an elderly guy stopped with a huge boat on a trailer.  He was OK and thanked us profusely for stopping to check even though nothing was wrong.  Good karma.  We eventually made it to our secret destination and fished the first pool for an hour.  

 It was cloudy and hard to see into the depths, but did see a few fish circulating.  There was bear scat all around.

 And before long we saw our first of the seven or eight bears we would see in the afternoon - also looking for fish.  One kept coming at us even though we were yelling at it so Kelly shot his bear banger, a kind of pyrotechnic that whizzes and pops, at it.  It made the bear leave the river bank and veer into the woods where we couldn't track it - even more nerve wracking.  I blew an air horn at some other approaching bears and that seemed to be a good deterrent.

After an hour and a half without success, we moved upstream and Kelly saw another bear.  I just saw this.

Around the bend, we found a family of anglers who regaled us with their last three days of fishing effort.  Only this day and within the last hour or so did they hook some Chinooks.  After some conversation, they packed up their stuff and left us the pool.  We cast and cast and cast with no luck.  They were using orange artificials, we used orange flies (and everything else in the box).  At one surreal point, two teenage girls toting a large standup paddleboard sauntered through our section of river.  As they walked downstream, we warned them of all the bears we'd seen and they seemed not to care a lick.  Shortly thereafter, we moved pack to the first pool.

I still sported the orange fly the family of anglers said was working when I saw a broadside flash and I was hooked up!  I nervously played the fish and it took one giant leap into the air.  I almost had a heart attack!  I finally brought the fish to the shore - my first Chinook, aka king, salmon!  (Thank you Bill Wills!)

After letting her go, I retired from the pool and
became the bear spotter.  I kept a wary eye on one downstream and two upstream.  I blew my air horn and scared them away when they started to get too close.  Mostly, they were just probing the shoreline and looking for any injured or catchable fish.  Unfortunately, the Chinooks did not cooperate for Kelly or Ken and no other fish were caught.  Because of all the bear activity and the approaching darkness, we carefully hiked out of the river and back to the car.  Ken drove us home and, enveloped in wilderness darkness, I alternated from being fully alert to occasional dozing in the back seat.  

We didn't get home until about 10 PM, but Sheridan and Cynthia had a rib dinner waiting for us.  We shared some stories, wine and laughter, watched a few carpool karaoke music videos and went to bed.