Calm waters and gorgeous sunshine greeted us as we started our Easter break early on April 5, 2020. We work hard, and it was time to play hard!
Birds were singing and the seals were surfacing when we left the Alder Bay Resort boat launch in the Liquid Limo.
The boat’s windshield was covered with frost, but that didn’t slow us down— nothing a little salt water spray from the washdown hose couldn’t clear up.
We headed south towards Red Point, down the passage a ways from Port McNeill, as the sun continued to rise and bring us much-needed warmth. Thank goodness for long johns & toques! We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect morning to be on the water together.
Ted set us each up with a spreader bar & salmon belly, calling, “Here fishy fishy,” and rubbing his hands together as the lines hit the bottom with a bounce.
“It’s a beauty day. I think some sausages are in order,” he said, and fired up
the BBQ. “Cook and they will bite,” we always say, and soon the Italian sausages were sizzling and the smoke was rising.
If you know Ted at all, you know that once the lines are in the water and the energy on board is right, it’s just a matter of time for the first morning bite. Sure enough, not even two bites into our sausages and it was fish on!
Maybe it was some Scottish luck and the experience of having fished the island for more than 30 years, but I think it was the sausages.
A good fight and some seriously fast reeling provided us with dinner for a number of nights. She was a beauty—an 85-cm keeper in the box.
This article appeared in the May 2020 issue of Island Fisherman Magazine. Send us YOUR reader story—you just might wind up on the cover, too!
