catching dinner

We’d been fishing daily and had done decently well from an overall catch perspective – several rock fish, greylings and a small ling cod. But I wanted salmon, and we just weren’t seeing them. As we motored out of Sea Otter Cove at the top of the west coast of Vancouver Island, the conditions for salmon were perfect: 80-120 feet of water, near a steep shoreline, slack tide, calm winds. We threw the first line out on the downrigger and I trolled along at 2 knots while John got the second line ready. “Fish on, fish on!” I put the boat in neutral and John grabbed the line.

It was easy to reel in – and then it wasn’t. He thought we’d caught the bottom, but the line was down 90 feet in 120 feet of water. He kept reeling. We speculated. Could be a pile of bull kelp. Or maybe a rock fish, they don’t usually fight much. When it finally reached the surface, it flailed. Still trailing 30 feet behind the boat, all we could tell was that it was big. I grabbed the gaff as John brought the fish alongside. It was a ling cod, and it was huge.

But he had not grabbed our lure. Instead, there was a tail – just the last two inches of tail – sticking out of his enormous mouth. I can imagine the scene that took place 90 feet below us. A king salmon is swimming around, minding his own business, when an easy meal comes flashing by. He bites, and is caught on our lure. He flails, trying to free himself, and in that action draws the attention of the ling cod, lurking nearby. The ling cod must have seen a helpless injured fish getting dragged through the water and decided it was an easy dinner. We got him on board before he finally released his catch (perhaps now regretting his dinner decision?). Ling cod must be stubborn creatures; he had held on to that salmon for well over 5 minutes as we reeled them both in from 90 feet. Even at the surface and alongside the boat, he flailed and spun but would not drop his meal.

That stubbornness proffered more fish than we could eat. We feasted on salmon that night (and the next), had fish tacos for lunch 3 days straight, gave a bag of it away and we still have fish in the fridge. Of course, that doesn’t stop us from the hunt; there can never be too much salmon aboard this boat.