Jeff’s prawn trap got blown into the abyss.
Te crabs aren’t taking the bait. Nothing we can paddle to inshore is biting. Aſter flying all these thousands of miles, we’re just piss- ing our time away in the rain. And because we didn’t anticipate needing enough liba- tions for weather like this, we are running out of booze, ironically sitting on coolers full of ice that are loaded with nothing but slimy, thawing bait. Not that we need more fish. We feast on
Jeff’s special venison shanks marinated in white wine and lime leaves, and our 60-odd pounds of salmon fillets, cod and snap- per cooked 10 different ways. One day I fall asleep mid-aſternoon with a belly full of fish and awake in darkness to the sound of voices and a choking smoke blowing up a gul- ley from the beach. I zip open my tent and stand shaking in the horizontal rain. A bon- fire rages, bellowed by the 50-knot gale which blasts sparks up into the jet-roaring treetops. I watch the zombie silhouettes illuminated by dancing firelight, see an empty bottle raised, hear a victorious whoop. An otherworldly howl of laughter crosses my ears before it is ripped away by the wind. In the early hours, Jeff stumbles up to the tents and slurs across to me with eternal optimism, “Wake me up in the morning, ‘k? Promise to wake me up. We got a plan. I’m gonna hook you guys up.”
THE TALLY
On the one fishable day aſter the storm dies off, Jeff sets me up with his halibut rig. One last hope of reeling in a lunker ending to this story keeps me trying aſter the others have gone in. Bobbing in waves as big as my house, munching on cold fried cod and salmon cakes, eight hours pass with nothing but one lousy lingcod and a dozen phantom strikes. Every monster I wrestle turns out to be just another lash of La Niña’s whip toying with my imagination, stirring up the waters and mak- ing the fish unseasonably edgy. On the return to port, everyone’s in high
spirits but Jeff, who harbored our hundred- pound halibut dreams. Lucian’s tyee was the trip trophy; the halibut had us skunked. Back at the airport, we fall in with the lodge
crowd and their cartloads of fish boxes. Teir frozen haul is one version of the fishing story, but not what our trip was about. I close my eyes and can still feel the rise
and fall of the swell on the rim of the Pacific, see the ghostly mist hanging over the islands and, half a mile offshore, a humpback whale breaching into the sky before crashing back to sea with a boom. We are the only ones on the plane with such a bounty of wild memories. We are the only ones who have spent the
week camped out, fishing without motors. We fished harder. We saw more. We fished the Queen Charlotte Islands in kayaks.
TIM SHUFF is the editor of Kayak Angler and Ad- venture Kayak magazines.
NRS_KayakAngler_Spring.indd 1
kayakanglermag.com… 35 12/11/08 5:00:05 PM
Luc – fisherman, paddler and ‘72 VW
Riviera-bus owner, fishing the Strait of Juan de Fuca, WA. ©Mike Hood/NRS
Kayak Storage Order online
www.tempress.com or call 1-877-234-7466 Fish-n-Tote Cockpit Dash Panel Crate Cover
Fishing keeps me balanced. I love how it brings me back to a time when life was simpler. Fishing is my escape from the daily grind.
-Luc Adams Cast off and relax!
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