by Keith Lozott, Avid Angler
I landed in Seattle at 11:05 PM Pacific time about 20-30 minutes late praying I would catch my connector flight to Victoria that was scheduled to depart at 11:20 and fly 40 minutes over the sound to my destination. I ran top speed with my carry-on bag and my buddies fly rod that he wanted me to bring from Florida. I made it to the gate unbelievably with just enough time to board. I showed the Alaska Air gate agent my passport, ticket and ID to board and she said I wasn’t on flight and that my other flight was late, so they bumped me. I then had a heart to heart with her! I said I’m here right in front of you and I obviously made it on time and that she would need to let me on the plane. Martin was at the airport waiting for me to arrive as hardcore fishing was scheduled to go down in the morning. She started to give me a hard time, but in the end, she let me board the “half full” flight to Victoria. The fishing gods were smiling on me once again.
I will spare you the lack of sleep due to time change and skip to the fishing. We launched in the morning in the only flats boat that the native Canadian salmon fishermen have ever seen based on the non-stop looks we would receive. We started by using Moocher rods which are basically fly rods with a butt on them. You take metal salmon jigs and drop them to the bottom or just off the bottom and start jigging hoping to get a bite. We did this unsuccessfully for a couple hours and struck out. Plan B was to run close to shore and jig for lingcod (the giant colorful lizard fish like creature), copper rockfish, china rockfish, greenlings, black rockfish and my favorite name the red Irish lord. We did well catching all the species mentioned and they were some extremely awesome looking fish. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the sheer beauty of Victoria from the water. Mountains, rocks, beautifully clear water, kelp forests and wildlife galore. We had a run in with a bald eagle on day 3 fishing in Port Renfrew. We had a nice black rockfish boat side about to land it, when a bald eagle came out of nowhere and tried to snatch the fish from us. That was incredible as the eagle was huge that close. I know pelicans and seagulls are problematic but eagles? Come on man!!!
Fishing Port Renfrew was cool because we decided to topwater lure fish for black rockfish. Our instincts as fisherman kicked and we figured these guys would be aggressive if we tossed some topwaters at them. We had a baitcaster and a small spinning rod and were on to something cool. It was nonstop action with fish coming up 20 feet plus down to crush the top dog mirrolure and Martin’s popper fly. I even got one on fly and that is an accomplishment within itself as I’m not a great fly angler. I think we may have started something new as Martin posted the catches and some pics on his forum and he had numerous inquiries on when, how and where to do this. Secondly, they don’t sell topwater lures in tackle shop. By now you’re probably guessing the salmon fishing was slow as I’ve been on plan B the whole time. On the final day of the trip near the final hour of fishing, Martin hooked and landed the only salmon caught for the whole trip. It was 15 lbs. and tasted pretty good, but not as good as the rockfish in my opinion. Before I left for the trip the Canadian Fisheries Management shut-down a lot of the areas we were planning on fishing to save the salmon for a pod of Orca’s that swam into the area looking for food. Now that’s fisheries management. All in all, the trip was amazing and must see location for anyone’s bucket list.
Next month I will tell you about fishing in Palm Coast Florida with Capt. Jim Britton. “Flounder Time”