So far this month I have fished under two very different situations. Two weeks ago I ran a picture of me (taken by Dean Hodgson) breaking ice on Spider Lake to reach some open water where we would to be able to fly fish. Last Wednesday, Charley Vaughan phoned and suggested we have a look at trying to catch some crabs and flounder off Savary Island. Not a bad Idea, but I wondered about the problem of fog. “Not a worry," he said.
Terry Blackwell and I joined Charley in his open-centre consul aluminum boat to enjoy some flounder and crab fishing last Wednesday. The picture with this column illustrates the fog between us and our destination. We launched at Salmon Point Marina shortly after 9 a.m. and headed out into THE fog-covered Strait of Georgia. It is approximately eight nautical miles or 12km by land measurement to reach Savary.
Charley put a dot for our launch site and another dot on a small chart showing Savary Island on the screen of his Lawrence Gravitational Position System (GPS) and a black line appeared on the screen. Next to the black line at our end of the line, a small arrow point marker told us where the boat was. Now all we had to do was follow the black line to our destination.
Travelling in fog over calm waters is a somewhat exhilarating experience. Every few minutes Charley would give a couple of toots on his not insignificant fog horn. We knew we were travelling over Century Shoals when the depth sounder indicated shallow water under the boat, but we couldn’t see Mitlenatch Island to our north or the navigation buoy on the south of our course.
We trusted the GPS to take us to our destination. All eyes were focused on the water in front of us looking for logs or other boats. In a short time the shoreline of Savary Island appeared and we were at our fishing destination and it helped a lot that the fog lifted and we could see Lund on the mainland.
During our trip I could not help reminiscing about one of our pre-GPS technology trips we made in the fog. We were fishing out of Port Hardy and our destination was Taylor Bank which is in Queen Charlotte Sound. We were running with compasses and relying on depth sounders to tell us when were over the bank. Somehow we missed the bank and the next thing we knew we were staring at trees in front of us on the mainland side.
Not to worry, we just fished in the waters we were in until the fog lifted and went back to Taylor Bank. Modern navigation systems have certainly simplified marine travel; but navigating with a compass was also exciting.
Upon arriving at our destination we proceeded to bait and put out six crab traps in what we thought were appropriate locations. We then set up our flounder rods and started fishing for these little fish that are so tasty. Based on previous experience we started our flounder fishing with an assortment of Berkley Power baits that have served us well in the past. After about two hours of frequent location changes and only a couple of small flounders (that were released) we decided to change gear and fishing tactics.
While the waters we were fishing were not well known to us, we were applying knowledge of habitat these small flat fish seem to like. In general it is sandy or light gravel bottoms at depths varying from 40 to 80 feet. With our gear we changed from bait set-ups to small jig lures as in Buzz Bombs, Zzingers and Spinnows in a bright green colour.
We also made the gear change just as the tide was changing. In a matter of about an hour we caught a dozen small keeper flounders and released several others too small to keep.
Mission for flounder fishing complete and it was time to pull the cab traps.
We returned to our traps and proceeded to pull them. The results were disappointing. In the six traps we had three legal Dungeness crabs and that was it. Well enough for one family to have a treat of fresh crab, the other two would have to wait for another time.
All things considered – wonderful day on the water.
Ralph Shaw is a master fly fisherman who was awarded the Order of Canada in 1984 for his conservation efforts. In 20 years of writing a column in the Comox Valley Record it has won several awards.