Bishop Bay to Kumealon Inlet – 66.1 miles

We set off at 7.30am to catch the right tide to take us up as far as we could make, the 44 mile long, relatively narrow, Grenville Channel. The current helped us along  as we passed Gribbell Island (for some reason I like the name Gribbell). This is supposed to be a busy channel but all we saw was a small sail bot heading south and a seaplane which flew low overhead. We pulled into Kumealon Inlet and made our way to the North East side of the inlet and dropped our anchor in 65ft of water. Jude prepared supper and I dropped the line in to try my luck at fishing. Within 3 seconds something struck my line and shot off at a rate of knots. I still had my beer in hand and lifted the tip of the rod up to keep the tension on the line. I shouted to the girls that I think I had something big on the line and they came up to view the action. I was not sure what it could be. I was certainly bigger that the rock sole I have caught before and was faster than the lingcod I have caught. I continued to reel in. the fish fought back stripping line off the reel. What could it be? As I reeled it in I saw a flash of silver – could it be a salmon? Sure enough as I continued to fight it it became clear that it was indeed a salmon and a good sized on at that. I shouted to Jude to get the gaff ready praying that I would not lose it. How could we get it onboard as we had no fishing net. We had to gaff it. The fish eventually tired and after a few swipes Jude expertly gaffed it through the gills and I heaved it on board. As you might expect there was as much surprise as there was jubilation at landing the salmon. We checked the BC fishing book and it was a King salmon, a prized game fish and apparently only 1% of salmon caught are King salmon. What complete luck. We quickly gutted the fish and Jude filleted it and in the freezer it went. (Thanks again to David for fixing the freezer). We now had plenty of food in the freezer to last us weeks.

Who said BC does not have any salmon

Getting ready for the frezer