Stalking Salmon & Wrestling Drunks. Peter L. Gordon

deckhand, was a retired commercial fisherman in his mid-thirties when he applied for a job to work on my boat. From the age of fourteen he had worked as a deckhand on commercial fishing boats during his summer vacations. He had fished the waters all the way to the northern tip of Vancouver Island and beyond. He knew more about fishing than almost anyone in my circle of friends. Like me, he preferred to fish for salmon with light tackle. Trolling using forty-pound test line and rods that resembled broom handles gave us much less joy, but sometimes we had to pull out the trolling gear and put it to use because the customers requested it.

      Sten had retired from commercial fishing after being caught once too often by a fierce storm off the northwest coast of Vancouver Island. It was a killer storm lasting five days; much of that time Sten was lashed into his bunk, severely seasick. After the storm subsided, half the deck gear was torn away and every pane of glass in the wheelhouse was shattered. The skipper, who was also Sten’s uncle, refitted his boat then put it up for sale along with its licence. That was when Sten applied for work with me.

      In addition to his quiet good nature and enthusiasm, Sten was a magical fisherman who never lost his joy of fishing and loved to see other people catch fish. Big fish—he loved it when they caught big fish. A fish, to Sten, was always a salmon. Even a 150-pound halibut was simply a slab, not a fish. Moreover, he didn’t drink or use drugs, his language was sanitized and he was always on time—and he could cook. His reaction to our advancing party from Texas was out of character for him, so much so that I briefly doubted my intuition. I took the binoculars from Sten’s hands and watched the group as they made the long trek down the dock to our slip at the farthest point from the marina office.

      No, I thought as I watched them approach, they seem all right to me. But I would let Sten have his way. He could handle the helm for the entire trip while I dealt with the guests and the gear.

      This was my ninth year operating the company. Several things had changed over the years, including the introduction of a saltwater fishing licence along with serious catch quotas. In my first year of running the operation, saltwater licences did not exist and almost any size of salmon could be kept. The old-timers use to fill their freezers with coho grilse, immature salmon that had to measure only six inches to be allowed to be kept. Those they did not cook during the year would be ploughed into their compost heaps before the cycle would start all over again. Nearly a decade later, that practice had largely come to an end. There was also a move away from the food-catching mentality to a sport-fishing mentality. This new approach had become so well entrenched by my ninth year that many of the sport fishermen were releasing their undamaged catch for the purpose of conservation. We applauded these changes.

      By my third year of operation, I had shifted our charters from a strict focus on catching salmon to a salmon-fishing trip with overtones of a nature tour. During the off-season I encouraged Sten to read and study various nature books so he could identify and learn about the birds in our region, their habitats and their life cycles. Other books taught him about the wildlife below our keel and the struggle for life that played out with each changing tide. He was clever and a fast learner, so it wasn’t long before he was giving lectures at the stern of the boat on the life cycle of Steller sea lions or some other form of wildlife visible from our deck. Occasionally—not often—he would mix up his facts. He once described the life cycle of a puffin when instead he meant a cormorant—two very different birds. However, none of our guests appeared to notice these mistakes, and I was never sure whether Sten was doing it on purpose. To be on the safe side, I would make a point of correcting him after the charter, but only when we were alone, sitting in the galley having a cup of coffee and discussing the events of the day.

      In this relaxed atmosphere, I would also make notes in the ship’s log concerning the fishing conditions, the type and number of salmon we caught, the lures we used and the depth at which we caught our fish. Memorable charters when the people, the weather and the fishing were perfect required additional space in the log. It is these recorded memories that have served as the basis for this narrative.

      Sten turned on the blower to remove potentially explosive gases from the bilge and then he fired up the engine. The VHF radio clicked on, followed by the CB, which immediately began to chatter like a parrot on an illegal stimulant. Sten turned it down and adjusted the revs on the engine. This was all done just as our party arrived alongside and prepared to board.

      “Permission to come aboard, Skipper?” the local fellow asked. I liked this little ceremony.

      “Please make yourselves at home. The Kalua welcomes you,” I said. Good start, I thought as I glanced at Sten at the helm.

      My vessel was called MV Kalua, a name and spelling I inherited and at first wanted to change. But the very idea was considered such bad luck that when I tried to change it, no one would answer my calls on the CB. So that plan quickly sunk like a stone in Victoria Harbour.

      The first person to come aboard was the local man, who introduced himself as Jake. This was perplexing, since during the entire trip no one else called him Jake except me, and it remains a mystery to this day. He clamped me by the shoulders and whispered in my ear that his guests were special friends from Texas and he really wanted them to catch a salmon. I told him we would do our best.

      Next the tall Texan, Chuck, came on board. Reaching over the railing, he helped a diminutive blond woman onto the deck, who turned out to be his wife. Scarcely more than five feet tall, she was wearing skin-tight, neon blue designer jeans with red embroidery on the back pockets, matching deck shoes and a light blue blouse with three-quarter-length sleeves. A light scent hung about her that reminded me of lavender.

      “Are you wearing hand cream?” I asked. Most fishermen agree that a lure should not carry human or chemical smells. Women often came on our charters wearing hand cream, which tainted the lures with the odour of the cream. The hands of smokers had the same effect, so we would try to convince them to wash their hands as well.

      “Yes,” she said. “Do you like it?”

      I looked at her closely for the first time and realized she was a stunningly beautiful woman. “Remember to wash your hands before you handle the gear.”

      She looked up at her husband with slight embarrassment as though expecting a reprimand. “Don’t say it!”

      “Honey, it ain’t nothing.” He flashed her a generous smile. They had obviously discussed the use of hand cream before leaving home.

      The rest of the party clambered on board, struggling with hampers, bags and baskets. I helped them down the companionway and into the forward cabin, where they could stow their gear and make themselves at home while we cast off.

      With Sten at the helm, I did the honours. I unfastened the spring lines, which prevent fore and aft surging, then the bowline. There was no wind so I gave the bow a push away from the dock while Sten slipped the engine into reverse and spun the helm a half turn. The Kalua slowly moved in reverse and strained against the stern line I had wrapped around a bollard on the dock. As the bow swung around, I fed out the line until the vessel had spun a full 180 degrees and was facing the channel that would take us into the bay. With Sten’s eyes on me, I nodded at him when the boat was in position, unwrapped the rest of the stern line from the bollard and stepped onto the stern deck with the line in my hand. We smiled at each other. The slack wind had helped us to execute a flawless cast-off, but no one would notice except us.

      During the next half hour I made sure everyone had their licences and that they were properly completed. I also went through the routine of demonstrating how to flush the toilet in the head—the W.C. Although I’d made many upgrades to the boat, the toilet was still operated manually with instructions attached to the back of the head door. At least twice a week one of our guests would emerge from the head with a bewildered look and ask for help with flushing. It was simple: use the toilet, lower the lid, put your right foot on the only pedal available and work the lever back and forth to pump the bowl clean. Easy, but more complicated than pushing a handle, and baffling to many members of the general public.

      While I checked fishing licences, poured cups of coffee and pulled hot Danishes from the oven, Sten took us at planing speed to our first fishing spot. As we approached,