Angling Publications - Index

Angling Publications - Fly Fish America - September 2007 Issue - Index

I don't know whether it was Jim's first
fly-caught Coho salmon, my 23-pound fly
rod lingcod, or that sizzling hot 37-pound
Chinook that wrapped up our trip that
convinced me to come back-again, and
again, and again.
I do know that some of the most spectacular
parts of this fly-fishing adventure,
on top of our truly wicked encounters with
screaming hooknose Coho, must include
the six-pack of killer whales that rolled
past our little center console with sunrise
orange exploding off their shiny wet backs,
the black bear on the beach, sea otters,
crabs, rolling carpets of kelp, a bewildering
maze of calendar-perfect green mountains
plunging into fjords, inlets, sounds, beaches
studded with rock islands, shallow reefs,
surge-slapped sea stacks, and Pacific sunsets.
Any one of those superlatives would have
been enough to make the trip memorable,
but the combination . . . Well, that's what
makes the prospects of a return trip to this
Vancouver Island fly-rod Mecca irresistible.
We were in Clayoquot (pronounced
Claw-Kwatt) Sound in early September
throwing orange, blue, green, yellow and
white streamer flies at Coho feeding on
dense swarms of needlefish, kelp-bed kings,
and occasionally ripping rockfish lips. Clayoquot
Sound is a mix of barnacled rocks
and salt water deeply indented into the
rugged southwest shore of Vancouver Island.
It's comfortably protected from ocean
winds, with fingers that reach through a
series of bays, passes and channels. The
southern border brushes the northern edge
of British Columbia's famed Barkley Sound
and disappears into the 80 primitive miles
of Pacific Rim National Park.
Even where it spills out into the ocean
Clayoquot Sound is surprisingly shallow,
sometimes as thin as a dozen feet, and
often less than 25. At low tide, far from
shore, flats rise magically above the surface
of a vast salt pond of shimmering water.
Such ragged bottom topography can make
small boat navigation a nightmare, but it's
great habitat for dozens of shallow-water
forage species that attract aggressive packs
of feeding salmon.
Crab spawn, needlefish, sand shrimp,
pilchards and herring are just a few items
on the menu that pull swarms of salmon
off the migration route along the west side
of Vancouver Island and into the Sound
for a feeding respite. A shallow sound is a
rarity along the ocean coast of Vancouver
Island, and this one has evolved into a catch
basin for thousands of Chinook and Coho
from dozens of different runs that pause to
feed before continuing on toward spawn-
ing streams and hatcheries on the south
island, Fraser River region mainland and
in Washington State.
The runs ebb and flow past the Sound,
filling the shallows with salmon one day,
draining it the next. Truthfully, with so
many separate salmon runs nosing past, it's
a rare, rare summer day when it's impossible
to find salmon in Clayoquot Sound, even
during these days of conservation closures
and endangered runs.
Which is one of the reasons that my fishing
buddy, Jim Goerg, and I were standing
on the wet dock at Weigh West Marine
Adventure Resort, listening to Shawn Bennett's
shakedown description of the Sound,
the 17-foot center console boat we were
assigned, the tackle, the fish and how not
to screw any of it up. Shawn is a die-hard
fly fisherman and has pioneered saltwater
fly fishing for salmon and rockfish in the
Northwest. He put Weigh West Marine
Adventure Resort on the seasonal must-do
map for fly fishermen long before saltwater
fly fishing became a boom sport.
Weigh West Marine Adventure Resort
(800-665-8922) is a full-service headquarters
for fishermen, offering salt-worthy
small boats, charters, hotel, restaurant, bait,
and licenses. It's located in a sheltered cove
at the eastern edge of Tofino, and surprisingly
is one of the few fish-oriented businesses
in this small coastal community of
1,200 at the end of Esowista Peninsula.
Beautiful Tofino
Founded about a century ago when the
Anglican Church sent a congregation on a
quest to find "the most beautiful location
on Vancouver Island,? Tofino evolved first
into a mix of Indians (who have inhabited
this spit for 2,000 years), fishermen, loggers
and recluses. Today the town is splashed
with bright colors, nylon banners, lead-glass
sun catchers, public art, designer clothes,
boutiques, and coffee stands. Parking
areas are swollen with SUVs sporting roof
racks, loaded with mountain bikes, kayaks,
sailboards, boogie boards, and backpacks.
Part of the popularity is explained by the
BC Ferry system that provides access from
the mainland to the highway that leads
straight to Tofino, one of the few red-hot
BC saltwater angling destinations that can
be driven to. There is also a paved runway
for small plane shuttles from Vancouver
International Airport.
My rough count found, in addition to
Weigh West, at least 19 places to bunk up,
not counting 24 B&Bs and another 13 guest
houses, cottages and vacation suites; eight
places to eat; and eight places to book a
whale watch, soak in a hot spring, take a hike
in a rain forest, or enjoy a kayak trip.
Tofino's sidewalks bustle with an anthropological
mix of Indians, artists, merchants,
whale watchers, sea kayakers, surfers, flightseers,
backpackers, recluses, and every now
and then, a fisherman poking between boutiques,
looking for one of the three places
where you can book a fishing trip.
The waterfront is a colorful and bustling
blend of flight-seer float planes, sea kayaks,
moored crab boats, a few industrial net and
troll boats, a couple of fish charters, dozens
of whale watching craft, ocean-going yachts
and a few moorage spots.
The western-most point on the Trans-
Canada Highway ends at the First Street
Dock at the foot of a wooden bench carved
from a single old-growth log. LookyLoo
Tourism is the new economic life blood
of Tofino in the wake of declining forest
and commercial fishing operations, which
leaves miles of open and protected water
available for those of us who fish.
The Fishing is Fly
The Weigh West fishery is divided into
fly, conventional tackle, and charter fisheries,
and there is little overlap, except for
Chinook fishing-which are notorious
on the fly-and halibut, which are found
at depths that exceed even imaginative
lead-core creations. A halibut trip with
conventional gear does, however, provide
a white-meat capper for a salmon fly fling.
Clayoquot Sound has earned a national reputation
for saltwater fly fishing, and Weigh
West's fly program leads that reputation.
The reefs, kelp lines and clusters of
islands in shallow Clayoquot Sound offer
near-perfect conditions for sight casting and
trolling flies for the shallow-running Coho
that follow rising tides in from the nearby
ocean to ravage swarms of needlefish. We arrived
from Vancouver International Airport
at Tofino Airport, after a 32 minute low-level
prop-plane flight with North Vancouver Air.
When I stepped off the plane onto the bent
grass and asphalt creases in the tarmac I discovered
that there are two primary tactics for
Coho-casting to visible fish or bucktailing,
a regional trolling variation prospecting with
needlefish fly patterns on short lines in the
wake, skipping the flies on the surface 15 to
20 feet behind the boat. Deer hair and polar
bear hair streamers are sometimes enhanced
with prop-blade spinners threaded onto the
leader in front of the hook eye.
Casting across shallow salt water to aggressively
feeding ocean Coho is an irresistible
draw for experienced fly casters. The
trolling option, though, also allows anglers