My first Chinook Salmon

Rick and I arrived in the small fishing village of Ucluelet, British Columbia, located on the west coast of Vancouver Island. It was quite an adventure just getting there since it took about 3 hours to drive across the island from Nanaimo to Ucluelet. The drive took us through beautiful forests, along roaring streams and rivers, waterfalls and pristine lakes. We stopped along the way at some of the traditional stops Rick makes when he goes to Ucluelet--an ice cream shop, I had Nanaimo Bar flavored ice cream and at a gas and mini-market to buy our fishing licenses. The licenses for 5 days were only about $ 35. It does allow you to fish for whatever you want, wherever you want and as many as you want. There are limits which included, for the duration of our stay, 4 Chinooks, 4 Coho and 4 halibut each.

We arrived about 4 pm and headed straight to the docks to launch the boat, seen here at the left. We were in the water and headed out to fish by 5:00. We kept along the shoreline since our time was limited. Within a short time of dropping the line in the churning water, I had a bite and minutes later my first ever King (in Canada they are called Chinook) salmon. Only about 15 pounds, Rick insisted I should keep him since he was my first salmon. I didn't disagree since my experience fishing, and my last experience was 30 years ago, was that you were lucky if you caught anything and if it was legal, you kept it. Little did I know what was in store over the next 5 days of fishing. Here I am on the dock proudly holding up my first king salmon.

We fished a while longer, catching fish that were mostly too small and tossed them back. Then we headed back in to the Ucluelet inlet to find a spot to moor the boat and get some dinner.

We docked at the government marina, tied up and headed for the truck to go get dinner. Dinner was at the Island West Resort restaurant. I looked over the menu and didn't find fresh fish anywhere. Here we were sitting not 100 feet from the fish cleaning station on the dock and no mention of fresh fish on the menu. No fish and chips either. Weird! So we had an unmemorable dinner and headed over to the motel which was a dive but suited our needs. Unfortunately it was a $100 a night and was worth about half that. It was run by a young Chinese couple who were, for lack of a better word, well, let's just say they need to work on their people skills.

Finally, settled in our room after a long day just getting there and then a couple of hours of fishing, and my very first salmon, Rick pulled out a half gallon of milk and a tin of cookies his mother made just for the trip. They were walnut, chocolate chip (and I think oatmeal) cookies that were to die for. Dipping them into the cool milk and munching on a couple of those cookies was the perfect end to the day. To bed to dream about catching the big one tomorrow!