Sunshine Coast – The Fishing Trip That Wasn’t

Jeff and I are generally pretty lucky. We find a Costanza parking space, we get the convenient break on our property taxes just when we need it, and we luck into a great trade-in deal when buying a new car. When it comes to ocean salmon fishing, however, our luck is not so good. I give you the following evidence:

1. Jeff, Mitchell and I took a trip to Haida Gwaii where we booked a half-day ocean fishing charter. Haida Gwaii is the gimme of salmon fishing in BC – it’s virtually impossible to go out on the water and not come home with your full possession limit. Unless, of course, you are us. On our salmon fishing trip, we caught a total of 1 fish, a rockfish that Mitchell landed. Our guide felt so bad that he hauled in a “longline” for a friend of his and just gave us everything that was caught on the line – and even that amounted to just a couple of small halibut. (Note: a “longline” is, I believe, a technically illegal method of fishing. Our guide was certainly very cagey as he hauled it in.)
2. To make up for the Haida Gwaii failure, I booked a charter out of Vancouver for Jeff’s birthday not long after. This time, we caught a grand total of zero fish. There wasn’t even an illegal longline to save the day.
3. To make up for the Vancouver charter failure, I booked a second charter when my sister and two nephews were visiting. Very quickly, we finally hooked a couple of salmon!!! Being the generous hosts we are, we let the nephews land them. Then we immediately caught two more! It was shaping up to be a good day! Salmon #3 and #4 were hauled in by my visiting sister and Mitchell. And … that was all we caught. Another empty-handed trip for Jeff and I.

This Sunshine Coast trip would be a totally different story. We booked our fishing charter for early Sunday morning, predicting that early in the morning would be the best time of day for fishing. The weather was going to be overcast – another lucky break. Then, Saturday morning, about 5 hours before our ferry sailing time, the charter company called to say the boat had been damaged hitting a log and had to be pulled out for repairs, and so the trip was cancelled. Four times unlucky!!!

However, with the ferry reservations paid for, and the luxurious Driftwood Motel booked, we headed to the Sunshine Coast determined to enjoy a weekend away.

After studying the Sunshine Coast visitor’s guide in exhaustive detail, we agreed to drive up to Egmont and hike in to the Skookumchuck Narrows. Skookumchuck Narrows is located at the entrance to Sechelt Inlet, where the land … well … narrows. As a result, twice a day, at peak Flood (incoming) Tide and Ebb (outgoing) Tide, the tidal waters are forced through the narrows forming rapidly moving whirlpools and standing waves. It sounds more impressive than it actually is, but it’s also not totally unimpressive either. It’s an easy 4k hike through a lovely (and kind of haunted-looking) forest from Egmont and worth a trip if you are in the area.

There are many more ways to pass the time on the Sunshine Coast when you aren’t on board a fishing charter. We decided to drive down to Gibsons to play tourist in and around Molly’s Reach. We watched one poor son be humiliated by his father who insisted he pose for a picture by the Persephone. The only thing that saved Mitchell from a similar fate was that it was morning, so he was, of course, still sleeping. (Just in case you are younger than 55, the long-running TV show ‘The Beachcombers’ was filmed right here, in Gibsons. The Persephone was the tugboat owned by Bruno Gerussi and used to logs that had broken away from log booms.)

We had one more day to spend on a very short weekend getaway, so we visited some friends in Roberts Creek. We walked along the beach, checked out the nominal creek, and had a *delicious* lunch at the Gumboot Cafe before we were off for our return ferry.

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We haven’t given up! A fourth charter has been booked for next Monday, out of Horseshoe Bay. What do you think? Will this be our day, or five times unlucky?