Читать книгу Stalking Salmon & Wrestling Drunks - Peter L. Gordon - Страница 11

A charter can bring together the most unlikely people, people who would otherwise never choose to spend four or five hours together. During these charters I try to find what I call “the locking pin”—some common element in their lives. The simplest subjects are children and jobs, but I like to find more obscure experiences. I once put together two men who had been in the same Japanese concentration camp during World War II; they had not seen each other since their convalescence and did not recognize each other when they first met on the charter. It was only after I had drawn a great deal of information out of each of them that the parallel in their lives became clear. Even when I pointed out the connection, they spent a subsequent half hour verifying each other’s identities by recalling events that occurred in the horror of the Japanese camp. In the end, they wept uncontrollably on each other’s shoulders without saying a word. While they wept, we, the onlookers, wept with them. The charter ended in a group hug with everyone thanking the two old warriors for their courage.

The first people to come aboard Jane’s charter were Jane and her husband, Jeff, a couple in their early forties from Southern California. This was the second fishing charter they had booked while on Vancouver Island. Their first trip was in Tofino, where they spent an exciting morning catching and releasing some magnificent salmon. It was so much fun they decided to splurge on a second charter. I said a quiet thank you to the skipper of the Tofino charter and reminded this couple that unlike the weather in Tofino, here it was clear and hot. Jane produced a jumbo tube of sunblock and assured me that as Southern Californians they knew what the sun could do.

“Good,” I said. “Be sure to wash your hands with soap and water after applying the cream and keep your hats on.” They were wearing identical khaki slacks with identical white shirts, and to the amusement of the other guests, they wore identical floppy hats with their names on them. Jane was tall, around five foot eleven, while Jeff was slightly over six feet. Probably in their early forties, they looked athletic and made a handsome couple who gave the impression of being content with each other by the way they held hands and whispered together. During the course of the charter, I learned they were both competitive riders and owned training stables outside of Los Angeles.

The next guests to come aboard were brothers. The first was slightly built, under average height, with a varnished, bald head, wild, bushy eyebrows and ears set too low in his head, which gave him the appearance of a melting Popsicle. He was wearing a blue and grey rugby jersey and a pair of blue jeans held up by an oversized belt that nearly wrapped twice around his waist. He introduced himself as Matt. His brother was short and stocky with a protruding stomach that did not seem to be part of his body. He wore brown polyester pants and a plaid cotton shirt so well washed the colours had faded to grey. He looked as though he had dressed in a hurry and might have forgotten to slip on his undergarments. Shaking my hand with a crushing grip, he introduced himself as Vic. Both men had well-serviced hands. No fear of losing a rod overboard. Perched on the back of their heads were soiled baseball caps that were obviously part of their daily wear.

During the course of the charter, I learned they were dairy farmers who had family in Alberta tending the farm while they gave themselves a brief vacation from the routine of work. This was to be the highlight of their vacation. No pressure here, I thought wryly.

Arriving last was a young couple in their late twenties. They looked scrubbed and starched. They both wore short-sleeved shirts with button-down collars, new white deck shoes and stylish shorts with so many pockets you could lose your hands in them. Their flashing smiles showed white teeth and good humour. They eagerly introduced themselves as Alice and Ethan. Ah, computer nerds.

I looked up at Sten, who was already at the helm monitoring the engine and adjusting the squelch on the CB. When he looked back at me I threw him a questioning look.

“I’ll stay at the helm,” he said.

“You’re on,” I replied in response to our usual unspoken bet.

While Sten cruised us to the ten-fathom mark in the bay, I gave the guests a class in Drift Fishing 101. I taught them how to strip out the line, how to work the reels and how to react when they had a strike. Once they seemed confident about how to use the gear, I checked them for sunblock and reminded them to wash their hands before I dispersed them around the boat with their rods. For about an hour and a half we fished around the kelp bed and the ten-fathom line in the bay. There was lots of bait in the water around us, but all we caught were dogfish and a few shakers, very young salmon that you can shake off your line. Matt and Vic were thunderstruck by the dogfish, which resemble sharks. Sometimes they’re called cat sharks. They could not believe we shook them off the hook and sent them back into the ocean without ever touching them. I explained that a foot-and-a-half dogfish was more trouble than it was worth if you intended to prepare it for the table. The effort of skinning and filleting these small fellows produced very little edible flesh. In Britain dogfish are sold for fish and chips under the name of rock salmon, but they are the larger variety.

It can be tedious fishing under a hot sun when there is little activity. Many city people go out fishing with highlights from a television fishing show running through their minds. They expect to cast out their line and hook a huge fish that they will play expertly and land without misadventure. Fishing is a process, and you have to love that process. You have to be enthralled by your surroundings; you have to enjoy the unexpected appearance of wildlife and be excited simply by being outdoors. Catching a fish is your intention but the day should not be ruined if you go home “bredouille” (empty-handed), “skunked” or “with an empty creel.”

After an hour and a half, with only dogfish and shakers to show for their efforts, this group was becoming impatient. It takes more than an hour and a half to make me feel like Santiago on his eighty-four-day quest. I called out for everyone to pull in their lines and head below deck for a cold drink and a bite to eat while Sten moved us to another spot.

Earlier, while they were fishing, I’d spent time talking to each couple, asking them about their lives. Most people like nothing more than to talk about themselves, and what I discovered was that everyone in the group shared an Irish ancestry. While sandwiches were being unpacked and cans of juice snapped open, I mentioned that everyone in the group had Irish ancestry. In no time they were comparing backgrounds.

While this was going on, I went up to the helm to have a chat with Sten as we cruised to a fresh location.

“I think you found the locking pin,” he said.

“Sounds like it. It’ll be fun to see how it plays out.”

We relocated to a place on the other side of William Head. It was not a spot we usually frequented, but sometimes it produced a gorgeous fish. Once there, it was hard to get everyone out of the shade of the cabin and back on deck. The chatter among them was high-spirited. The brothers and Ethan had discovered that their distant relatives had both come from a town in Ireland called Sligo. Using my VHF, the Californians were calling relatives in California and Ohio to find out where their family had lived in “the old country.”

The tone of the language in the group started to take on mystical dimensions. I could hear the words weird, cosmic and strange uttered in excited tones. Before they resumed fishing, the Californians had heard back from their relatives that Jeff’s family originated in Sligo while Jane’s family came from a town in County Mayo now called Newport. There was a boisterous mock reunion as everyone hugged and broke into jigs and called each other “cousin.” At this point, Sten joined in with the rest, and loud cheers and a round of applause ensued after the group had clapped out the time to his dancing. I wagged my finger at him, threatening to incorporate his jig into all future charters.

“Performances cost extra,” he said with a smile.

By this point, any remaining barriers among the group had come down. Everyone congregated on the stern deck. From the chatter you would have thought they’d known each other for decades instead of hours. For a while I thought they were going to forget the purpose of the charter, but soon Jane, clearly the most competitive of the group, was stripping out line and counting the pulls aloud. The sight of Jane peeling out line acted as a catalyst, and the entire group was soon fishing but this time exchanging anecdotes. The charter had taken on a life of its own, driven by the energy of the guests.

Within ten minutes we had our first fish on. Matt hollered, “I got one!” He struck so hard I was sure he had snapped the rod.

“It’s not yours yet,” I said as I checked the tension on his drag.

Out of courtesy everyone reeled in their lines to avoid tangles and formed a half circle around Matt. It was a stubborn fish, taking runs of ten or twenty feet before stopping and thrashing. Matt had his hands full allowing the fish its short burst before retrieving the line. Vic was standing next to me, shouting expletives at the fish every time it took a run. I had to ask him to keep the decibels down until the fish was in. Both brothers had told me they were experienced trout fishermen, which had led me to think they understood the principle of playing a fish. But Matt seemed so anxious to land it he had little interest in playing it. With a bit of coaching from me, Matt had the fish in the boat in twenty minutes. As soon as we dragged the net in, with the fish still wriggling in it, a round of applause broke out with shouts of “the luck of the Irish!” Matt and Vic could hardly contain themselves. They slapped each other on the back, twirled, slapped their own knees and shook everyone’s hand. They grinned so widely I thought it must have hurt. It was a beautiful fourteen pounder stuffed full of krill, a tiny crustacean that looks like a shrimp.

“Goddamn, goddamn,” they kept saying. “This sure beats milking!”

Having a fish in the boat allowed Sten and me to relax. In spite of the aesthetics of being out on the water, we could never allow ourselves to lose sight of the business aspect of charter fishing. A salmon in the boat takes the hex off the charter; everyone relaxes and fishes with more optimism. The most important thing is that the guests realize the ocean does indeed contain some fish and that they can be caught. Once a fish has been netted and landed, everyone’s mood is upbeat. It’s contagious. In this case everyone was shaking hands and congratulating one another as though they had each caught the fish themselves. It is a magical time of smiles and collaboration.

Pictures were taken of Matt holding the fish, of Matt and Vic holding the fish, then of the entire group standing around Matt with the fish. They even squeezed me into one of their pictures, but they could not persuade Sten to pose. One of his idiosyncrasies was that he did not like to have his picture taken. I used to tease him that it was because his picture was in every post office across Canada and someone might recognize him.

While Sten dressed the fish and put it on ice, I moved us back to our original spot and the whole crew stripped their lines down to thirteen fathoms. The chatter was intense. Alice and Ethan bet Jeff and Jane they would land the next salmon. The wager was for a dinner at a terrific restaurant in Sooke that I’d recommended. The two brothers chose not to join in the bet; they said they already had their fish and they did not like food in “fancy” restaurants.

Over the next hour, we picked up a couple of seven to eight pounders. Both were caught by Matt and Vic, who used their good fortune to poke some fun at the other two couples. Matt even offered to give Alice and Ethan a lesson in fishing and to change rods with Alice. She turned down his kind offer with a good-natured shake of the head.

Time to move, I thought.

I looked over at Sten, who was talking to Jeff. As soon as he saw my look he nodded, called for all lines to be brought in and went up to the helm, where he fired up the engine. This time we motored to one of our quiet spots. We used this location only when we were looking for a slug. It’s a tricky place to fish and requires the engine to be left on to keep the boat in the right place and to prevent it from drifting onto the rocks. When you are properly positioned, you can reach out with your rod and touch the rocky shoreline. We used this difficult spot only when the tides collaborated.

Jane was the first to strip out twenty-five pulls. I watched her count each pull and set the drag before I turned to assist Alice.

“How many pulls did you say?” Jane asked again.

“Twenty-five,” I said without looking back at her.

“You sure?”

I looked back at her. She was in a classic fisherman’s pose. Her right and left hand were holding the rod straight up at ninety degrees. The rod was bowed, the tip nearly bent double, and her right foot was flat on the deck and her left on tiptoe. What made the pose classic was her straight back. For a fraction of a second, I took in the beauty of her stance. With the tension of action captured almost in a freeze frame, it had Greek proportions.

“Lines up,” I called.

I heard the buzz of reels bringing in line, but I was focused on Jane. Her rod remained bowed; the reel was beginning to creak.

“Perfect!” I called to her. “Keep the pressure on but let him run.” I moved as I talked. I checked the drag on her reel and lightened it slightly, which allowed the line to creak out faster. The fish was now directly at our stern and swimming away, about forty feet below the surface. Sten slipped the engine into reverse to move us away from the shoreline and the kelp. The fish was moving with authority, cruising away from the boat and pulling out line as it went.

Sometimes it takes a minute or two for a large salmon to react to being hooked. You’d think that a sharp hook in its mouth would attract its attention immediately. I could almost hear the theme music from Jaws playing in the background. With or without musical accompaniment, this beauty was going to streak out line as soon as it realized it was threatened.

I looked at Jane. She was composed but I could see the shivers going up and down her back and the slight trembling of her legs. She looked great. I knew that our chances of landing this fish were only fifty-fifty. The line was fifteen-pound test and the fish had to be forty pounds.

I glanced up at Sten. He held up four fingers. I nodded.

“This is going to take a while,” I said to Jane, “so pace yourself. If you get tired there’s no harm in asking for a break.” She gave me a withering look that made me smile. “Okay, I want you to relax your shoulders and arms but keep pressure on the fish. Rest the rod butt on your hip if you like.”

“I’m fine, Peter. How big do you think it is?”

“Forty.”

This caused a collective gasp from everyone on deck.

Until then, Jeff had given Jane lots of space, but now he moved beside her. “This is what we came for, honey. I’ve got my money on you.” He kissed her left temple. “I’ll let the skipper do the talking. I’ll be right behind you with the camera.”

There was no time to answer. The fish had decided to shoot out of the bay; line was screaming out and spray was spinning into her face from the reel.

“How much line do we have?” she shouted above the commotion.

“Enough.” Should it become necessary, I told her, we could chase the fish with her at the bow, but that was highly unlikely. I was sure it would stop, turn tail and race back at us.

A hundred feet from our stern it came straight out of the water, landing on its side. Briefly it thrashed on the surface. When Jane lost contact with it, a collective groan came from all aboard. I shouted at her to reel. She seemed to crank the handle forever before the rod tip dropped again and thumped up and down. She was back in contact with it. I tested the drag—it was fine.

“Keep your rod up and keep pressure on it.”

“What the hell do you think I’m doing?”

“You’re doing just fine. Keep it up.”

The fish gave line and took line, but gradually its runs became shorter and it spent time cruising around the boat ten feet below the surface. Everyone knows water magnifies. When the salmon came close to the surface it looked like a young orca, and questions arose about whether the landing net was big enough or whether it was a shark. Sten and I kept our peace and let the group speculate. Jane had been on her feet playing this fish for nearly forty minutes and her right arm was starting to shake. Each time the fish took another run, she exhaled in exasperation.

When the salmon slipped past the stern of the boat, barely two feet under water, I saw that the lure was across its mouth and that the knot looked worn. I was sure the line would not take another run, so I signalled to Sten to wet the net and prepare to bring the fish on board.

A good man on the net is as important as the fisherman. Sten was a master. In all the years we fished together, I never saw him knock a fish off a line. To be skilled with the net means anticipating the movement of the fish so that the net is placed in front of it at the right moment. If this is done properly, the fish will swim headfirst into the net and to the bottom of the basket.

I explained to Jane how she should slowly lift the head of the fish so it was just under the surface, then steer it toward Sten. “He’ll do the rest.”

The netting was anticlimactic. Jane steered the fish smoothly toward Sten, who dipped the net in front of it and allowed it to swim into the mesh. In a single motion he locked the salmon in and swung it on board. It looked huge and gave off the characteristic sharp smell of a chinook.

While Sten tended to the fish, I took the rod from Jane’s hand and gave her a hug. The boat erupted in another roar of applause. Jeff grabbed Jane and gave her a serious kiss, which turned up the applause even more. We slapped each other on the back and shook hands. It was better than Hogmanay in Scotland. Jane was elated but clearly in serious need of a cool drink and a rest, so I told everyone to go below and have a drink while Sten and I cleared the deck and weighed the fish. Out came my trusty scales, and Sten weighed the fish. It was exactly forty-one and a quarter pounds. When I examined the knot attaching the lure to the line, I was able to break it with a slight tug. We had been lucky, and the salmon had been unlucky.

Most fishing stories end with the netting of the fish. This story has an addendum. We continued fishing for another hour in the hopes that Alice or Ethan would boat a fish. As things turned out, they had a double header—they each caught a seven-pound coho. It was a perfect ending to the charter.

Nice people, good weather and excellent fishing. You simply cannot improve on that combination. And Sten had once again lost his bet with me.

After the fish were cleaned and on ice, we stowed the gear and made our way leisurely back to the marina. I took the helm while Sten pulled out plastic bags to store the fish—this was standard procedure. We were out of heavy-duty extra-large bags, so the forty pounder had to be slipped into a standard black plastic bag.

At the dock everyone clambered off the boat in high spirits, swearing lifelong friendships had been forged. Sten lined up the plastic bags full of fish and handed them to each couple. Jane wanted to carry her fish but Jeff insisted on doing the honours. It was probably a wise decision, since Jane’s back was giving her some grief after the workout of catching the fish.

With a wave of his hand and shouts of thanks to everyone, Jeff picked up Jane’s plastic bag and swung it over his shoulder like Father Christmas with his sack of gifts. Sten and I watched, incredulous, as the bag hit his back, split open at the seam and the prize fish slipped into the ocean between the dock and the boat. It was over in an instant.

Have you ever seen shock and guilt written across someone’s face? Pride and jubilation were replaced with adolescent embarrassment. Jeff was so stunned he couldn’t utter a word. Desperately he looked into the water between the boat and the dock, pointing but still mute.

Finally he found his voice. “Get it!” he exploded. “You’ve got to get it back!”

In unusual circumstances people respond in unusual ways. To my surprise Jane doubled over with laughter. She laughed so hard I thought she was going to do herself some damage.

Jeff was stupefied. Between them they looked like characters from a commedia dell’arte play. She laughed hysterically as he skipped around her, saying, “It’s all right, honey, I’ll get it. I’ll get it back!”

I thought someone had rung a gong in my ears. I could not believe the circus on the dock. Jane was still laughing as Jeff, Matt and Vic peered into the water. The entire scene required only a fellow in a top hat cracking a whip to make it into a Dali canvas.

Clearly something had to be done. I ruled out taking the plunge myself or asking Sten to shed his clothes to retrieve the fish. It crossed my mind that a scuba diver might be around, cleaning the hull of a boat. Scanning the marina with my binoculars, I spotted someone who looked to be wearing diving gear clumping along the wharf. Running until I was breathless, I caught up to a young lad still wearing his flippers, snorkel and mask. Quickly I explained what had happened and asked if he would retrieve the fish for five dollars.

Without hesitation, he introduced himself as Larry and said he would do it for nothing, but I insisted on the payment. Before I knew what was happening, Larry had removed his flippers and was jogging with me to the boat. He slipped into the cold water at the bow and for ten minutes searched underwater, only occasionally coming up for a breath of air. I became concerned about this skinny youngster spending so long in the frigid water. I was about to call off the search when he popped to the surface, spat out his mouthpiece and said the fish was directly below him, ringed by crabs, but it was too awkward to bring up. Sten rigged up a hand line with a monster hook on it and gave it to the boy, and we all waited with bated breath.

Within a few minutes the salmon was on the dock and Larry was standing at the stern of the boat wearing an oversized terry cloth bathrobe I had wrapped around him. I put the five dollars in the robe’s pocket as I draped it over his shivering shoulders. The kid’s lips were nearly blue but he was smiling with a fury.

“Wait till I tell my dad about this!”

He was shivering so much that I put some milk on the stove to make him a mug of sweet cocoa. While I was in the galley waiting for the milk to heat, Sten was double bagging the fish and giving Jeff stern instructions on how he should carry it.

“You’ve caught this fish twice,” Sten said with a slight edge to his voice. “The third time it will deserve to get away.”

Jane was still laughing. “It’s almost a shame we got the fish back,” she said. “Otherwise it might have given me a lifetime of leverage on Jeff.”

Everyone came aboard again, poked their heads into the galley and said an enthusiastic goodbye before leaving. A couple of days later our local paper, the Times Colonist, carried the story of Jane and her twice-caught fish.

When the cocoa was ready, I called the young diver to the galley and put two huge oatmeal cookies in one of his hands and the mug of sweet cocoa in the other. I motioned him to the dinette table and asked him to sit down while he hungrily consumed his cookies and cocoa.

Larry was a chatty lad, eager to tell me all about his diving experiences and his favourite subjects at school. I thought he was terrific and let him chat and impress me while I washed the dishes, rinsed the reels and put the galley in order. Vaguely I wondered where Sten was, but I imagined he was accompanying our guests to the marina office.

In the middle of my thoughts, I realized Larry had fallen silent. When I looked over at him, he was staring into his cocoa.

“You all right?” I asked.

“Uh-huh.” His colour was coming back and he now gave off only an occasional shiver.

“What’s up?”

He squirmed in his seat then looked up at me. “You know you said you’d give me five bucks to find the fish?”

“Yes, and you did, and I did. We owe you many thanks.”

“It’s not that. It’s something else.”

“Okay, tell me.”

He reached into the pocket of the robe, pulled out the five dollars I had given him and dropped it on the table. With his other hand he reached into the other pocket and pulled out a handful of twenty-dollar bills and dropped them on the table.

“You see, they all gave me money. I’m not sure if I should keep it. I don’t know what my dad would say.”

I looked at the young man with admiration. There was a lump in my throat when I said, “I’m proud of you. I’ll bet your dad will proud of you too and say you earned it. Just tell him what you did and what I said.”