Cross-Canada: Coastal Lowlands

Last time we left off, Alex and I had successfully made our way across the country and ended up at the Pacific ocean in Vancouver. We made it to the city a bit ahead of schedule, and had a bonus afternoon to work with. Not quite sure where to go, we chose the closest pier and figured it might be worth a shot.

The first thing I noticed was a mass of thousands and thousands of small dark fish swimming around the base of the pier. I whipped out my tenkara pole and got to fishing the tanago rig, keeping my bait within the school. There were literally thousands of fish but all of them just ignored the bait. I kept at it a while longer, and eventually my perseverance paid off... my lifer Northern Anchovy!

Northern Anchovy

Not the most exciting fish, but apparently they're usually pretty unwilling to take a bait so no complaints here! But, having caught one of the anchovies, I switched gears started using my ultralight rig with a sz12 hook, tipped with a small chunk of squid. The fishing was rather slow compared to other saltwater fishing I've done, but eventually I realized there were fish that would only hit an actively moving bait. I started jigging and bites started coming! Unfortunately, they were all juvenile Coho Salmon, and needed to be quickly released to avoid injuring them.

I did manage to catch two new species between all the salmon though. The first was a Shiner Surfperch, caught while it was feeding right against the nearest pilon. The second was a Pacific Herring; a school passed through for a brief moment and I managed to capitalize along with nearly every fisherman on the pier.

Shiner Surfperch

Pacific Herring

Eventually, the herring action slowed and I took the time to message some local fishermen I had been talking to online. I told them about my success at the pier and one of them said I should be able to land a Speckled Sanddab in the area if I dragged a small enough bait along the bottom. We still had some time to spare, so I gave it a try. It took a little while, but eventually I felt a small bite and lifted up the desired species :)

Speckled Sanddab

Having exhausted the species available at the pier, we packed up our gear and enjoyed a nice coleman-grilled steak dinner on the beach. The plans for later in the evening were what I was really waiting for. We were going to be shark fishing with the lifelisters I mentioned above, right in downtown Vancouver!

We packed up our cooking gear, drove over to the shark spot, and found parking in the busy downtown area. My new friends were running a bit late so they told me to bait up and take a cast while I was waiting for them. I didn't expect much, but, five minutes later, my rod doubled over and it was fish on! About a minute into the fight, our second rod started going off and Alex was forced to leave me alone to fight her fish. These were proper fish (compared to the ones above lol), and it took a little bit to fight them in. Our next obstacle was the seawall and fence we were fishing off of, there was no way to get to the fish. On top of all this, we had amassed quite a crowd of spectators, and it wouldn't be easy to land both fish. I handed my rod to Alex, who was now holding a rod hooked to a shark in each hand, and hopped over the fence to land each fish. Incredibly, it all went smoothly and we both got pictures with our first Pacific Spiny Dogfish!

Our friends showed up after we had released both our fish, and we spent the rest of the evening with relatively few bites. If I remember correctly, we collectively caught one more dogfish and a sea cucumber.

Giant California Sea Cucumber

Ending the night, we said goodbye to everyone and headed away from the city to try and find a free campsite for the night.

The next day started bright and early because it was Saturday and I knew our first destination would get busy fast. We arrived at the lake right when the access opened at 8:00, and it was already lined up! We didn't let this ruin our optimism and quickly made our way onto the dock to claim a small area to ourselves.

If you didn't already know, I'm a lot more into freshwater fishing than I am into marine species, so I was happy to be back in my element. There were a number of new species I could catch here, chief among them being the Largescale Sucker. I didn't see any suckers around, but there were a lot of small minnows that bit readily and turned out to be small Northern Pikeminnow (lifer for Alex), and Redside Shiner (lifer for me!).

Northern Pikeminnow

Redside Shiner

There were also some Threespine Stickleback in the shallower part of the lake, so I took the opportunity to take this scenic photo of one the little beasts:

Threespine Stickleback

Eventually, I had found all of my targets except for the sucker I wanted so badly. The water was very clear so I could see that there were none around. I scanned and scanned the bottom, and finally saw one after an hour of searching! Aaannddd... it spooked right away.

Luckily, it didn't go too far and I was able to keep track of it while I re-baited my hook. I placed a cast about three feet from it's snout, and it immediately swam over and  took the bait! I fought it back to the dock and nervously swung it onto land, lifer caught!!

Largescale Sucker

Catching the sucker took a little more time than expected so we were off as soon as the fish was properly released. It was time to head back to saltwater.

This next spot was our last stop before taking the ferry to Vancouver Island. It was supposed to be one of the more diverse fisheries in BC, but I must be lacking some skill because I only ended up catch one new species, a Pacific Staghorn Sculpin. I'll also tag on a Tidepool Sculpin I caught the next day in Victoria, just because.

Pacific Staghorn Sculpin

Tidepool Sculpin

The scenery on Vancouver Island was spectacular, but the fishing was less so. Most of the spots I wanted to try were overcrowded and the only catch of note was the Tidepool Sculpin in the photo above. I'll end off this post with a few scenery shots taken on the island, and finish the trip in the next one :)

East Sooke Regional Park

Rainforest Walk

Little Qualicum Falls