Peter McMullan, who sent in last week’s story about fishing Saanich Inlet
in the fifties, sent along a PDF of his hand-written fishing diary from 1953 –
1954. Below you will see two images, one of the left-hand page of the diary – a
book about 12 inches wide and five deep, so the two half pages you see, are
actually one page – and the right-hand side of the same page. Then two more
images, comprising the next page. (The PDF is longer, and I can send it along
to anyone who wants to look it over).
So, with the two pages, you can look back and forth, and find out what
he was fishing with, including weight, lure, flasher, line out, area fished,
time of day and fish caught. The tackle is useful for remembering what worked
and what was the best thing to try the next time on the water. I note the half
and half Tom Mack, (which today, in the ultra-thin Coho Killer line is called a
Gold Nugget). An example of the written text reproduced as typed text is:
June
23,1954, trolling, herring strip, Sea King silver flasher, 6.15 p.m.,
250', 2 lbs lead, ripples, from boat and outboard, self and Roses, Brentwood,
First Bay, spring salmon, 9 lbs 6 ozs.
This fish was big enough to be 15th on the leader board, the
largest more than 30 pounds – I believe from the entire Victoria area.
I AM HAVING DIFFICULTY SAVING PDF IMAGES TO THIS SITE. WILL HAVE THEM UP SOON.
The interesting text at the top of this second page
summarizes his year fishing. You will note several UK fish species, as well as
fish you cannot catch in saltwater. While I could not read all of them, here
are most: Total 95 fish, Pike 25, Perch 2, Tench 7, Atlantic Salmon 1, Coho 8,
Jacks 1, Steelhead 1, Grilse 27 Pollock 4, Rudd 4, and so on.
Here is an image of his book of fishing memories, Casting Back, some 60 years of fishing:
You can pick it up on Amazon, or from Rocky Mountain
Press, in Alberta. The introduction is from Mark Hume, columnist for the Globe
and Mail, as well as book author, himself. The book is reviewed on BC Book
Look: http://bcbooklook.com/2016/12/26/from-the-irish-sea-to-the-salish-sea/.
And Peter’s comment about the book and fishing:
“I really do
appreciate your interest in Casting Back
and will have the reworked PDF version - no missing pages - of the old diary to
you later today. I find it pretty amazing to be able to look back all those
years to when I was a green-as-grass teenaged Victoria College student, fresh
from Belfast and four years at an English boarding school and now suddenly able
to go fishing from a row boat on Saanich Inlet and actually catch salmon. Mike
Rose, who I met at college and with whom I played rugby that season ('54-'55),
and I fished together from Brentwood, together with Bill Ballantyne and others,
and also on the Cowichan for steelhead. I also went out few times with his parents.
Without the diary to remind me of those distant times I am afraid all that part
of my life would by now be a very faded picture. I suppose it's inevitable but,
at 81, there is only so much room for memories of long ago fishing
adventures.”
Yes, the
past is fading memories, of a time that no longer exists, but comprises an
important part of our lives and who we are, oh, and the fishing, too.
One comment
about the fishing. In those days, and certainly, John Rose did it for years,
herring strip was cut from one flank of the herring, then the herring was turned
over and the other strip cut off the opposite side. I always used ‘store bought’,
not trusting that I could cut a herring properly.
My own faded
memories suggest in my learning years we used a large, glow-green, strip Teaser
head from Rhys Davis, and that the large rather than the Super Strip holder
(which rotated in the opposite direction) – made for strip from the other side
of the herring, worked far better in Saanich Inlet. Once the strip was flush
with the inside of the front of the holder, the tooth pick was inserted through
from one side to the other, and snapped off flush on both sides – the trick was
to use toothpicks that were not left open to the humidity on the boat, and thus
bent rather than snapped off.
Then the
most important part was imparting the spiral that worked the best, a little
quicker than one per second, and with the tail end following the head through
the spiral. I spent a lot of time looking at the rig spin in the water beside
the boat – Saanich Inlet was usually calm enough that you didn’t have to be
adjusting boat course all the time, running between the captain’s chair and the
strip in the water – and adjusting the ‘wing’ on the holder, bending out or in
to change rotation speed. Memory tells me I used one single trailing hook, and
a Siwash one, because in those days we could use barbed hooks, and a Siwash has
the longest, sharpest point for penetrating fish, though I could be wrong.
After all, we use a treble leading hook, for inserting into anchovy, and a
single trailer beyond the tail in our wire-rigged holders today.
And to end
with, an image of, perhaps, Gilbert’s, dock in the ‘50s. Sometimes Peter slept
over night on their dock and fished in the morning.
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