Saanich Inlet Angling History: Cecil H. Unwin

Ron Meuse sent me the following images, and asked any reader who knows details about Unwin to get in touch with him (send me an email and I will forward it to Ron).

The four photos below are from the VSIAA’s 1939 Yearbook. The images have good resolution and you can zoom into them for details. The first, blue one, is the cover, 1939 being a royal visit year, in May.

The image below the text shows a venerable Clendon spoon from the era, aka the Wonder Spoon. The right side of the page is Unwin with a big chinook, along with the trophy he won. It is inscribed: International Champion, Winner of “The Joker” Cup. As we all know, fishing is a high-class sport, and Cecil sports a suit with his arm around a plus 30-pound spring. You will note the fight was so ferocious he had to take his tie off after the fight to cool off, or so I say.

 

                                        

 The image below on the left shows a classic wood-hulled fishing boat and is part of an ad for Creed’s Landing (Between Angler’s Anchorage and Gilbert’s on Brentwood Bay). The right side of the page has the buttons to be won for catching a chinook of prescribed weight: bronze for a 20 to 30-pound fish; silver for 30- to 40-pounds; gold for plus 40 pounds; and, a gold championship award for the biggest fish of the year, with a diamond in the medal.

Note that among the rules: “the winning of a button makes the holder a member of the Chinook Club for life (see Chinook Club rules).”

                                      

The right-hand image is a list of button-qualifying chinook and their captors for April to August 1938. Note the names that anyone who lives in the Victoria area will recognize as street names, and of local lore. The yellow slip beside the list notes Unwin’s 33-pound chinook taken on August 28.

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Please excuse that the images and text got scrambled in making this post to the blog.