The Rich And/Or Famous Who Fished With Jim

Previous posts on this site have focused on the rich and/or famous people who fished with Jimmy Gilbert, including Oscar Peterson and John Diefenbaker.

Other images of Dief the Chief may be found here:  https://saanichinletangling.blogspot.com/2018/07/dief-chief-fishes-with-jim.html.

Here is Gordie Howe scoring big time fishing with Jim. I am guessing this is winter as the left hand fish are roughly blueback size (coho, likely from the Cowichan), while the fish on the right look right for winter chinook of 2 to 3 years old.

And Lester Pearson came along to nab a few with Jimmy.

And the about to become famous (he was already rich) Vice President George, HW, Bush was lucky enough to meet the great man himself, Jimmy Gilbert. I believe this was shot at Rivers Inlet.

And some more images of Diefenbaker, this one steely eyed, sort of, and focused on reeling in the big one. As we all know, the big ones, get bigger, based on the amount of time after they have been brought on board, into months thereafter. Fishermen are not liars, they simply accommodate the time-honoured tradition of scaling up their fish, knowing other fishermen will scale them back to the original size, meaning before time made them grow.

And when there is a double header, even the aide to the Chief gets to reel in a fish.

The following image of Dief made Time magazine, in an article about Canadian federal politics, along with Pearson. I wonder if Dief chided Lester about how many fish the Chief caught and thus out-fished another Prime Minister?

 The Deer Stalker Chief. Looks like the entrance to McKenzie 'Bay'.

Saanich Inlet Fishing e-Book and Hot Lures, 2014

I happened to find an email/column I did in 2014 about putting this blog/book together. Here is what I said, and if you have a story to tell, please tell me:

Saanich Inlet e-book: Several times in the past year, readers have mentioned interesting stories about fishing Saanich Inlet over the years. I would like to see these stories collected as they form part of the fishing history of our area. Some who were central have already passed, such as Jimmy Gilbert and Charlie White. 

I cut my saltwater fishing teeth in Saanich Inlet in the ‘70s and got to know some of the best anglers at the time, including John Rose and Bob Redgrave, among many others who taught me the Inlet’s fishing. Remember the laconic Harold, with the huge, floppy-hind-legged German Shepherd. He told me when asked: “Fish what you are best with.” Rather than a specific lure. 

It was good advice. Large strip in a green teaser was the ticket, but making it work was the trick, until it became one of your best. Remember Angel Wing squirts, blue backs in January, 225 and 418 Tomic Plugs when Siwash barbs were legal. Tod Inlet on Boxing Day. Halls Boathouse, Chesterfield Rock, the Pink Lady, Glass House and Stone Steps.

I learned wire line and planer fishing, and that Saanich Inlet was, and still is, absolutely precise in where you caught and will still catch fish today, when they are there. While the Inlet is very calm, a great benefit to fishing, even in its relatively slow moving waters, you could predict accurately where the fish would be based on tidal flow. 

For example, in the Bamberton run that anglers committed to memory, the reefs and pockets held fish based on the tide. Where the slag ‘slide’ at the south end of the docks is, marked a ‘V’ shaped cranny under water, that on the flood, most fish would be to the south of the slide hanging over that reef and on an ebb, the fish would be closer to the docks, hanging over the reef that formed the other side of the ‘V’. Then Jimmy’s Hole and…

It was so precise that on several occasions I said to someone I had along, “If we are going to get a fish it will be… right now.” And actually had the planer trip and the rod pop up and the fish was on. One of the benefits of the old Peetz roller-guided rods was that when the planer tripped, the rod jumped almost four feet. You would have to be in a coma to miss a strike. And the bells we put on rods tinkled over the water, and we could hear others also having good fishing, particularly in the dark with the only lights being the cement factory ones.

I first fished from a canoe at the marker off Coles Bay, drift-fishing Stingsildas. My wife at the time managed to catch a 12 pound spring on a summer evening with the new herring sparkling around us. She leaned into the fish, and the gunwhale slid to the water. I leaned out the opposite way and so we did not go under. And landed the chinook.

This is the luck of being young and foolish. She was eight months pregnant with our first child, and we were half a mile off shore. Either you swam to the marker and held on until someone spotted you, or swum a half mile to the Dyer Rocks. Or so I thought. That was the confidence and sheer luck of underprepared youth. Looking back, I see how foolish we had been. And, of course, we did not realize how cold the water was and we would have been in a very serious, life threatening situation if we had gone in.

Here is the point: I’d like everyone who has some Saanich Inlet memories to write them down and send them in. We will put together an e-book from the stories, so the history is preserved. My several lists to which I send this column do not have all the people on them who made the history, from the heyday ‘50s and ‘60s. So would you please let other anglers you know who fished Saanich Inlet that I would appreciate their taking the time to write your and their good stories down and send them in.

I have asked Mike Rose to be the collector of the stories, putting together a digital file which we will then shape into an e-book or PDF for distribution. His email address is: mike-rose@shaw.ca. Please send him your stories. Mike mentioned he had access to some of the old Saanich Inlet Anglers Association scrapbooks and etc. Period photos would be good, too, if you can send them digitally. I have ISBNs and will handle the reporting requirements for the National Library in Ottawa. There is also the possibility of putting out a tangible, printed book, but let’s just get the stories in and take it from there.

Tom Cole also sent me a CD of memorabilia, and I will look into that, too.

Hot Lures: Tom Vaida does the Island Outfitters weekly fishing report. The hot tackle from a week ago that you might want to try are: bait: anchovy; teasers: green, UV Green, Bloody Nose, UV Chartreuse; spoons: G-Force, in Irish Cream, No Bananas, also Cop Car, Glow/Green Coyotes; plastics: Yellow, Purple Haze, Gray Ghost, Cloverleaf, Glow Below, Electric Chair; squirts: Pickle Green, J-79, Jellyfish; flashers: Gibbs Madi, Purple Onion, Green/Silver, Green Jellyfish, Silver Betsy.

dcreid@catchsalmonbc.com

John Rose 1954

Mike Rose sent me these images of John Rose, his father, taken in 1954.

"These three pictures were in 1954 when we were living on Foul Bay Road and I was attending Victoria College before going to UBC in Vancouver."

Surprisingly, they lived only a few blocks from where I currently live just on the Victoria side of the Foul Bay line. 

"We spent most weekends and some evenings fishing on the Inlet and that craft was a fine fishing boat with a 32hp inboard grey marine engine with bunks and heating and cooking facilities." 

 "It was one of the many craft that John owned in the period 1953-1970 before he got the Salar."

Saanich Inlet was just the right spot for both of these boats, as it is protected from wind from many directions, as well as has very slow tidal currents because it is only open at one end, rather than at both. Wind against tidal currents makes for rough water on the inside straits of BC.

"The Salmon was one of many “button fish” that he caught. He had a box full of buttons when he quit fishing just prior to 1997."

The buttons were from the Victoria Saanich Inlet Angling Association.

"The cod was on an early morning trip to Cowichan Bay in September while the springs  and cohos were schooling in the Bay waiting for the first fall rains. I used to fish the Cowichan River and canoed and waded a lot in the summer and early fall when the springs came up before the rains. Just off the River Bottom Road in Sahtlam there were several large clay banks which are mostly all gone now  and we used to watch the springs and summer steelhead resting in the pools below the banks from July on.

"The big ling cod as I recall had swallowed a smaller one as we were wining the smaller one in."

I recall that as the days moved deeper into September and then early October - in a dry year, of course, as rain was/is the trigger for coho to hit their river - the morning fish would move north and come to rest off the Mill Bay shore and ferry terminal, in 225 feet of water or deeper. One of the usual tacks was to start in the dark off the south end of Bamberton, for its chinook bite, and once that was over, you would follow the 200 foot ledge north, where it steadily moved off shore until you were a half mile or so off the ferry terminal in Mill Bay.

It was a distinct fishery, and in the area from Tozier to Tanner rocks, that we did not fish any other time of the year, unless it was fishing deep for chinook. There wasn't any need to go that far, as in January and February, the fish could be inside Brentwood Bay and Tod Inlet. If I recall correctly, it was tradition to fish Tod Inlet on January 1 of the new year.

***

Since my first posting this, er, post, Mike Rose has sent me some more words on fishing Saanich Inlet. They are included here:

"The fishing techniques in those days were based on fishing the “bottom”. The original wire lines and 2 pound weights allowed us to bounce off the bottom and, through repetition in several locations, we learned the depth and where the fish would bite on various tide runs. This was for normal daytime fishing. For early morning (4am on) and evening we fished with the wire line, a one pound weight and 100 feet of line out as the fish tended to come up as the light did not penetrate as deeply at those times and the fish that lounged near the bottom all day would rise up for feed as the herring were higher at those times."

I would add that when I fished planers and wire line, other than the early bite at the crack of dawn - you left the dock in the dark, and set your gear in the dark - I fished planers until 275 feet out, where, it was acknowledged by all that no more line let out would result in more sink. So, in the day I fished planers until 142 feet deep had been reached, at which point downriggers could be put out at this depth and would take salmon at the same rate as planers, and would be, of course, a much easier fishing spread to fish.

"Fishing in Saanich Inlet was different from Oak Bay as we rarely had “tide lines” to fish. 

Mostly we fished along areas with changes in topography along the shore. Points were always good as were bays. Despite the usual idea that Saanich Inlet was a lake-like water body compared with areas like Juan de Fuca Strait where there were much faster currents and tidal runs.

However there tends to be quite a bit of motion as noted by the passages of Killer Whales going up one side of the Inlet into the tide and coming back along the other side. Points and Bays always have some areas similar to a river where the fish can lie near the bottom looking into the approaching water and watch the feed being drifted down to them."

***

I fished Saanich Inlet for about 25 years before moving my boat to the Victoria/Sooke/Oak Bay waters, and I would agree that there were specific points of structure that could be relied upon to offer up fish more frequently than structureless water. 

My first 24 pounder came one April morning in front of what I called 'The Gas Station' on the Jim Gilbert side of Coles Bay. Before I knew what a marine ways was, I thought the one red house with its deck and winch looked like a place to pick up gas. Its blip of underwater topography caught me many fish, and was not as far away as the Yellow House Point, at the south end of Coles Bay.

Here is that fish, and me as a handsome, young rogue, fishing in the 9' 2" SS Guppy (our version of Gilligan's Island's SS Minnow), a scaled down whaling dory and its 2.5 HP engine. The fish was hooked almost directly behind me on the opposite shore, with the Yellow House, at the end of the bay, behind and to the right of me. 

Of great humour (to me), when I finally got it to the boat, I realized it was far larger than the net I had, and had to race after a well tricked out boat that had passed me, towing the fish, hoping it would not get off, to borrow their net. 

Once I netted the fish, I putted back to hand over their net, and casually lifted my fish in my dinky little boat. All jaws dropped on the million dollar boat, while I felt quite good about things. Apparently, they had not yet had a bite. Hmm. Too bad that.

MIke Rose, John Rose and Family

My family (John, Win and I) came to Victoria in  February 1952 when I was 15 and stayed on Thompson Cove at the end of Senanus Drive for the summer. We had lived in Ontario for a couple of years and had a strip cedar 16 foot “Peterborough" boat shipped over by rail from the east. We learned to fish with help from Old Man Gilbert, I went to North Saanich high on the school bus with Jimmy. We joined the VSIAA  and bought the cane rods and wire line and fished with Wonder Spoons and plugs and eventually herring strip.

My mum and Dad had most of the memories as I was at Victoria College and then over to UBC and then 19 years with the Canadian Meteorological Service in such places as Trenton Ontario, Toronto, Calgary, Whitehorse, Montreal (back to University for an advanced Meteorological degree), Then to Edmonton, Goose Bay Labrador and back to Vancouver. Fished in all of those locations with the exception of Toronto and Trenton Ontario as I was in training there. After 5 years in Vancouver we moved back to Victoria in 1975. I started Fishing in the Inlet with my father and teen aged sons and on the Cowichan River with a couple of  old Vic College buddies.

                                                                         The Salar

 

I have extensive notes on River fishing on the Cowichan and other Rivers on the Island and the Birkenhead by Pemberton. However I made no notes about fishing on the Inlet as we fished the same locations. Bamberton in the early morning, the wall along from Willis Point to Todd Inlet, Indian Bay for flounders and Brill (flat fish) the entrance to Thompson Cove for Big Red Rockfish (Snappers). 

Depths from 100 feet of wire line with 1-2 pounds of lead weight on a leader with a hook to detach as we got the fish close with 20 or more feet of line after the detachable hook. Then up to 300 feet of wire along the sides of the Inlet. Frequently lowering the line to bottom and until it bumped when we would raise it up. We also fished down the Squally Reach to well known landmarks such as McKenzie Bay and McCurdy Point and the “Deep Hole” a half mile or so south of McCurdy, all the way to Halls Boathouse at Goldstream.

John cut his own herring strip and got his “Strip-Teasers”  from Rhys Davis who invented and marketed and sold them. He never liked down riggers, always preferring wire line and initially lead, 1 and 2 pound weights with the line and hook to make it more fun when the fish was close and we could detach the weight. As he got older John started using planers.

His old boat the Salar which he bought from Bill Mearns had a lot of work done from the time it was a 26 foot twin skin carvel(smooth skin) mahogany naval lifeboat with a big Buda Deisel. In the early 80’s he had a two cylinder Volvo Penta installed which was great on fuel and good for trolling. See the Salar Picture.  Getting the Buda out involved a crane and removing part of the roof. He also had a trolling outboard. The stern cockpit was covered and we used to fish in comfort in all weather and with an oil stove inside we could heat and cook so comfort was great.

***

As mentioned in the previous post, I learned a lot from John Rose about using strip, Large Strip Teasers from Rhys Davis, and planers in Saanich Inlet. John and the rest of the high liners would be willing to help once you proved you could catch fish, and were committed to the Inlet. When you were able to explain why what you were doing caught fish, which meant you were seriously committed to fishing, they would help. Daytrippers were not helped. It is true even today for me, when I give advice, and the person doesn't seem to pick it up, or won't listen, I don't offer advice again. 

On my onfishingdcreid blog, the favourite post is the one on wire-rigging a teaser head for whole anchovy. Blow up the pictures to get how the wire inserts in the teaser: http://onfishingdcreid.blogspot.com/2014/02/wire-rigging-teaserhead-feb-23-2014.html.

Now, back to SI: you bent the tab on the teaser's inside, or meat side, of the strip, to gain a quicker spiral on the bait. In the Inlet, the best speed was about a revolution per second, relatively slow, which would then flop over every now and then. Even today, decades later, I still use a slower spiral than most, on anchovy, fishing the Juan de Fuca side of Victoria. 

And for SI strip, you used two single, saltwater hooks rigged in tandem, the top one not anchored in the strip, but both in the plane of the bait, meaning not perpendicular to it. And also one hook up, one down, was the best setup, the latter hook extending just beyond the tail of the strip. A toothpick in the leader's blister stopped the hooks where you wanted them - both plane and distance.

The pale green large strip teaser was better than other colours in SI.

And I learned that I was the only person who fished Saanich Inlet who called McKenzie Bight by its real, on the chart, name. Everyone else called it McKenzie Bay, as Mike Rose does above. I caught my first fish, a rock fish, in McKenzie Bight, er, Bay, in 1975, fishing in a putt putt rental boat from Gilbert's. We made a turn a smidge too quick and the inside rod dropped to the bottom, whence Mr. Fish bagged the bait and we bagged him.

I still remember, turning to starboard on the reef at the west end of McKenzie Bay, the rod dropping and then the bite. Funny how you can remember some things 40 years later, but, not, as in this morning, remembering to put a towel in my gym bag, though I have been doing it for 25 years, and having to towel off with paper towels. Hmm.