Explore:NW explorenw_spr2019 | Page 55

FIVE SOUNDS BYOB Think the wild west side of Vancouver Island is out of your reach? Maybe not, if you bring your own boat. You can do this. By PATRICK MCGANN M Y FIRST SALMON TRIP TO the west side of Van- couver Island was in 1985 and I didn’t even get to fish. A friend and I drove up to Tofino without stop- ping, fueled by caffeine, nicotine and Springsteen. The weather was severe. A guide, about our age, mid-20s and bul- letproof, said that if we wanted, he’d try it, but only if we drove out to the end of the Main Street and took a look, literally from the end of the road. So, OK. We did. What we saw was insane. The whole Pacific Ocean was on an agitated cycle. Normally, you’d try and guestimate the size of the waves but there weren’t any. It was more like a vast pulsing mass of angry suds and a deafening roar. We were laughing about what we were going to say to that guide when we got back to the resort. “Well?” he said. “Well what?,” we said. “You wanna go fishing?” “Of course, we want to go fishing,” we said. “Just not here.” Lesson learned. We headed for the saloon where we found a house full of dry docked fishermen who had come a long way. One of them was the head of B.C. fisheries. I did not get a good fishing story that trip, but I got one hell of a story on Columbia River salmon mitigation fund allocation. I’m addicted to the west coast of Vancouver Island. And it is not just be- cause when you can get at them, there are always fish there. It is a drive-to wilderness. And if there is one thing I’ve learned about the wilderness, it’s that people seem to be more civilized there. I have not had a bad people experi- ence on Vancouver Island in 30 years of fishing up there. Everyone, and I mean everyone I’ve met in the sportfishing industry up there, has busted their butts trying to help people have a good time. I can’t really say that about anywhere or anything else. They are competent, kenmoreair.com 53