Tyee boats fishing on the “ South Corner ” off Tyee Spit , Campbell River .
and dusk , flood and ebb , are referred to not as going fishing but as “ going for a row .”
The tides are good . “ We ’ ll fish one row this evening , two rows tomorrow ,” Dwayne says .
Rowers maneuver with feathered strokes , sometimes less than an oar length from other boats , sometimes chatting with other rowers about recent catches and rehashing old stories .
There ’ s an optimistic buzz on the row since last week when Mike Gage , rowed by his son , shook the world with a 61 ½ pound Tyee . The last time a Tyee that big was caught here Gage was 43 years old . He is now 73 .
Camaraderie on the water is almost as palpable as the suspense .
Some wonder out loud how this year ’ s run will shape up .
Dwayne believes it will top out , as usual , at about 6,000 Chinook . Many will be Tyees .
My guide long ago surrendered to the addiction of the Tyee Pool . He has fished it for years and is yet to personally put a Tyee in the club book , an omission probably best explained by his love of the row , handling the oars , working the lures for others .
His day job at Painter ’ s is to manage marine activities and from his desk in the Marine Center he can watch boats fishing the tyee pool , read the water and waves , count the number of skiffs that pull away to mid-channel to fight their fish .
A mid-August squall has been blowing up the Inside Pass since before daylight . I burrow into rain gear and run north with guide Rob Turko through the whirls of Seymour Narrows to fish migrating kings , maybe coho and certainly pinks with flashers and double glo squid . Conventional trolling is hot but while I ’ m nailing a salmon limit the new way my heart is in the old way and the evening when Dwayne and Natalie and I will collect a box of ancient lures and have another “ row .”
At 3 p . m . I pick at a plate of nachos , sip a Japanese beer and watch squalls blow whitecaps down Discovery Pass . At 6:30 Dwayne calls . Calm enough he says . We ’ ll fish the sweet hour before and probably after dark . There are indications more Tyees are moving in . Despite the wind and rain , the morning “ row produced four kings , the largest rang four bells .
Five Tyees were caught yesterday , two in the morning and three during our evening row and three of those were in the 40s . A five-Tyee day is above average . Nineteen total Tyees for the season so far , the weighmaster reports . I grin . We ’ re fishing the center of August , heart of the season , Tyees are being caught and fresh fish are arriving .
A low ebbing tide is stacking salmon on the south side of the river bar . We and three dozen like-thinkers are trolling the edge of the bar , oar-to-oar each jockeying politely for position . Occasionally Chinook roll , finned barrels breaking through the surface to show us they are there . They shoot us with adrenalin . We start the row with huge half-and-half Gibbs Stewarts spoons , switch to plugs : shovelnose Lucky Louies to start and then Tomic 151s . I ’ ve eaten trout smaller than this plug .
In a light mist , with the purple gray of last light on the water , Natalie ’ s rod bucks . She rocks the boat , sets hard , fast and exactly right with her thumb pushed into the spool . Nothing . Maybe a tail slap , Dwayne says , maybe a near passby . At 9:30 it ’ s black on the water and the fleet of red and green lights shifts into shore where a dancing bonfire marks the Tyee Club . It ’ s just us and the lights of a couple of other diehards when Dwayne calls it a row and heads back through the blackness . We agree to be on the water again at 5:30 in the morning — the tide book predicts the row will be spoon water .
We fish the daylight bite with wobbling 50 / 50s , stay for the tide bite plus an hour or two more and go in for breakfast .
Thirty minutes almost to the dot after we quit , while I ’ m spritzing Tabasco on Eggs Blackstone an angler rings the bell : 34-pounder . I shake my head at Dwayne ’ s report and remind myself : This adventure is about more than fish .
It ’ s easier to convince myself while sorting through Dwayne ’ s impressive collection of tyee history : Allcock ’ s Hercules rod , Nottingham Starback Reel , Gandy Dancer spoon , Richmake 760s , 4½-inch Peetz wooden reels , Lucky Louie shovelnoses , Martin cedars ….
It ’ s harder when I look out the window , watch a gray whale blow past in the Inside Pass , see the skiffs in the distance . Hell , I mutter , The Duke was skunked too . And then through the window in the distance , I can see a boat pull away from the fleet and row toward mid-channel ……. it ’ s not about the fish . It ’ s not ….! kenmoreair . com
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