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The Codfish Dream

Page 15

by David Giblin


  The real targets of all sport fishing are the coho and the awesome chinook, which are definitely at the top of the pyramid.

  The fifth species is the chum, sometimes referred to as dog salmon. They grow canine-like fangs as it comes time to spawn. The guides are rather ambivalent about the merits of this fish. Lucky Petersen has never kept one. Other guides aren’t so choosy. They can get up to twenty-four or twenty-five pounds, but they are nasty, mottled things. They develop bilious-looking purple and green splotches as they get closer to spawning. The intensity of the colour in the males designates dominance, making the most colourful ones more attractive to the females. While chums can fight like an old bear on light sport fishing tackle, their bizarre eating habits taint the meat, making it stringy and tasteless. They are usually smoked and canned.

  What I was looking at in the bottom of the fish cooler was definitely an example of the second-class citizen of the salmon world. As its size suggested, it was close to spawning and was a dull metallic colour with distinctive mottled stripes along its sides and huge fangs.

  Chum salmon feed almost exclusively on a kind of purple jellyfish. They might strike on a herring, but it’s more out of mean-spiritedness than hunger. Lenny must have dragged his cut-plug right in front of its nose. The chum bit out of anger.

  I could picture the scene in Wet Lenny’s boat that hot afternoon: Mr. Breland caught up in the thrill of the hunt and only seeing the fish in terms of its size—he would have been oblivious to things like species and edibility; Lenny trapped by his need to impress with no question of releasing the fish. It would have to come home and be weighed. Lenny would have no choice but to land the salmon.

  The first thing a dog salmon does when it hits the floor of an angler’s boat is throw up. It must be some kind of defence mechanism, like an octopus squirting ink. As Mr. Breland’s chum salmon hit the floor of Wet Lenny’s boat, great gouts of slimy purple jellyfish puke must have arced out of its mouth. The partially digested jellyfish produce an indelible purple dye; it stains everything it touches, forever. I know this from experience.

  As I rejoined the happy group Mr. Breland was still pacing. His Guccis were now a mottled greeny-yellow-purple colour, not unlike the sides of the fish down in the cooler. Mr. B didn’t seem to notice. He had caught his big fish of the summer. He squelched up and down, retelling the story of the fighting chum salmon. Over in the corner Wet Lenny and Mr. B’s daughter sat holding hands. Wet Lenny had made his big catch of the summer; he had her father’s approval.

  I was invited to the barbecue the next day. I would have been a real shrub to turn down the invitation. I intended to sit down and eat the tough, stringy flesh of that fish. I owed it that much—Wet Lenny hadn’t talked to me for days now. He had a new girlfriend, and the chum’s sacrifice ensured that would continue.

  thirty-seven PITY THE MESSENGER

  I WAS ALONE in the cottage one afternoon catching up on my leader tying. The Brelands had left for their Vancouver home for a few days. Lenny, having quickly become a part of the family, had been invited to stay on the country estate. Mr. Breland had heard Lenny’s theories on fish and how to catch them, and had taken a keen interest. He was convinced the guides conspired to make people think fishing was an obscure art, harder than it really was. He was sure they shrouded it so they could charge more money for their services. He felt the same way about his accountants at tax season.

  My thoughts on the phenomenon of Douglas Breland were interrupted by a knock on the door. I opened it to find Gary Crane standing on the porch, a little out of breath.

  “Oh great, I’ve found you, I’ve been running all over the place. I guess I just kept missing you.”

  “Is that so?” I hadn’t left the house all morning. “I suppose you must have started looking for me over at the gas dock.”

  “Uh, yeah, how did you know?”

  I didn’t bother to answer. I didn’t always want to be found, and it would be a shame to spoil Troutbreath’s fun.

  “So, what can I do for you?”

  “Oh yeah, ummm . . . there’s a boat coming in tomorrow and they want you to guide for them. I think it’s Mr. Goldfarb.”

  As Gary was talking, my gaze wandered past him over his shoulder. Something caught my eye—a familiar Boston whaler. It was floating out past the dock, flags waving, antennae bobbing up and down as the gentle current carried it along. The boat would soon be out in the middle of the bay and headed for the rapids.

  “Your dad bought some new engines, eh?”

  “Yeah, he did.”

  “A couple of nice shiny black Mercurys.”

  He looked at me as though I was some kind of seer.

  “We just bought those. You must have been watching me come in.”

  “No, but I’m watching you go out.”

  Gary turned to see what I was talking about.

  “Hey!” he yelled, “how did that get out there?”

  “Off hand, I’d say someone forgot to tie it up.”

  Gary looked a little sheepish as I said it.

  “Uhhh . . . maybe I could have forgotten.”

  “They’re not like horses, you know. You can’t just drop the reins and expect them to stick around.”

  I took Gary out in my boat and we caught up to his before it could come to grief.

  “Say hello to your dad for me, and tell them I’ll be there to guide when the boat comes in tomorrow. And Gary, this adventure will be just between you and me.”

  thirty-eight CHAIN OF COMMAND

  CATCHING A BIG fish often proves to be a curse, especially if you catch it for a guy like Morris. I seldom caught them for the right guests, the ones who lavish praise, big tips, even their daughters on the guide that catches them the big one. Some guides might catch an old dog salmon and end up being wined and dined and flown about by helicopters. I catch a tyee and all I get is a chance to go fishing with Morris again.

  One of Morris’s main suppliers had heard he liked to go fishing and had organized this trip. There were other customers of the company along besides Morris, and they were all being watched over by a company vice-president to make sure things went smoothly. He was vice-president in charge of something or other, a young, self-important type, what you might call “a man on the move,” and he wasted no time in alienating all the guides.

  “You,” he said, pointing to Lucky Petersen, “are you ready to go fishing? Have you got all your bait? I hope you have enough. I don’t want anyone running out of bait before it’s time to come back.”

  He had the smell of paranoia about him.

  “Listen, people”—he was walking up and down the dock clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention—“make sure you all have enough life jackets on board. The water out there is pretty dangerous. You all have to be here at the dock by 5:30 precisely. We don’t want anyone to be late for dinner.”

  “So if I’m playing a tyee, do you want me to cut it off if it’s going to make us late?”

  Lucky may have been teasing the VP, but then with him it was always hard to tell.

  “What? What was that? If you people have any questions, make sure you know what you’re doing before you leave the dock.”

  The mood of the guides was turning ugly. Fortunately, before the VP could be filleted by one of them, the guests appeared on the deck of the yacht.

  “You,” he said, pointing to me, “Mr. Goldfarb wants a Floater coat. Would you get one out of the boatshed for him.”

  When I returned with the jacket I was informed that I had the privilege of taking the VP and Morris out fishing. There was something in the way Morris was acting; I could sense he was even more fed up with this guy than the guides were. However, he was a guest of the man’s company, an important business connection, and was doing his best to be polite.

  “I think we’re ready to leave now,” said the VP. “Where do you plan on taking us?”

  The way he asked the question suggested he wanted to approve my fishing hole selec
tion. The guy had been here on company trips a couple of times in the past, and I couldn’t help wonder how far he was willing to go offering advice. There had been good coho action in the First Hole the last couple of days, and I thought it would be worth trying again.

  “Well, I was going to start off in the First Hole,” I told him.

  “Will we catch salmon there?” he asked blandly.

  What was I supposed to say? I resisted the temptation to make a smart remark. I pulled my hat brim down over my eyes, started the engine, and pretended I was hard of hearing.

  The First Hole develops just upstream from the Second Hole. A shallow reef and a kelp bed separate them. The rip forms as the tide sweeping out of Big Bay displaces the water in the channel. The water drops almost five feet as it swirls past the point, and the whirlpools are fast and vicious. They begin off the rocky point at the south of Big Bay. They are only two or three feet across, but fifteen to twenty feet deep. Snaking past the point, they quickly open until they reach fifty or sixty feet across as they pass the Second Hole. The current in the First Hole flows continuously toward these whirlpools, and the pressure of the two opposing forces holds the rip line perfectly in place. The water is very predictable here, and one of my favourite pastimes is letting the boat slowly drift back. I like to watch my guests’ eyes get wider and wider as we get closer to the line of whirlpools whispering death behind us. At just the right moment I give the small engine a slight boost and drift slowly out of harm’s way.

  In the early days of fishing at Stuart Island, before there were outboards to fight the current, the First Hole was one of the few places to fish. Using sleek rowboats, the anglers would row out during the slack period and stay in the eddy until the tide slacked off again.

  In the thirties a platform was cantilevered out over the water and lines were dropped from it. Of course, if they caught a fish that wanted to run off down the tide, they had a problem. Even in a rowboat the fish were still fought from the back eddy. The line used was of a braided cotton that could hold a hundred pounds of pull without breaking, and the rods were as thick as pool cues. The guides look down on that kind of gear these days. They refer to anyone still using anything like it as “meat fishermen.” Even with that kind of tackle, salmon broke off all the time, but there were so many in those years it didn’t matter.

  Outboard motors made fishing the hole less work, and a little safer, but the etiquette of the First Hole is still the same as it was in the time of the rowboats. As the tide starts to move, the boats take up positions at the edge of the back eddy along the rip. They queue up like people waiting for a bus or a movie. It’s considered highly bad form to cut into this line, and no one ever does. The positions closest to the rocks off the point are considered the prime spots. If a fish is caught and it takes the guide out into the tide, the next person in line moves up into that position.

  The end of the line is dangerous and an uncomfortable place to fish. The main current out of the bay hits an underwater reef and gets forced to the surface there. Called a boil for good reason, the water rises up into the air five or six feet, and covers an area as big as any of the whirlpools. A boat caught by one can be swamped in an instant. The upwelling water disrupts the consistency of the back eddy, and the boats get pushed toward the whirlpools. The guides are willing to put up with these discomforts as they wait in line.

  There were only a few boats when we arrived. When big coho are in the area, the action is fast and unpredictable. I took my place in the line, put down a couple of cut-plugs, and turned my attention to holding position against the current. We didn’t have long to wait.

  In less than five minutes Morris’s rod went completely straight and his line started to pile up on the surface. The hole is very shallow; I only had out seventy feet of line, and in a matter of seconds a huge silver-coloured shape rocketed out of the water beside our boat. It writhed and twisted above our heads on a column of foam and spray, and then crashed back into the back eddy, soaking Morris with the splash. The VP gasped. Morris looked around; he had no idea what was going on. The fish blasted out of the water again, this time on the other side of the boat. It came out beside the VP, coating his glasses with seawater and blinding him. I was already steering the boat away from the edge of the rip into the centre of the back eddy. The fish jumped again, twisting and turning more than six feet in the air. Morris still gazed about, not quite connecting the thing jumping with the action of his rod.

  “Hey, Morris, stand up,” I yelled at him.

  “I think Mr. Goldfarb would be more comfortable sitting down,” said the VP.

  The coho appeared at the stern of the boat; the line came out under the hull and between the two motors. I had to do something immediately or the fish could break the light line off on the engines.

  “I said stand up.”

  I walked to where Morris was sitting. He was still staring at the spot the fish had been two jumps ago. I grabbed him by the elbow and hoisted him out of his seat. I dragged him to the back of the boat.

  “Stand there,” I yelled in his ear, pointing at a spot just in front of the engines. I reached down between the outboards and released the line from where it had hung up on the engine shaft. Luckily the fish was still attached. It thrashed on the surface thirty feet off the stern.

  “Now reel,” I commanded him.

  Morris began to reel. The coho came up beside the boat and I put it in the net. In less time than it takes to tell the story, we had a beautiful eighteen-pound coho in the boat.

  Morris was ecstatic. The VP was aghast. He was looking at me with complete horror. He could hardly believe what he had just witnessed. I had manhandled Mr. Goldfarb. I had touched his eminent personage. I had dragged him out of his seat and yelled orders in his face. The man must have been seeing the Goldfarb account slipping away as he sat there.

  Morris, on the other hand, was as happy as an otter in a herring crib. He had a fine, gleaming salmon lying at his feet. He liked this fishing stuff, was even starting to get the hang of it. He had stood up when I told him and he had reeled when I said reel, and the results spoke for themselves.

  We went back to fishing and managed to catch a couple more coho. They weren’t as big as the first one, but respectable fish and all on Morris’s side of the boat. When it was time to head in he was laughing and joking expansively.

  When we got back to the dock Morris invited me on board for a drink after I had cleaned the fish. Morris himself ushered me into the spacious saloon on the top deck. He invited me to sit on the couch between him and another of his fishing companions.

  “What would you like to drink, Dave?” he asked me.

  “Oh, a bourbon and soda would be nice, Morris.”

  “Say, would you get Dave a bourbon and soda,” Morris said to the vice-president in charge of something or other.

  “Would you like a twist with that?” Morris asked.

  “Why, a twist would be lovely,” I said.

  “Get Dave a twist, will you? And make sure you use the good bottle.”

  The young VP was now in charge of the bar.

  During my visit on the yacht the man sitting next to me asked what I did in the wintertime. When I told him I was an artist, a painter, he asked to see some of my paintings. I had a small portfolio with photos of my work. The next afternoon, over another bourbon and soda with a twist, he took a look at it. There was one he especially liked and he decided to buy it for his office.

  “Yeah, I really like that one. Could you get it framed up, ready to hang on the wall?”

  I told him there was no problem putting it in a frame. To make transporting it easier, however, it was best to leave the glass out and get a piece cut when the painting arrived. Otherwise there was the danger that the glass might break and damage the painting. Jack (I was now on a first-name basis with everybody) agreed this was a good idea. He commended me on my attention to detail.

  In the fall, when I got back to the city, I had the painting framed w
ithout the glass. After a couple of phone calls back and forth, Jack and I agreed on some shipping arrangements. Jack was the owner of a large corporation that had its own transportation division and a fleet of trucks. He would have the painting picked up and handled by his own people rather than trust it to anyone else.

  A week or so passed and then I got a phone call. I didn’t recognize the voice but the tone and manner of approach were familiar. The guy I was talking to was no doubt some regional manager, singled out by corporate headquarters for the distinction of doing a special job. This was a man who couldn’t afford any screw-ups.

  “I understand you have a painting?” he sounded a little confused. What was he doing phoning this nobody? “I’ll be sending someone to pick it up. Is it all framed and ready to go?”

  I assured the concerned voice on the other end of the line that it was all framed and ready to go. There was one thing he wasn’t confused about.

  “Now, I understand there isn’t supposed to be any glass in the frame. I certainly hope that’s what you’ve done. If you haven’t, you’d better remove it all before you ship it. I don’t want that glass breaking and causing any damage. Are you perfectly clear on that?”

  thirty-nine THE REST STOP

  THE SUMMER WAS moving along quickly. We were all working long hours, Vop more than most. His nights were apparently still disturbed by visions of half-human bird creatures lurching toward him across fields of green shag, which he blamed me for. The days were oppressively hot, with not even a breeze to relieve the heaviness of the summer heat. The fishing in the rapids where the moving water cooled the air was slow, and we were forced to go trolling.

  One afternoon, after a long lunch, washed down by several beers, at the pub with his guests, Vop and his guests headed over to the opposite shore of the inlet. The water was glass calm: not a breath of wind rustled the tranquility. He put out his lines and the party trolled slowly along the cliffs that dropped straight into the water. Conversation soon trailed off as the rhythmic lapping of the water against the hull lulled them into drowsiness. Their heads nodded. Their chins sank onto their chests. With their feet up on the gunnels, Vop’s two guests were soon fast asleep.

 

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