The life of a fishing guide in Haida Gwaii is pretty great!  But it’s been an absolute pleasure to be fishing up here the past couple days. The weekend was filled with lots of fish and the most picture perfect water you could imagine. That magic combination makes everyone enjoy their time up here that much more.

My guests were Jonathan and his 80-year old father Mike.  Jonathan has fished with us many times and he brought his Dad up here for the first time. Over the course of the weekend Mike often said, “Wow am I ever lucky to experience this!”  With consistent action offshore fishing for Chinook, coho and halibut there was no break on the rods.  Whales, porpoises, birds everywhere… it was a fisherman’s dream. “The seas are as lively as I have ever seen them in the past several years,” I told them.

On the first day the fishing inshore was a little slow.  So we ran out to 250 feet of water to try our luck there. Within minutes we were getting bites, but nothing was sticking for Mike.  As a kid back in Ontario, he would cast with spoons in the lakes. He asked if I had any spoons he could try out here for salmon.  I grabbed a little silver 4-inch Coyote spoon and threw that down. Within minutes Mike hooked up to a nice Chinook.  It was a spunky fish and he fought it for around 15 minutes. Mike did a great job and was pretty pumped when it was finally in the net. Later when we arrived at the Bell Ringer it weighed in at 24 pounds.  Needless to say we ran that spoon the rest of the trip!  We joked all weekend that Mike was our lucky charm and I was pleased that he and Jonathan were having such a good time.

At the end of the trip we all were just thankful for the fantastic water, fishing, and good times that were shared. Trips like this are the reason I love my job… nothing but smiles.

Cole Guolo