Bella Bella fishes the Tyee Pool

Can you name the five species (scientific kinds) of Pacific salmon?

 

Here’s the run-down:

·      chinook (also known to American bears as King salmon, and to scientists as Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) [now say that three times, fast]

·      coho (known to our friends in the U.S. as Silvers, and to scholars as Oncorhynchus kisutch) [gesundheit]

·      sockeye (Oncorhynchus nerka) [did you know that kokanee are land-locked sockeye?]

·      chum (or dog salmon, Oncorhynchus keta) [I wonder if any fisher has ever named her dog Keta?]

·      pink (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha, also called humpback salmon … much smaller than a whale, though)

Pacific salmon hatch in freshwater but spend years in the ocean, eating and growing. Near the end of their lives, salmon swim back to the rivers where they were born. They battle often hundreds of kilometres upstream to spawn, laying and fertilizing the eggs of a new generation.

Before heading upriver to spawn, the salmon stay at the mouths of their home rivers for awhile. They have to get used to freshwater again before their final swim home.

At the mouth of the Campbell River, a narrow peninsula of gravel and sand separates the estuary from Discovery Passage’s tidal currents. It’s called Tyee Spit. In late summer, the ten-metre-deep water along Tyee Spit’s eastern edge – the Tyee Pool – holds masses of chinook salmon preparing to head upriver.

 

Chinook grow bigger than other species of salmon. They can reach 1.5 metres in length, and weigh up to 58 kilograms! A chinook salmon that weighs over 13.6 kilograms is called a tyee. “Tyee” comes from an old coastal trading language, and means “chief” or “boss.”

Over a hundred years ago, visitors to Campbell River fell under the spell of fishing for these massive salmon. Politicians, businessmen, and Hollywood celebrities came to Campbell River to try their luck at catching a tyee. Local guides rowed these wealthy clients around the Tyee Pool. The men often wore suits, the ladies dresses and fancy hats.

 

The romance of the Tyee Pool lives on to this day. The Tyee Club was founded in 1924 to standardize sport-fishing. It has helped to preserve a genteel way of fishing that peels back the years … and is really fun. 

Best of all, you don’t need to be wealthy or famous anymore to fish in the Tyee Pool. Honestly, you can even be a teddy bear in a sweater!

The Tyee Club has a clubhouse on Tyee Spit, overlooking the Tyee Pool. Those big numbers you can see behind me? They show the biggest most recent catch, and the biggest of the season (in pounds).

There are strict rules for how long your fishing rod can be, and how strong your fishing line. This gadget lets you test the strength of your fishing line:

You must use an artificial lure (no bait-fish or wiggly worms allowed) with a single, barbless hook. Electronic gear like depth-sounders isn’t allowed. These lures are called Gibbs-Stewart #8 spoons:

You must fish the Tyee Pool in a rowed boat. Motors are only allowed to get there; once you’re fishing, the motor has to be out of the water.

Boy, this makes for really quiet fishing. All that you hear is the wind, and the trickle of water from the ends of oars. People can chat between boats as they coast past one another.

If you catch a fish, you bring it to the Tyee Club’s clubhouse. There, an official weigh-master weighs your fish on the clubhouse’s carefully guarded scales.

If your fish weighs more than 13.6 kilograms (30 pounds), you get to ring this big ship’s bell once for every 4.5 kilograms (or 10 pounds). That way, anglers still rowing offshore can know right away that somebody’s caught a big one!

Our guide at the Tyee Pool was named Dwayne Mustard, the Marine Activities Manager at the Oak Bay Marine Group’s Painter’s Lodge.

Painter’s Lodge was founded in 1929. E.P. (Ned) Painter decided that all the sports fishers camping in tents on Tyee Spit in those days could do with some warmer accommodations.

Mr. Painter was a boat-builder whose clinker-built rowboats were perfect for fishing the Tyee Pool. The rowboats used by Painter’s Lodge are fibreglass moulds of the wooden rowboats Mr. Painter built over a half-century ago.

Last August 23^rd, Mr. Mustard rowed for his 11-year-old daughter, Kailea, in the Tyee Pool. It was the first time Kailea had ever fished in the Pool, and she caught an 11-kilogram chinook!

 

I love reading about Kailea: you don’t have to be a grown-up to catch a magnificent salmon. Patricia Hughes was 8 years old when she caught a 33-kilogram chinook:

This painting of Patricia's fish is at the Museum at Campbell River.

Of the 31 people who registered tyee with the Tyee Club during the summer of 2012, four were Junior Anglers.

Owen Lagos is 8 years old, while Todd Campbell is 13. Cameron Trace  and Carter Coblenz are also teens.

The Tyee Club even has a special trophy for anglers 16 years old or younger. It’s called the Raven Trophy. 

Painter’s Lodge is a wonderful place to stay. I made some new friends there:

These guys were hanging out on the back of a convertible that I learned (with a knock on the resort’s kitchen door) belongs to a chef named Gordon Walsh. It’s very kind of Mr. Walsh to let his buddies enjoy the sun like this while he’s at work. And they get their picture taken with lots of guests at the resort, including me!

You can also go on Zodiak tours from Painter’s Lodge, and see all kinds of wildlife.

You can go fishing for salmon in Discovery Passage, and around the nearby islands.

In the springtime, the lodge holds a great celebration of painters and painting. I’ll tell you about Painters at Painter’s in another post.

Story © S. Clouthier

Photos © S. Clouthier and D. Wei

Painting courtesy T. Knepp / public-domain-image.com