Outdoor Edge: Fishing with Silver Blue Charters

This is an excerpt taken from the Outdoor Edge Jan/Feb 2001 Edition which reports on a charter taken with Silver Blue  Charters

After some sleep we were off early the next morning out of the South Vancouver Terminal aboard Pacific Spirit Air’s Beaver on floats to Gabriola Island south of Nanaimo to hook up with Captain Bob Meyer for a couple of days. The Captain was keen to get on the water as the salmon were around but the wind was howling so we decided to tour the island, stock up on supplies and wait it out a bit. The wind tapered off slightly so we motored out of Silva Bay aboard Bob’s 22′ Sea Ray shortly before noon.

The fishing was absolutely incredible for the big springs. We were running Scotty electric downriggers with Shimano level wind reels on Penn downrigger rods. By 4 o’clock we were limited out including a couple of dandy 19 and 20 pounders caught by Dave and Kevin (we had to let the boss catch the biggest one). That was in spite of the fact we had some problems with seals which stole several salmon off of our lines.

We were fishing 10 minutes out of Silva bay, NW towards Nanaimo at a spot that is locally referred to as the Grand Hotel.

We cruised back into the harbour to help process the salmon. We were staying at Page’s Cabins run by Ted and Phyllis Reeve. They are great people and the 1st class cabins were big, spacious and clean with all the amenities. We had a great dinner that night at Latitudes restaurant in Silva Bay.

There wasn’t much discussion of any other options as I recall; Captain Meyers wanted us on the dock by 5:00 the next morning. We were soon motoring out of the harbour into another uncharacteristic early morning stiff wind. The columns and huge balls of herring were showing up on the sounder screen again as we lowered the gear to 120 arid 135 feet. Green and glow 3 1/2″ Coyote spoons or No. 2 Crippled K silver & green spoons 5 feet behind orange flashers were the ticket. At a little before 12:40 the cell phone rang and Captain Bob had to file one of his twice-a-week live fishing reports with radio station GTO 1570 a.m. out of Nanaimo sponsored by SFI (Sport Fishing Institute). In spite of several more seal attacks, we were able to turn loose a number of undersize Chinooks and put 4 more big ones in the cooler. The largest being the last fish caught by yours truly that nudged the 25-pound mark on the scale.

Skipper Bob Meyer

Too soon it was time to pack up our gear and jump on the floatplane back to Vancouver and then onto a scheduled flight out of the new and improved main terminal to Edmonton.

It had been a great trip. Not often do you get salmon fishing of that caliber and right out Vancouver’s back door to boot. All the people we met were extremely friendly, all the services were first class, the weather was great and the fish were biting, a pretty tough combination to beat.

Reprinted from Outdoor Edge  Magazine