Princeton, British Columbia, Canada V0X 1W0

Over 100 fishing columns written for a small weekly newspaper in southern BC, Canada

Read an excerpt from my new book "Trout Talk"!

TROUT TALK - MY BIGGEST CATCH EVER!
Copyright (c) 2004 by John Sandness

I want to catch a fish that weighs more than I do. I think I have had a couple on the hook, but those big ones got away. Both were halibut, one Atlantic, the other Pacific. The Atlantic was hooked in the fjord off my grandfather's birthplace - Valsoyfjord, Norway.

Per and I were jigging for codfish (torsk). I jigged up. Nothing happened. I told Per, in my broken Norwegian, I was stuck on the world, snagged. When the 18 foot skiff started moving, Per and I knew the "world" was not towing us!

"Storre havfiske," Per told me.

Just a few seconds later, my line went limp. I was one sad fisherman. I found the hook had been torn right off the lure! Some "storre havfiske" (big halibut)!

I hooked the Pacific halibut in the South Bentnick Arm off Bella Coola, B.C. My son and I were on a charter sailboat with a couple of Albertans. That was quite a trip. We had gone after salmon. A storm came up. It was so windy a forward hatch cover blew off and sailed right over our cabin. The skipper decided he better not risk his 90-year-old wooden sailing boat in the pounding waves, so we sailed into the lee of an island.

In the calm of the leeward side, I said I would jig for some ling cod. I caught a couple of red snapper and one four-foot gray cod, a real beauty. Then I hooked something that would not move. As the boat moved up and down, the halibut (?) lifted and settled. After a couple of minutes, my line slacked. My large lead jig was still on my line intact.

I did catch a "big one" once, a 160-pound scuba diver, my biggest catch ever!

I did not actually land him. He crawled out of the water with my size six hook embedded in his neoprene wet suit. He looked at me, a 15-year-old, sitting above him on the Railroad Pool bridge abutment and said a few unkind words.

He had been swimming in the pool, spearing red horse suckers. I was fishing on the opposite side of the pool, and all went well until he moved. I had a real good bite and reefed back on my rod. I encountered heavy resistance! About three seconds later, the diver porpoised out of the water below me. I slacked off and he swam ashore as fast as his flippers would take him.

When I last saw him, he was on the shore removing my hook from his leg. I had broken my line and was scrambling up the hill. I left him the hook.

I am pretty sure he outweighed me at that time. He looked pretty big to me. I did not ask his weight. He was in no mood to tell me.

Nowadays, I weigh a lot more than 160 pounds, so I am going to have to land a tuna, swordfish or one of those big halibut if my ambition is to be fulfilled. Or, I am going to have to go on a diet.

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