Photo courtesy of Save Our wild Salmon

One of my best all-time fishing memories is of fishing with my dad on the north end of Vancouver Island.  I was 15 years old.  My dad used to be involved with the Lions Club, and they had had a big regional meeting.  Dad met a really nice guy (name escapes me after all these years), who invited us up to his home and to go fishing.  On the drive up, we passed the world famous Campbell River, so my level of anticipation for fishing the next day was sky high.  Nothing could prepare me for what I was to see that day.  It was literally a scene out of National Geographic.  Bald eagles circled the skies above the bay we were fishing and would drop “screaming eagle” style out of nowhere to snatch salmon just yards away from our boat.  Orcas could also be seen cruising the bay to feed on the migrating salmon.  It was truly breathtaking.  In addition to the awesome display of nature, the fishing was remarkable and we returned to Seattle with our limits, plus that of our gracious hosts and enjoyed eating salmon for the next several weeks.

I will never ever forget that day and now that I have my son Jake as my fishing buddy, I wanted to do my best to have that kind of moment with him.  We are up in Seattle visiting my parents and tomorrow we fish the Columbia River with Capt. Dan Porter.   According to the species calendar on Dan’s site, we’ll have an opportunity to catch coho (aka silver), chinook (aka king or black) and steelhead salmon.  We’ve been anticipating this day for weeks now.  If by the grace of God we catch all 3, it will be a truly epic day.  For Jake, if he catches anything, it will most certainly top his personal best fish (a cuda from May of this year).

To add color to the story, when I was at ICAST a few weeks back, I ran into Bobby Hayden of Save Our wild Salmon (SOS).  I learned that SOS is working hard to preserve the natural habitats of these great fish that not only are a crucial part of the ecosystem, but bring needed economic benefit to the area.  I told Bobby that I would be coming north in the coming weeks and would use the blog to do what I could to let people know about their good work.

Well, one thing led to another and we ‘hatched’ a plan to benefit SOS.  Good Nature Publishing is selling this beautiful print of the 5 kinds of Pacific salmon, plus steelhead (technically a salmon, but it is the larger, ocean going version of a rainbow trout).  For the month of August, Good Nature Publishing will donate 50% of all the proceeds from the sale of the Salmon or Watershed prints to Save Our wild Salmon.  These are high quality prints that are suitable for framing and are perfect for classroom teaching, or just for anyone who is a fan of these beautiful fish.  I hope you will pitch in and help, and then you can proudly display the print in your personal fish cave 😉  Tight lines!

 

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