One day last Spring a good friend in Bella Bella named William Hall approached me about assisting with the Heiltsuk Nation Men’s Health Program (Kaxla). The program was aimed at providing healthy and often healing opportunities for men in Heiltsuk Nation. While spending time in traditional territory, the program would provide a certain re-calibration, stressing the importance of traditional Heiltsuk men’s roles. Like providing. And of course fishing.
Now William is a pretty passionate fisherman in his own right, and we talk a little fishing now and then down on Bridgeview Docks at Bella Bella Cannery. Usually with a chuckle. The first idea dockside was a fishing trip or two. Then kaboom…the derby idea got thrown down.
In short order I was connected with Nolan Lawson at Kaxla and we locked in a nice July date. Rules would be a little interesting but we kept it simple. Rod and reel derby. Largest Chinook and largest Coho and a Hidden Weight Prize. Now this was a Bella Bella Derby first, with the weigh in station down on Bella Government Dock. So the predominantly First Nations Derby would run by First Nations regs. Us non-First Nations anglers would run by our normal DFO regs.
When derby time finally rolled around the weather cooperated with grace. Seas were manageable and winds were down for the weekend. I’d been fishing down in Rivers Inlet before making it back to Big Coast Summer Home Base on Denny Island, but had been getting our local fishing reports. The Derby offered up all of Heiltsuk Territory as a larger fishing boundary…meaning some of our favourite haunts like McInnis Island, Milbanke Sound and Cultus to the South…were all wide open.
If you’ve derbied a bunch, you know the result of the total experience often comes from the crew aboard. When the people are good, so too generally are the times! I was super fortunate to welcome Nolan, along with his wingmen Ross and Ryan onto the BV30 for a couple days, and along with cameraman Chris Wheeler, we formed an ominous five some!
Day One was go time and we made the 5-minute early morning rip from Denny Island to Bella Bella to pick up the boys. Weather was sweet and we headed North for McInnis Island, one of my longtime favourites. Long. Time. The outside rock wall was solid and we rocked a bunch of Chinook in really nice conditions. We droned. We trolled. And we caught some super nice fish. Our cumulative CPM (Chuckles Per Minute) was pretty damn high all day.
Sunset weigh in was awesome down on Bella Bella docks. The community participation in the derby was really humbling. I forget the numbers exactly, as I do, but we were something like 30 boats and a wondrous and humbling turnout of Heiltsuk trollers! There were families, fathers and sons, young and old. She was a long day on the water that day so sunset quickly turned to a quick room to Denny Island…and bedtime.
Reports out of “The South” were sparse from Day One, so we again headed North on Derby Day Two. This time we stopped short of crossing Milbanke Sound and instead cruised over to Cheney Point. It was another beauty day and a pile of Bella’s finest trollers were rods down at Cheney. It produced a few fish in mellow waters but in the end…was a dud. Like most boats we headed inside the Inlet into King Pacific Lodge stomping grounds. Boats were looking hard for fish…and we managed to find a patch of Chinook deep on a heavy kelp tack. It was kinda gross…but productive.
So productive, in fact, we lost a couple of prime Tyee derby winners. So nasty, however, I lost cannonballs and hung up hard more than a few times. Some of the nastiest trolling I’ve done but the boys were all game on…and we derbied! Weather was good and everyone on board got into a couple beauty ripping Chinnoks. Primetime day really.
We raced back to Bella for weigh in…running a solid 40 miles an hour as my crew was running the weigh in. Boat after boat came rolling in. The only Tyee came from the only angler to run South. And it was his only fish. What a funny game salmon trolling!
It was an honour when William Hall invited Big Coast and me to partner with Kaxla. Ditto for working with Nolan, Ryan and Ross. The first annual Heiltsuk Kaxla Big Coast Derby was in the books. And like all good derbies…talks had already started about plans for the second annual edition!
Special thanks to our sponsors Pacific Coastal Airways, King Pacific Lodge, Bridgeview and Mercury Marine and Pacific Net and Twine.
