Fishing the Natural Way

October-November 2006

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
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by James Michael Dorsey

Abandoned village of ‘Mimkwamlis.

My favorite story about fishing from a kayak involves no equipment at all and it happened completely by chance. I was paddling with my wife, Irene, off the northeast coast of Vancouver Island in Johnstone Strait, an area I have paddled many times.

We left our day camp in the early morning and paddled to the old Kwakiutl village site of ‘Mimkwamlis (or Mamalilaculla: site of the ‘last potlatch’) to see the enormous longhouse poles and visit Tom Sewid who gives tours of the area.

From our camp on Hanson Island it was a beautiful and quiet paddle past dozens of islands, in an area full of wildlife. With the sun filtering through the early morning mist, it was like floating through a fairy land. Fish were jumping and we saw a deer swimming in the distance. This is why I paddle. Being silent on the water allows me to see animals and behaviors I would miss from a power boat.

Irene in the front of our double kayak.

We had a pleasant visit on Village Island, and as we were leaving, Tom told us to “follow the eagles” and we would have a good paddle home.

At first I thought this another idiomatic saying such as “Until we meet again,” but less than a mile from the island I realized we were in fact surrounded by dozens of bald eagles.

Eagles are very common in this part of British Columbia, but I had never seen them congregated in such numbers before. There must have been at least three dozen, all hunting, swooping low over the water, snatching fish from just below the surface with their powerful talons.

An eagle taking a fish is a beautiful sight. Watching dozens of them doing it at once was a poetic ballet. These birds have incredible eyesight and can spot a fish below the water from over a mile away.

Irene and I just sat there, not paddling, letting the gentle current carry us along. The only sound was the cry of successful hunters rising and falling all around us. Because we sat perfectly still, many came within feet of our boat to take their morning meal.

Me with the eagle’s salmon.

One of the larger birds came in from our starboard side, skimming the surface for several yards before scooping up a large salmon and crossing our bow as he struggled to gain altitude with his heavy load.

Eagles often turn a fish in their talons during flight and this eagle was in the act of turning its fish when it lost hold and dropped it.

The bird was maybe fifty feet above us when this happened and the salmon hit the water with a dull, hard thud. It lay there, unmoving, directly in front of our boat.

Native people have told me an eagle will not pick up a dropped fish but will always hunt for a fresh one. Whether this is true or not, I don’t know, but with this in mind, we paddled to the floating salmon.

I scooped it up, finding it was badly lacerated from the eagle’s talons. If this had not killed it, the fall certainly had finished the job. I laid it across our deck under the bungies and we continued to paddle with the angry eagle circling us, crying loudly for his lost meal.

He followed us, constantly circling and occasionally dive-bombing us as we paddled back towards our camp. So just to make sure I was not violating some unknown code of the wilderness, I floated the salmon out onto the water, letting the current carry it away from our boat. The eagle circled repeatedly but would not retake the fish.

An eagle’s penetrating stare can be unnerving.

When we finally paddled over to retrieve the fish, the eagle let loose a mournful cry.

Back in camp we marinated the fish in salad dressing and slow roasted it over an open camp fire. It was the most delicious salmon I’ve ever eaten.

When we woke in the morning, the sky was clear, without an eagle in sight except for one lone bird, sitting low in the branches of a hemlock nearby. I stared at the bird and he sat there watching me.

He never moved while Irene and I packed up our gear and made ready to launch, seeming to never take his eyes from us.

When we’d loaded the boat and were about to put in, the eagle finally took off, circled us a couple of times and let loose a massive poop. Since I was looking up as this happened, I managed to avoid it by inches and now knew it was the same eagle. Having made his final statement and with no doubts about what he thought of me, the eagle soared off in search of another salmon and we paddled off with a grand memory.

© James Dorsey is a widely traveled freelance writer/photographer and a marine naturalist for the American Cetacean Society. We reviewed his recent book Tears, Fear & Adventure in our last issue. Also see www.jamesdorsey.com.