our trip to helicopter fish vancouver island started out ok, until we decided to clear customs. the lady that searched our duffle bags wanted to know why i had a package of hamburger in my luggage. i laughed at her, and explained that those just happened to be the best egg skeins that ever existed. she continued to complain that it even smelled like hamburger. i finnally convinced her and off we went to fish the west coast of vancouver island. the picture is the first pic i took of our lunch break on the river. after that, we went to the airport to fill up, and proceeded to leave my camera in the fuel shack. since i didnt want to backtrack, i had to make the rest of the trip sans camera.
we spent the first day fishing for and catching several nice steelies, until fog rolled in and we had to get going.up to this point, the eggs were still hid away, because there is a bait ban on the island. the next day, we thought we would look for some better weather, so we headed to the mainland, where we could use the bait. we pulled into the first remote river we could find, pulled out the bag of eggs, and sure enough, it was a pound of hamburger. i had grabbed the wrong bag out of the freezer. i threw the now smelly hamburger on the beach, and started using spinners. we were catching dollies and cutts up to 8 pounds and were having a blast, despite my stupidity. I turned around to get something out of the chopper and there was a grizzlie eating the hamburger. i quickly turned around, and headed back down the river. the darn grizzly then jumped in the river and swam right through the middle of the hole. i had enough of that, and we left that river and found another river without bears. we spent the rest of the day catching native rainbows around 3 pounds in a little creek near butte inlet. next time i'll take a spare camera, because i missed some awesome fish and scenery pictures.