Very good herring spawn

 " Bumper harvest as herring return to Strait of Georgia in great numbers. "  That was the headline from the Vancouver Sun. The Nanaimo paper calls it a " boom year " . 

  This is very good news as a measure of the herring stock, the vitality of the ocean that supports them, and a positive indicator for salmon fishing. 

 Herring school up to spawn in enormous concentrated masses in just a few main locations on the coast, and also in some smaller secondary places. The main location for the south coast of B.C. is just south of us a few miles and stretching down to Nanaimo. Predators of all kinds key on them, most dramatically thousands of migratory seabirds, and hundreds of  sea lions.  And the commercial fishers harvest a big bunch, up to 20%, which is controversial, but it is hard to complain when the population is stable or growing.  

 In recent years a large portion of the herring have found good feeding conditions in our sheltered inside waters, and stayed inside ,rather than heading out to sea in the open Pacific. An indicator of this is the increase in Humpback whales in local waters, as well as the chinooks salmon we find in good size and numbers. 

 rick@gobrightfish.com

250 830 8680

www.gobrightfish.com

from snow to snowdrops

This is a long tail on winter this year. There has still been snow , flitting between rain and sunshine, but it doesn't stick anymore.  

Away

I was away with Shamra , on a rare vacation trip. I don't often experience jet travel, as many of my fishing guests do.
By the way, did you know that Vancouver Airport has been awarded the title of Best Airport in the World ?!
http://www.yvr.ca/en/media/news-releases/2016/yvr-recognized-as-best-airport-in-the-world

still waiting for spring

return to winter weather

rick@gobrightfish.com

250 830 8680

www.gobrightfish.com

edgy weather

 The clear draft of continental air holds back the ocean clouds at sunset in this photo.

 I'm posting some photos for my distant friends. The clear weather, that teases like the start of spring, is about to step back into winter. 

rick@gobrightfish.com

250 830 8680

www.gobrightfish.com

Fishing, Fast and Slow

 Life is like fishing.

Michael Lewis, ( author of Money Ball , The Big Short, etc. ) has written a new book , “ The Undoing Project , A Friendship That Changed Our Minds “ , about Daniel Khaneman and Amos Tversky. 

Khahneman received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002 for their work in Psychology ( Tversky died in 1996 ) .  Khaneman’s  best selling book ,“ Thinking Fast and Slow “ is about how systemic errors in our mental processes effect our judgements.  I hope Lewis' attention makes Khaneman even better known..

 I don’t want to give the impression that I am much of a reader, but certain ideas are very important.  “ Thinking Fast and Slow “ gives a firm grounding to fishing. It carries a theme that is the opposite balancing to the feel of fishing.  Think “Moneyball” in which statisticians have better judgement than baseball Scouts. ( Actually, Lewis wrote Moneyball before he knew about the original source of those ideas. )

But, but , but... I love the feel of fishing, which is all about judgements based on small sample sizes, personal experience, anecdote, and especially intuition. All those things humans do poorly, but with confidence. There is a tension here with the sense of refined deep knowing that comes with repeated cycles, of knowing the signs to look for, knowing what to do. You can trust my intuition, I’m your fishing guide. 

rick@gobrightfish.com

250 830 8680

www.gobrightfish.com