Bear Bait

We are now cruising through the Broughton Archipelago. This is real wilderness. No cities, towns, roads, or cars. There is an occasional marina where boaters can gather if they need to be around people and muster up moral support, but beyond that, we are on our own. All of the marinas have “stores” which carry a few sad looking vegetables, cans of chili, and some other various things that can sit on a shelf for years. We have had quite a few anchorages all to ourselves. Not a soul around. We sometimes hear howling wolves at night and sometimes we hear nothing...and I mean nothing. No cars driving by, no horns, no hustle and bustle. The only sound that can be heard for miles is Brenda's snoring at night.

All the way up here, we have shared anchorages with lots of other boaters. Sometimes we were packed in like sardines. Sometimes we were so packed in that we felt like we could walk to shore stepping from boat to boat to boat. Not the case anymore. Yesterday we saw a boat that was anchored across the inlet about 3 miles away. 3 miles is a long way to our nearest neighbor. Since we are neighborly, we decided to take the dinghy over and offer up some of our freshly caught fish. “Thanks but no thanks” they told us. They had their own freshly caught fish.

We do run into other boaters and chit-chat about the places we've been and what we've seen. The most common discussion is what wildlife has been spotted. At this point we've seen one bear in Princess Louisa Inlet, schools of salmon swimming by, and a bay full of sharks at Kwatsi Bay. Other than that, our wildlife encounters have been bleak. Nothing to report. We seem to always be one day late.

The report is always “yesterday there were 5 bears on the beach right here”, or “yesterday there were 2 whales swimming through the bay”, or “yesterday there were over 50 dolphins feeding on sardines right here at the mouth of this inlet”. It's always yesterday. One day late. We want to see some bears, some whales, some dolphins...really anything. So today we are taking matters into our own hands.

We've decided to lure the bears out with bait. I've been packing bacon into Brenda's backpack when we hike but that doesn't seem to be working. She must be using too much bug spray and masking the delicious smell of bacon so we need something better. Fish. Yesterday we caught a HUGE Ling Cod. It was a monster. It was about 30 pounds which is well beyond the capacity of our little freezer. We already ate some of it, we've tried to give some of it away, and we've put as much in the freezer as it will hold. All that isn't in the freezer is becoming bear bait.

The second step is finding where they might be hiding. We have backtracked to a place called Simoom Sound because we had a report from some boaters yesterday that they had a great couple of nights there with constant bear activity at low tide. Perfect. It's just a handful of hours away in the wrong direction but what the heck, we have no place to be.

The third step is to strategically place the bait in a spot which will entice the bears to come out to a place where we can see them comfortably from our home. We are anchored near the head of the bay where there is a spot that looks like bear territory. If I were a bear, this is where I would hang out. It has a little grassy field, trees for shade, a little stream that empties into the bay, and some big smooth rocks that would be a perfect spot to find a big huge piece of freshly caught Ling Cod that just so happens to be about 150 feet from the safety of our back door. It also happens to be right next to a sign that we see on the way back to the dinghy that says “DANGER – Large Cougar resides here. The cougar is not afraid of humans. It attacked and killed my best friend Max while I watched. I tried to save my friend but the cougar drug him into the woods and ate him”. (That is a true story and it happened just a couple of months ago...his best friend Max happened to be his little dog. The moral of the story is don't bring your little dog into the woods where there are cougars and don't let him off his leash). Great. The next best thing to seeing a bear is seeing a cougar...and I'm not talking about the 55 year old woman who is looking for a 20-something boy-toy...I'm talking about the big hairy feline that wants to eat some fresh fish or a dog named Max.

So the plan is in motion. We are serious now. We don't want to wait any longer for some action. We row the dinghy to shore and put out the bait on the big huge rocks. It's a beautiful piece of fish. It almost seems like a waste to put that big hunk of meat on a rock, but if it works, it will be so worth it. We get our binoculars ready. Our camera is on and ready. Brenda makes popcorn for the big show. Now we wait.

This is just like fishing. We stare at the big rock with the bait on it for hours. Our eyes go blurry from staring for so long in one place. Pretty soon we can't tell if the bait is still there. We ask each other “can you still see the bait?” We can't really tell if it's there but it's not like it could have jumped back into the ocean and swam away so I go back to shore and make sure it's still there. Yep...still there. We could actually see it from the boat with our binoculars but I had to make sure that there wasn't something wrong with it. I don't know what would have been wrong, but I still had to check. There might have been bugs on the fish. I'm not sure if bears like fish with bugs on it. I surely wouldn't. No harm in checking. Back to the boat.

Popcorn is long gone. Soda's have been drank (our new favorite drink is ginger-ale with a slice of lime...it's has to be Canada Dry since we are in Canada, it has to be ice cold, and don't be stingy with the lime...try it, it's great...especially on a hot day). We are starting to wonder if there are bears anywhere in Canada and if we may have seen the only one a few weeks ago and all of these other boaters who have claimed to see these so called bears have been big-fat-liars.

We start to work in shifts. Brenda takes the first one. While she is on watch, I take care of some important things like cry because we still haven't seen any more bears and read through our charts and try to plan our next stop. She finally comes inside and says “It's your turn. There aren't any stupid bears out there.” Now I'm on watch and I'm determined. I work in a grid pattern with my binoculars so there is no stretch of shoreline uncovered. I think about stoking the bait with more bait...a jar of honey maybe? It would have worked for Winnie the Pooh...but we only have a little bit of honey left and I like it in my tea. Brenda says “should I make the bears a berry pie?” (I think she is trying to be funny and means “bear-y” pie) I say “I think you should make me a berry pie!” (I am serious about the pie...I love me a good berry pie). We have some steak and chicken in the freezer that I am tempted to throw on the fish but then I remember how slim the stores are around here. So I wait.

This is becoming worse than the slowest day fishing. We have been at it for 6 hours. Still working in shifts. Two eyes on shore at all times. If you have to pee...do it off the side of the boat...we don't want to miss anything. 8 hours pass...still nothing. A couple more hours and the sun is setting...still nothing. At this point I would be thrilled with the 55 year old cougar woman looking for a boy-toy just so we could get some action around here.

Right before it is dark, I go to shore again to check on the bait. It still looks perfect. Not one nibble from even a fly. We figured that a bird or a mouse or something would take it...nothing. We are beginning to think that there are no animals at all here. Finally we give up for the day and decide that we will get up with the sun and try for a few more hours in the morning before we head for greener pastures.

Brenda had dreams all night long of all the bears we would see in the morning. I got up extra early because I couldn't sleep...it was just like we were kids on Christmas morning. I was so excited thinking that this place would be teeming with bears when the sun came up. In the morning the bait is still sitting right where we left it...untouched. Our patience has run thin. We give it a couple more hours and then call it quits. I decide to go to shore and throw the bait in the water and return our fish to the sea because I don't want some other boater to have the bait actually work and attract a bear while they were on shore.

I go inside the boat to get some shoes on and talk to Brenda about what went wrong and why our plan failed. We cry, we hug, we console ourselves and think there really isn't anything up here. Back outside I go to hop in the dinghy to go to shore and guess what...the bait is gone. In the span of 5 minutes, while my back is turned, something takes the bait. We have no idea what took it. Realistically it was a raccoon or an eagle...I would like to think it was a bear...yeah, a bear took it...I'm sure of it.

So that's it. Our plan failed. We are going back to the old fashioned way of spotting bears...dumb luck and patience. We are however currently working on a plan to bait a whale...for our plan to work we need to find 12,000 pounds of shrimp and we need it fast.

Update:

Still no bears but we did see hundred's of pacific white-sided dolphin's as we were heading to our next spot. Yes...hundreds. So far, this is the coolest thing we have seen to date...ever. It was Sea-World on steroids. While we were a few miles from the dolphins, we could see what looked like a squall coming our way. The water had white caps and appeared to be boiling. As we got a little bit closer, we could see that this was no squall. There were dolphins everywhere. We steered the boat to the side of the channel so we would give them as much room as possible and when they got to us, they were zooming around and under the boat. These suckers were FAST! We could see streaks as the went by under the boat. Flips...you bet. Jumping sky high...yep. Cute little baby dolphins...uh huh. Amazing. We are now jacked up on wildlife juice...and still thinking about baiting a whale.