[Paddlewise] Seals & fish

    Reading Dave Kruger's report of his two trips to the Queen Charlottes
got me thinking about the trip my sister and I took there in late June of
1996 and the odd fishing behavior of the seals that we noted there.

    We were camping south of Hot Springs Island when we started noticing
occasional sharp reports coming from the water, sometimes from the south,
sometimes from the west. Looking around, I could see no boats, no nothing,
in fact. Suddenly, whap! off to the left but when I looked in that direction
there was nothing to be seen. After watchfully waiting a bit longer, I saw a
seal porpoise up, dive and whap!, his tail hit the water with a great smack.

    We were to see this over and over again, both there, from our camp by
Hot Springs, Marcos Island, and other spots. I concluded that this was a
fishing anomaly of QC seals, one that I had never seen or heard before in
either British Columbia (Johnstone Strait, Broken Group) or USA
(California). 

    Did you notice anything like this when you were there Dave? Has anyone
in this ng come across this behavior, either in the QC or elsewhere?

    By the way, Dave: We took one look at Sandspit and grabbed the first bus
into Queen Charlotte City, a much more simpatico sort of place in my
opinion.
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