Last week, Allan and I finished eating the last of our Halibut fillets from last year’s fishing trip in Tofino. It reminded me I hadn’t put up any pictures of our fun fishing trip.

Warning: If you don’t like seeing where your food comes from, then this probably isn’t the most appealing post for you to read.

Last summer, a group of us got together for a fishing charter with Jay’s Clayoquot Ventures in Tofino.

Halibut is one of my all-time favourite foods, and Allan and I eat it just about every time we go camping in Tofino, so it seemed appropriate that we learned how to catch what we eat out there… and have a supply of our own, since Halibut is quite expensive to buy.

I put “fishing” in quotes because it really isn’t fishing when you go with a charter. Our guide was absolutely awesome, but I’ll be honest with you… he did pretty much all the work for us. All we had to do was reel in the fish. So it’s pretty much lazy man’s “fishing”. That being said, it was a super fun day to spend with friends out in the sun and the ocean, and try it out!

Allan’s sister Jessica came out to Tofino with us, all the way from Alberta! I think she had a blast. The boat was really nice, and fast! It still took us about an hour to get out of the marina in Tofino into the deep ocean. It was choppy and there were definitely one or two people feeling quite sick *cough* Allan *cough*.

Our guide was amazing. He would see a rod twitch and then got the rod started so the fish couldn’t get away. Here’s a picture of Trevor reeling in a fish.

A huge Halibut! I think Trev’s was the biggest (and first) catch of the day.

Allan reels one in…

Good catch!

Jess catches some too.

We caught our limit that day! 2 Halibut each for a total of 8 Halibut. Here I am looking very fish-like.

Our guide also cleaned and filleted all the fish in front of us on the dock. We had two whole coolers full of fish. Allan was a happy Birthday boy.

It was definitely a fish feast when we got back to camp that night!

I’d highly recommend it if you love to eat fish and are curious about fishing. Allan and I got our fish vacuum-packed at Trilogy Fish Store in Tofino, and we’ve basically been eating fish for the entire year! Delicious, Pacific Halibut… mmmmm!

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Plans for the weekend:

Time Traveler’s Wife tonight with Amy and Alissa… Golf Saturday morning with Allan, and then off to the Horse Races on Sunday with a big group of people with box seats, and getting ridiculously overdressed for the occasion with big hats and fancy dresses! Woohoo!

What are your plans for the weekend?

Well, I’m back from Apex Mountain and we all had a great time there snowboarding for New Years!

I can’t believe it is 2009 already. 2008 was a year full of ups and downs, surprises, excitement, and many happy moments.

In 2008 I…

… rang in the New Year’s at Disneyland, finishing up an amazing one-month-long surfing, snowboarding, and scuba diving road trip throughout the States to Portland, San Francisco, Tahoe, Death Valley, Mammoth Mountain, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Catalina Island, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Snowbird Mountain, Idaho, Mission Ridge Mountain, and Washington…

… went snowboarding at Big White, Whistler, Cypress, Mt. Washington and Apex…

… parted ways with the first video game company I worked for… and moved to a new, dynamic video game company…

… took a three week trip to Costa Rica for some warm water surfing and travelling…

… went camping, partying, and surfing in Tofino dozens of times…

… caught some seriously large Halibut going deep ocean fishing…

… enjoyed grocery shopping at Granville Island every week…

… traveled to Korea for business…

… and Japan…

… started to learn to skate and play hockey…

… sold my Nikon D80 and got my grubby little hands on a new camera set up with the Nikon D90…

… started working on an HD snowboarding movie project…

… went to Trevor Linden’s retirement night…

… completed my AST-1 Avalanche Training course…

… went to Apex to finish 2008 and welcome 2009!

I couldn’t be happier with how this past year has gone. I feel like I’ve learned a lot, tried new activities, grown as a person, realized how wonderful my friends are, made some new friends, and saw lots of new places.

Plans for 2009:

• Take more photographs of people, improving my fashion and portrait photography
• Grab better, more steady footage for HD snowboarding movie project
• Travel somewhere warm
• Travel somewhere cold
• Keep apartment clean and tidy
• Cook even more
• Do something active at least once a day
• Not worry about what anyone thinks of me!
• Finally finish Gears of War 2 because I’ve been a complete slacker

Thank you to my friends, family, loved ones, and coworkers who have filled the past year with so many laughs, hugs, discussions, activities, and happy moments! I hope you all have an amazing 2009.