I have never understood fishing. Furthermore, I have never wanted to understand fishing. It always struck me as tedious and expensive, and as for those hats with the fish hooks... But here I was. And there was one of my shipmates, barfing over the side. I knew the feeling, so I’d banged back a couple of Gravol before venturing out onto the heaving chuck of the B.C. coast. We were north of Vancouver Island and south of the Charlottes in the Hakai Marine Reserve. Looking west it was a straight run all the way to the Aleutians and then Kamchatka. For the past three hours we’d been circling in and around the same kelp-slick rocks along with a dozen other Boston Whales and assorted fishing skiffs. No one had had so much as a bite.

“Keep your head up and look at the land,” Seppo advised Shelley, who was a shade of green more suited to amphibians. Seppo [pictured with fish above] was our guide. He ran the boat, baited the hooks, and tolerated our ineptitude. He coolly regarded our green-gilled companion and lit up a cigarette and exhaled the smoke downwind. Seppo was born in Finland though grew up in Canada. He was long and lean and had the calm of an expert.

As we continued to go around and around on our drunken boat in the wind and the rain, I was more certain than ever that fishing was some sort of affliction, a tic, a dementia that should be treated with drugs and therapy.

Eventually Seppo had mercy on us and we returned to the mother ship, the Ocean Explorer. We’d flown from Vancouver to Bella Bella. One might think that a town called Lovely Lovely in Italian might be, well, lovely. But this was a case of calling a 400-pound man Tiny. From Bella Bella a Grumman Goose flew our party of seven out to the ship. A Grumman Goose is a float plane more commonly called a “belly plane” because it lands on its belly. There were only 345 built, and about 50 were still in use. Inside it feels like a flying cement mixer except that it’s noisier. The pilot, whose uniform was a pair of faded overalls, handed out earplugs.

The Ocean Explorer is a 110-foot vessel built in Texas in the 1950s to service oil rigs. Now it’s owned by a first-class organization called Adventure West Resorts based in Langley, B.C.. Refitted, the ship now had nine cabins, a deluxe galley, a chef, a hostess, a hot tub, TV lounge, a helipad, and half a dozen fishing skiffs. Peter Codling, the captain, had the windblown complexion of a man who’d spent decades on boats, the lines on his brow so deep they might have been cut there with a knife. In the winter he dove for red sea urchin which were sold to Japan. “A good sea urchin diver can get 5,000 pounds of them a day.”

After a shower and a rest we ate dinner, starting with red wine risotto with veal and grilled zucchini and ground grana padano. The main course was Yukon Gold gnocchi with braised cabbage and sun-dried cranberries, halibut and curried lobster sauce. For dessert it was New York cheesecake, chocolate flan, and chocolate profiterole. The stars even came out as I lounged in the hot tub afterwards. I thought: forget the fishing part and I could get to like this. I suspect I wasn’t the only one feeling this way. I was there with three other writers, and Frank Pabst, head chef of Vancouver’s award-winning Blue Water Cafe.

The next morning we were awakened by Seppo rapping on the door. “Time to fish!” I stared blearily around. It was dark and it was raining. Did I mention that this was August? We staggered into our oilskins and boots and floatation jackets and were soon back out at sea circling in and around those same rocks.

Then I got a strike.

The rod bent and the line whirred. Seppo shouted. The others shouted. I grabbed the rod from its holder and felt the pull – the desperate pull – of a creature fighting for its life. It dove straight down, it fled left, it fled right. Each time it relented I reeled it toward the boat. It was a strong fish. This was my moment of revelation. This was when I understood why people fish, not to eat, not to make money, not even to brag, but to feel death in their hands. The line was a raw nerve dancing taut with fear. This fish was afraid and it was not giving up. It dove and it fought and the rod whipped side to side.

“Let it run!” shouted Seppo. “If it wants to run let it run or it’ll break the line!”

It ran and we followed. Soon we were half a mile out from the rocks.

Seppo pointed. “There it is. A spring.”

A silver and grey shape writhed just under the surface. We meet at last, I thought. Seppo got the net ready. But it was too soon. The fish ran again, weaker this time, slower. Eventually it reappeared and I reeled it closer and, leaning over the side, Seppo scooped it in the net. All of 20 minutes had passed. It felt like an hour. I run five miles three times a week, but my legs were trembling and my arms ached.

Seppo raised a shot-filled plastic club and looked at me. “You want it?”

I was torn. I felt exhilarated but mournful. The fish’s eye swiveled as if awaiting my verdict. “Yup.”

Down came the club and the spring salmon lay still.

“What’s it weigh?” I asked.

Seppo hefted it in his arms. “Maybe 30 pounds.” (It turned out to be 28.) “A nice fish,” he said. “Congratulations.” Seppo opened a hatch in the deck, slit the fish under the gills so that it would bleed out, lay it in then dropped the lid. For the rest of the morning I felt like the murderer in Poe’s story who stashes his victim under the floor of the house and, haunted by guilt, is driven mad by the sound of a beating heart.

Then I thought: don’t be so wet. Anyone who buys a tin of salmon has killed a fish. Eat a steak and you’ve killed a cow. Eat veal and you’ve murdered a calf. So be a vegan or shut up.

Back at the Ocean Explorer, I succumbed to the ritual of having my picture taken with my catch. Then Seppo filleted it and flash froze it. After a few glasses of wine and a gourmet lunch involving prawns and steak, it was back into our oilskins for another round. The weather brightened. Spotlights of sun hit the waves breaking in rainbows of spray on the rocky islands. I felt good. I thought how people paid a thousand dollars a day to come up here and catch fish and yet I was getting it for free. I felt even better.

Grant Buday´s most recent novel, Rootbound, is about the marijuana industry in B.C. His new novel, Dragonflies, will be published this October by Biblioasis.