Sharphooks
Well-Known Member
I've spent my B-day in Skeena Country for 35 straight years now---never missed a year. Pissed my wife and daughters off but they finally got to understand that being up in God's Country was the only B-day present I wanted or would accept. They finally wrote me off come October...
But this year I was on the verge of cancelling my triple decade Skeena habit----reason being----REALLY poor steelhead returns in the Tyee test fishery the managers conduct in the lower Skeena, horrendous weather forecasts, and last but not least, REALLY shabby treatment of non-resident fishermen in that part of the world. (The Province likes to call it Quality Waters Strategy when it's pretty clear to me that it's just a thinly veiled attempt by the guides and lodge owners to privatize steelhead paradise..... but that's not what this story's about....
It's about....taking bananas on a fishing trip.
With a 7 day forecast of rain, rain and more rain, crumby returns in the Skeena, tales of piles of people chasing not too many fish, I decided to take the trip anyway. And just to be totally and utterly counter-intuitive and a bit screwy, I decided to bring a HUGE pile of bananas with me in my camper on a fishing trip. That's a FIRST for me. Taunting the River Gods.
The drive north was nuts. Howling wind and rain all the way to Smithers; my truck aquaplaning like it was a boat---upside-down cars on the highway, death and destruction and flooding rivers and downed trees in the road. I woke the next morning and ate a banana.
Then it got light enough to see and WTF---the Skeena was in good fishable shape---dropping and clearing----I started to smell PROMISE. Forecasts now had changed to "sun breaks" for Smithers and Hazelton on my B-day. Rupert and Kitimat were getting HAMMERED but it seemed to be more of a coastal disturbance.
I actually overheard someone in Smithers say people were begging for rain; the Bulkley was "too low".
A picture is worth a thousand words so at this point I'll shut up. And eat another banana.
But this year I was on the verge of cancelling my triple decade Skeena habit----reason being----REALLY poor steelhead returns in the Tyee test fishery the managers conduct in the lower Skeena, horrendous weather forecasts, and last but not least, REALLY shabby treatment of non-resident fishermen in that part of the world. (The Province likes to call it Quality Waters Strategy when it's pretty clear to me that it's just a thinly veiled attempt by the guides and lodge owners to privatize steelhead paradise..... but that's not what this story's about....
It's about....taking bananas on a fishing trip.
With a 7 day forecast of rain, rain and more rain, crumby returns in the Skeena, tales of piles of people chasing not too many fish, I decided to take the trip anyway. And just to be totally and utterly counter-intuitive and a bit screwy, I decided to bring a HUGE pile of bananas with me in my camper on a fishing trip. That's a FIRST for me. Taunting the River Gods.
The drive north was nuts. Howling wind and rain all the way to Smithers; my truck aquaplaning like it was a boat---upside-down cars on the highway, death and destruction and flooding rivers and downed trees in the road. I woke the next morning and ate a banana.
Then it got light enough to see and WTF---the Skeena was in good fishable shape---dropping and clearing----I started to smell PROMISE. Forecasts now had changed to "sun breaks" for Smithers and Hazelton on my B-day. Rupert and Kitimat were getting HAMMERED but it seemed to be more of a coastal disturbance.
I actually overheard someone in Smithers say people were begging for rain; the Bulkley was "too low".
A picture is worth a thousand words so at this point I'll shut up. And eat another banana.
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