Sharphooks
Well-Known Member
Just to celebrate October, I thought I’d do a write-up of my trip up north last week.
I did the math and it was scary--- my 38 th consecutive year up to Skeena Country. Big changes over those years, especially for us Non Rez Anglers. They’ve made it so it’s almost just no fun any more---no fishing on weekends, each weekday you gotta drive fifty kilometers to stand in line at a chain-saw shop to buy a piece of paper to make it legal to fish, then as you’re lining up your rod to step in the river, you get to watch the storm clouds gather and the rain start pounding, just in time so the "special" river gets punched out with mud five minutes after you paid for that “special” license to fish it.
Back in the good old days, no people, piles of fish, zero paperwork, and for me it was normal to fish 3 or 4 rivers in a day to strawberry-pick the conditions. Not no mo’…. That just ain’t happening to us NRA’s. Even Albertans have to suffer those same indignities, a dynamic that the locals I’m sure derive a certain amount of glee from. I learned decades ago that the only thing a Region 6 local hates more then an American up there fishing the Skeena is an Albertan---
But the country up there is so phantasmagoric, so breath-taking, that I’ve reached the point where I can just stand on a river with or without a rod in my hand and just take it all in ----- I think I’ve come to a point where I’ve realized that the fish just aren’t quite as important as they used to be. The country up there really is that astonishingly gorgeous!
My mistake this year was going late---usually I try and capture the last few days of September and the first week of October--- this year business got in the way and I ended up arriving just after a HUGE rain event--- the good news--- the muddy water scared everyone away.
That is critical to me---I’m not a social fisher---the river ain’t no sportsbar for me the way it is for some people---seeing a group of 3 or 4 fly boys on the river chest-bumping and high-fiving like they’re at a Canuck’s game after one of them hooks a fish has always made me run for the exits. So crumby weather means no people. It also means marginal fishing conditions but that’s o.k. These days I fish on memories of the way that place used to be. And occasionally I even stumble into a few when the conditions get marginal
Sounds kind of goofy, I know, but my greatest accomplishment in chasing steelhead over the years is this….after almost 4 decades of going to Skeena Country, nobody has EVER seen me catch a fish. In the 70’s and 80’s that was not much of a challenge but wow, try and do that these days and it means----walking further, wading deeper, doing whatever it takes to get away from the “hot spots” where the gong shows are in full swing.
The whole “spey” thing gags me with a soup-spoon these days. Your average “spey” guy is somehow under the delusion that it’s a method of fishing he’s using, as in….”yeah, I caught it on the spey”. No, sorry, you didn’t. You caught it fly fishing. You used a spey cast to get your fly out into the river. You’re fly fishing. And with that 6 inch long articulated leech with all that flashy tinsel on it you're pounding out into the river, it looks to me like you're gear fishing with a spoon
I do whatever it takes to get away from those guys. It sometimes means doing risky stuff, stuff that comes complete with dicey maneuvers.
To get around that outcrop, the rods went between my teeth and I had a death-grip on the dog ---a narrow bed-rock ledge, up to my chest in the river, one wrong move and it was falling in to a Class III chute with zero back eddies for a loooong ways. The best part---the puppy going nuts and trying to kick us both off the ledge with its hind feet as we're inching around the outcrop
But the pay-off is always worth it
I did the math and it was scary--- my 38 th consecutive year up to Skeena Country. Big changes over those years, especially for us Non Rez Anglers. They’ve made it so it’s almost just no fun any more---no fishing on weekends, each weekday you gotta drive fifty kilometers to stand in line at a chain-saw shop to buy a piece of paper to make it legal to fish, then as you’re lining up your rod to step in the river, you get to watch the storm clouds gather and the rain start pounding, just in time so the "special" river gets punched out with mud five minutes after you paid for that “special” license to fish it.
Back in the good old days, no people, piles of fish, zero paperwork, and for me it was normal to fish 3 or 4 rivers in a day to strawberry-pick the conditions. Not no mo’…. That just ain’t happening to us NRA’s. Even Albertans have to suffer those same indignities, a dynamic that the locals I’m sure derive a certain amount of glee from. I learned decades ago that the only thing a Region 6 local hates more then an American up there fishing the Skeena is an Albertan---
But the country up there is so phantasmagoric, so breath-taking, that I’ve reached the point where I can just stand on a river with or without a rod in my hand and just take it all in ----- I think I’ve come to a point where I’ve realized that the fish just aren’t quite as important as they used to be. The country up there really is that astonishingly gorgeous!
My mistake this year was going late---usually I try and capture the last few days of September and the first week of October--- this year business got in the way and I ended up arriving just after a HUGE rain event--- the good news--- the muddy water scared everyone away.
That is critical to me---I’m not a social fisher---the river ain’t no sportsbar for me the way it is for some people---seeing a group of 3 or 4 fly boys on the river chest-bumping and high-fiving like they’re at a Canuck’s game after one of them hooks a fish has always made me run for the exits. So crumby weather means no people. It also means marginal fishing conditions but that’s o.k. These days I fish on memories of the way that place used to be. And occasionally I even stumble into a few when the conditions get marginal
Sounds kind of goofy, I know, but my greatest accomplishment in chasing steelhead over the years is this….after almost 4 decades of going to Skeena Country, nobody has EVER seen me catch a fish. In the 70’s and 80’s that was not much of a challenge but wow, try and do that these days and it means----walking further, wading deeper, doing whatever it takes to get away from the “hot spots” where the gong shows are in full swing.
The whole “spey” thing gags me with a soup-spoon these days. Your average “spey” guy is somehow under the delusion that it’s a method of fishing he’s using, as in….”yeah, I caught it on the spey”. No, sorry, you didn’t. You caught it fly fishing. You used a spey cast to get your fly out into the river. You’re fly fishing. And with that 6 inch long articulated leech with all that flashy tinsel on it you're pounding out into the river, it looks to me like you're gear fishing with a spoon
I do whatever it takes to get away from those guys. It sometimes means doing risky stuff, stuff that comes complete with dicey maneuvers.
To get around that outcrop, the rods went between my teeth and I had a death-grip on the dog ---a narrow bed-rock ledge, up to my chest in the river, one wrong move and it was falling in to a Class III chute with zero back eddies for a loooong ways. The best part---the puppy going nuts and trying to kick us both off the ledge with its hind feet as we're inching around the outcrop
But the pay-off is always worth it
Last edited by a moderator:
