In the big scheme of things on the Pacific Coast it may be that Spanish Bank Creek is meaningless. Then again, this little stream that trickles down out of housing developments, crosses under busy roads and plunges through a wild ravine before flowing into the harbour of a big city, might mean everything.

For if a creek that is so small you can step across it and so shallow you can safely negotiate its rapids in rubber boots can grow salmon – and stir human hearts – then surely there is still hope in this world for fish.

By about 1920 the salmon run in Spanish Bank Creek was done. Loggers had moved through, trashing the ravine. And the stream became impassable when its mouth became blocked by sand, silt and rubble.

Fast forward to the 1990’s, when the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Canada was encouraging volunteers to work on salmon restoration projects. That’s when Ron Gruber, and some of his neighbors in Vancouver’s West Point Grey area, got involved.

“About 13 years ago a guy knocked on my door and said ‘We’re working to restore Spanish Bank Creek. . .I was told you might be interested in helping with something like that,” said Mr. Gruber, a wood carver who is famous for his lifelike duck decoys and salmon made from cedar.

“I said, ‘Ok, yeah, I might like to do that.”

Spanish Bank Creek was only a few blocks from his home, and so Mr. Gruber went to a few meetings that involved DFO, the province of British Columbia, the City of Vancouver and Nick Page, of Raincoast Applied Ecology, an environmental consultant who had come up with a restoration plan.

Mr. Page figured with a little bit of money and some hard work, the stream mouth could be opened up and some holding water built upstream.

DFO had access to salmon eggs. So the idea was simple enough. Fix the habitat. Add eggs – and hope.

Ever since then Mr. Gruber and other members of the Spanish Bank Creek Streamkeepers, have been working on improving the stream habitat.

As he worked his way up the small creek one winter day, looking for spawning redds, Mr. Gruber pointed out the rocks that had been moved to create riffles, the debris that had been dragged out to keep the stream passable, and the small diversion introduced to direct the water away from a clay bank that was pouring silt into the water.

As it snakes through the willow thickets, chattering through runs and splashing over boulders and deadfalls, Spanish Bank Creek seems a magical place. Here and there tiny coho dart for cover.

“Most people don’t believe me when I tell them salmon spawn here,” said Mr. Gruber, meaning here, in the heart of one of Canada’s largest cities.

“But there’s the proof,” he said, pointing to a clean patch of gravel just a few metres upstream from a culvert under Northwest Marine Drive. “A pair of chum salmon dug a redd [or spawning nest] right there just a few weeks ago. Their eggs are buried there and they will be hatching in the spring.

In his scrap book he has pictures of every salmon that has spawned in the stream in recent years. One year about 60 chum came back.

Some years there have only been a handful of coho or chum. But the salmon are certainly back. They first returned in November 2000, when a few coho showed up. It was the first spawning run in 80 years.

They have come back every year since.

In the spring, school kids come to the stream to release chum fry they have raised from the egg stage in class room aquariums. But wild salmon are self-sustaining in Spanish Bank Creek now, and Mr. Gruber says they are cutting back on the number of hatchery fish released.

“We don’t want to crowd out the wild fish, and they seem to be doing pretty good right now,”  said Mr. Gruber.

At one point the creek tumbles down a steep cataract.

“We never used to see fish go above that barrier,” said Mr. Gruber.  But a few years ago he saw a fish splashing at the base of the waterfall, then plunging upstream. He scrambled up there the next spring to look around, and found some coho fry. This winter he found eggs rolling along the bottom above the impassable waterfall.

“Coho are the athletes of the salmon world,” he said. “What they can do is amazing. I’ve seen them driving up the shallows, water spraying everywhere…I’ve seen them turn on their sides to slide under logs are totally blocking the way. If there’s a way, they will get there.”

And if they can get there in Spanish Bank Creek, they can get there in a lot of places. It’s worth keeping in mind, for if a damaged little stream like this can be restored, then others can too.

Imagine 1,000 creeks like this, each putting out 100 salmon. Maybe that’s how the fight to save wild salmon can be won. One stream at a time.

Mike Sturk is not a fly fishing guide. He’s just a professional photographer who fly fishes whenever he can.

“One of the local fly shops did try to recruit me,” he says, as he steers his truck through the busy downtown streets in Calgary, looking for an on ramp to a highway that skirts the world-famous Bow River.

“But I thought, hey, to do that right I would really have to put in a lot of work to figure out how everything works . . . you wouldn’t want to be guessing about stuff,” he says, one eye on the traffic and the other on the Bow, glinting in the low angled sunlight of a fall morning.

So here he is, picking up a total stranger at his hotel, at the request of a mutual friend, offering to spend the day basically guiding me all over the Bow. For nothing.

But no stress, he says, because he gets to guess about where to go and how to fish. And, of course, he gets to fish himself, which is the big thing.

He has packed a lunch, cold beers and knows where to get hot coffee for his guest. And he has been thinking for days about where and how to fish.  In short, Mike is better prepared than most professional guides – though, unfortunately for you, he’s not available unless you happen to know a photographer who can make an introduction.

“No, no,” he says waiving aside my thanks. “I love to get out whenever I can. And this is a great excuse to fish the Bow again.”

Mike used to be a staff photographer for The Calgary Herald, but now freelances and lives south of the city. He fishes more these days in Rocky Mountain streams, but when he lived in town he put a lot of work in on the Bow and knows it well.

He offers to drive South and East, following the Bow out of the urban core, but says that, really, you can often have great fishing within city limits, if you don’t mind the urban landscape as a backdrop.

“The shit hole,” he offers, as we pass an outfall from Calgary’s sewage treatment plant. “Just to see if it could be done I fished right there once, and caught a nice Brown!”

The shit hole isn’t on our list today….but it doesn’t look all that unappealing as we pass by. Actually, there’s a pretty good seam there where the main river and the outfall confluence meet.

Brown trout were introduced accidentally to the Bow in 1925, when a hatchery truck carrying 45,000 fingerlings broke down on the Trans Canada Highway, in Banff National Park. Rather than let his valuable cargo suffocate, the driver dropped them into a nearby stream – and a legendary fishery was born.

Over the years the Browns steadily shifted downstream, until they settled on the ideal habitat around Calgary, where, as it turned out, urban growth was putting a steady discharge of nutrients into the river. The waste water stimulated aquatic plants, which in turn supported profuse insect populations and the Browns and introduced Rainbows flourished.

Today the 40 mile section of the Bow downstream of Calgary is rated as one of the greatest trout fisheries in the world, with an estimated 2,500 trout per mile. It is a “blue ribbon” stream in Alberta, a province which sets the bar pretty high when it comes to rating trout waters.

There are whitefish, some remnant cutthroat and Brook trout in the Bow, but the big attraction to fly fishermen remain the Browns and Rainbows, which average 16 inches. Fish over 20 inches are common in these waters. And they are fighters.

When Mike hears I have no objection to fishing within the city, he wheels off the highway, cuts through a subdivision, and finds an empty parking lot in a riverside park.

“Perfect!” he says. “Nobody here.”

It does not occur to him for a moment that the reason no one is here is because the fishing is lousy in this stretch.

“Let’s give it a shot,” he says. “I have had some great days on this run.”

He points me to the prime water, suggests a few fly patterns, then wades in below me….and moments later says: “Fish on.”

It is a lovely Brown. Which he follows with several rainbows.

He may not be a guide, but Mike doesn’t like to fish with people who aren’t catching anything. So he wades up beside me, takes off my streamer, ties on a double-fly system with a copper head nymph as the trailer, offers some split shot, a strike indicator, and explains how to get the best drift with the set up.

Then he goes back to the secondary water and catches a couple more fish.

“Hit everything, every hesitation,” he says, watching my strike indicator dancing along the surface.

I do. And the rod wows way over as a big fish takes in deep, fast water. Mike wades up, cheering and unslinging his camera. He nets the fish in due time. Gets the shot. And is obviously delighted that he has been able to show off his river as I slip a 21 inch rainbow back into the current.

A few more fish are lost by me and Mike takes a bunch more, after taking the spot I had vacated.

He says he’s not good enough to be a guide. But from where I am standing in the current, watching how he is filtering one trout after another with a perfectly drifted nymph, I am thinking he could probably teach a few guides a thing or two. He certainly taught me a lesson on how to nymph in cold weather for big Bow River trout.

Later we share a beer at curb side, talking about fish and watching Calgary residents strolling through their neighbourhood. A lot of them nod, smile, say hello. They seem pleased that we are out there, enjoying this great urban fishery.

There are lots of great guides available on the Bow – unfortunately Mike Sturk is not one of them. This river is so accessible you can easily fish it yourself by wading, and getting out for a day or an afternoon when in Calgary on business is easy because there is productive water right there, almost in the shadows of downtown sky scrapers.

You can rent river boats, or just walk and wade. An incredibly beautiful park stretches along both banks of the river in the city, making it easy to forget you are actually fishing downtown.

And if you want to see Mike’s fishing photography, go to:  http://www.mikesturk.com/

One section of my favourite small river in Tyrone winds along the boundary of the local golf course and golfers regularly stop to pass the time of day or to enquire about the quality of the fishing. Earlier in the year I was in the middle of the river, casting a tiny ginger quill up the narrow flows between the floating weeds trying to temp a few of the good wild browns which inhabit this stretch. It was delicate work, with light leader and size eighteen fly, but on the occasions when the ‘quill’ landed squarely in the centre of a clear stream it almost always brought a reaction and the sport was truly exciting. Of course many of the casts were inaccurate as the breeze sometimes shifted the line at the last minute and the fly finished up sitting on the weed beds and avoiding a snag as the line was gently retrieved, proved a tricky business at times.

However, the risk of losing flies or getting caught up was justified by the almost continuous action when things went well and already I had taken several excellent fish on my journey up river. When these trout are on the feed they rise the second a morsel comes into view and sometimes their takes were just too quick for me and were missed or the trout was well hooked but subsequently lost in the streaming vegetation. Four golfers, waiting near the tee for their next fairway to clear watched me fish and came over to the bank as the rod arched into another good trout. It was a spirited fight and eventually the fish was brought to the net, the hook removed and the ‘brown’ returned to the water.
“Don’t see the point of fishing at all,” said the nearest golfer. “Spend half the day up to your chest in water and when you finally get one, let it go again!

No sense in it!”

I didn’t respond. One look at his appearance, head to foot in the latest ‘must have’ golfing gear, told me that a man who spends time thoroughly convinced that knocking a small ball into a hole has a much greater purpose than catching a trout, would probably not appreciate my explanation of the subtleties of angling as a pursuit. In any case, fates kindly intervened on my behalf when his fluent practice swing turned into an arthritic hack once a ball was involved and his shot bounced away down the fairway before finishing up with a satisfying plop into the river.
“He needs a licence if he wants to start fishing?” I shouted.

His mates guffawed. He scowled. The ginger quill was cast out again.

In fact, trying to analyse what it is about fishing, in all its forms,that keeps us enthralled for a lifetime is no easy task to explain to the uninitiated or the cynical. What is the urge which makes us return season after season to our favourite waters? Why are we so motivated to put up with the frustrations, disappointments, frozen fingers, regular soakings, sea sickness and all of the other trials and tribulations which can at times, confront us as passionate anglers?

It is not, as many non-fishermen think, simply about catching fish for as we all know the actual fascination with the sport is far more multi-layered and complex. Of course taking a fresh run salmon is a joy and once or twice a year slicing the fillets and cooking them in the simplest way possible does provide some of the best eating ever, but for most anglers, supplying the table is not the primary reason for venturing out with rod and line. Indeed those who seek roach, tench or any of the other species of coarse fish would never dream of killing anything brought to the net and increasingly the growing ‘catch and release’ movement amongst game and sea anglers aspires to encourage a similar philosophy.

Some years ago it used to be commonplace and acceptable for some game anglers to boast about how many salmon they had taken in a season, but in recent times as we have become more conservation minded, ’fishmongers’ are now frowned upon and attitudes have clearly changed. The sustainability of our sport is now our main concern and happily it is far more usual these days to hear stories of fish being successfully returned than automatically knocked on the head.

In my view, fishing is a privilege, an obligation for lovers of the countryside to get out and renew an affinity with wild places, find solitude in quiet corners and enjoy the numerous loughs, rivers and coastlines  which Ireland possesses and which thankfully, have remained largely unchanged for centuries. Fishing expeditions provide a golden opportunity to observe, close up, wildlife which for much of the time we ignore or overlook. It is a chance to watch dragonflies dance, dippers scuttle about on the rapids or oyster catchers scouring the sandbars but above all, an opportunity in this busy world to simply ’stand and stare’.

It matters little if a newly –built motorway is now roaring past or airliners are leaving feathery trails across the sky, what is important is that the water itself is timeless and the river flowing by our feet, for a few hours at least, becomes our very own ‘theatre of dreams’ where the next cast will tease our imaginations and perhaps provide the fish of a lifetime. For me, simply being near water is a journey into magic and one of the real thrills of angling is about wondering what roams below the surface and whether or not I have the skill and knowledge to temp it out of hiding.

To make the day worthwhile the contest to outwit the fish has to be difficult. The greater the challenge the more satisfying the outcome so finally fooling a trout which has occupied an almost impossible lie for years increases the pleasure of the capture and stays firmly in the mind. One large brown on our local river took up station in a deep channel under an overhanging alder tree. He has lived there for years and still remains to this day. Most evenings he can be spotted taking flies with a slap which can be heard yards down the river and as every angler knows, usually signifies the presence of a substantial fish. Sometimes when the setting sun is low in the sky his long dark shape can be seen patrolling his favourite channel but the river on his side is deep and inaccessible and any long cast drags the minute it hits the water and instantly puts him down.

When he is feeding we all try a few throws his way but the result is always futile and he sinks down to the depths until the danger has passed. Last season after a prolonged dry spell the river dropped to an all-time low and with care and probing gingerly forward with the wading stick, I discovered that it was possible to wade, chest deep, upstream towards him by negotiating a recently accessible submerged rock ledge. A pheasant tail nymph was attached and I managed at the first attempt to get the cast under the alders and into his stream. It rolled in the current down to where he usually waited and he took it immediately with a swirl like an explosion.

The rod was lifted, the line went taut and he leapt clear out of the water before tearing off down river. He was considerably bigger and heavier than I had thought and the ratchet on the reel sang as he headed off in the current. My exhilaration at hooking him was short lived because his muscular jerks soon took him to the shelter of the ledge, where he threw out the offending nymph and the battle for that day was over. A day or so later the water levels rose and he was back, unassailable in his usual haunt. He may never be caught, but the challenge that fish poses to all the anglers who spot him is one of the true pleasures of angling. For experienced sportsmen, there has to be an element of unpredictability in angling as a sport and as in ‘feathering ‘for mackerel, fishing which is so easy that it is reduced to a certainty, quickly loses its charm.

People who have never fished find it difficult to comprehend the pure excitement and anticipation anglers get when seeing a good fish rise or watching a float, which has sat motionless for hours on the mirror like surface suddenly twitches into life, bobs a few times and then shoots down to the depths. To non-anglers it is nigh on impossible to describe the thrill experienced when after days of standing up to the chest in freezing water, fruitlessly flogging away with the salmon rod, the tug of a fish finally comes.

Or the enjoyment we get when choosing the right fly and casting to a difficult lie brings a fine fish to the net. Angling is a fascinating sport which provides endless variation and pleasure for thousands and I am sure we could debate for hours why we all take part but what is certain is that few who take it up can give it up. The pursuit of fish may be seen by some as a strange obsession, but for those in the know, an outing with rod and line is never wasted. So called ‘blank days’ when no fish are caught are seldom ‘blank’ because an outing with good companions, in unspoiled places and delightful scenery is always pure pleasure. These excursions may not always result in catching the fish we seek but does that really matter?

Welcome 2012! and as we reflect on last years fishing adventures and dream and plan this years trips we thought it might be nice to show you one mans trip of a lifetime. Sven’s dream was to come to Canada, learn to Spey cast and catch some really large Coho salmon on the fly. The result was a fishing trip caught on video.

Filmed on location in the Pitt River a short trip north east of Vancouver, British Columbia this fall click on the link below to watch the results.

Fishing with Sven (Small version 13 MB)

Fishing with Sven (Large version 105 MB)

Please note: The movies are presented in Quicktime Format and the download speed will depend on the speed of your internet connection. If you have problem with the movie it can be seen here on YouTube.

Story By Fred Laird

It is sad that so much of the vigor of youth is spent acquiring the wisdom of age.

January 6th, 2010, the snow that fell the week before Christmas still lingers on the ground; some of it anyway. Thats rare for these parts, these parts being the northwest corner of Virginia, but with temperatures in the twenties and wind chills in the single digits, it hasn’t had a chance to disappear.

Sitting here, looking out at it, I think about days bygone when I would have bundled up and ventured forth to one trout stream or another in defiance of the inhospitable weather. No more. I remember when, in the foolishness of youth, I used to laugh at the old joke about Arthur being the worst of the Ritis brothers. Now that he lives with me and complains loudly about the cold and damp, I see the veracity that was hidden in the humor. He moves around a lot, hips, shoulders, ankles, wrists, lately, he’s taken up residence in my left knee. This morning I gave him a good dose of analgesic balm and he’s pretty quiet right now, but I know if I were to take him out for a few hours on Stony Creek or some other nearby stream he’d complain about it for days.

While I’m exercising my memory, rather than my body, I recall a day late last February, when the mercury hit forty plus and my brother-in- law, Jim, and I ventured out to Beaver Creek, not far from Harrisonburg. It should be said, here, that neither of us had fished this stream before, but Jim had heard about it at a local fly shop. This particular stretch of the creek runs through private pasture land. The fishing rights are leased by TU and there is a nominal rod fee to fish it, payable at the nearby general store, with a maximum of five rods per day allowed on it. The owner of the land has sectioned his pasture by means of electrified fences. To prevent damage to the fences, or gates being left open, TU has constructed what they euphemistically call turn stiles to facilitate getting from one side of the fence to the other. These stiles consist of wooden piles driven into the ground, the tops left at varying heights that act as steps on either side of the fence. They were, undoubtedly, installed by younger, fitter men than Jim and I.

As we walked down the lane that leads, eventually, to the farmhouse situated on a hill overlooking the area, we reached a single lane bridge that crosses the creek, upstream of which is a large pool, in which I could see some trout swimming and others rising. I’m no great angler, but I’ve been around long enough to know that seeing trout does not equate to catching trout. In fact the ease with which trout can be seen may be inversely proportionate to the ease with which they may be caught. It was, however a captivating moment and somewhat encouraging. Jim decided to fish down stream from the bridge and I decided to walk upstream and fish back down to it. Both directions required employing at least one set of stiles.

There are, undoubtedly, other events that transpire in the seemingly mundane lives of average people that rival the suspense, the trage-comedic value and the adventure of an old fly fisherman attempting to cross an electrified fence in the middle of a cow pasture to get to a pool in which he can see trout rising, but none come immediately to mind.

By placing my rod on the opposite side of the fence, far enough away that if I fell I wouldn’t land on it, thereby freeing both hands to flail about wildly as I attempted to maintain my balance, placing one foot upon the lowest pile and bouncing the other a couple of times before actually lifting it to the second, then hurriedly bending down to grab the nearest fence post with one hand, while swinging one leg over the wire to the tallest pile on the other side, twisting around so I could see the shorter pile, while bringing my second leg over the fence and then stepping down onto terra firma, I was able to gain access to the pool immediately upstream from the aforementioned bridge.

It had been my intention to venture upstream at least one more pool before fishing, but when I came to the second fence, the crossing looked even more challenging than the first and I decided that I would concentrate my efforts on the available water. I walked toward the stream, making the last twenty feet on my hands and knees as there was no cover, found a little rut in the bank that cows had worn getting to the water, knelt down and commenced casting, fishing the close water first then lengthening my casts toward the foot of the pool. I had tied on a number eight Dave’s Hopper (I can’t tell you why) and it received a few nudges but no takes. I was considering switching to a nymph of some sort, but decided to take a few more casts. I let one go about three quarters of the way down the pool, pulled some more line off the reel and let the hopper drift slowly toward the bridge I’d stood on close to an hour ago. There was an audible splash as the fly disappeared and the fight was on. A few minutes later, I had an 18-20 inch golden, fork tailed fall fish at my feet. Not a trout, but a beautiful, game, fish none the less.

Not long after, I saw Jim on the bridge. I reeled in and returned to the dreaded fence. By repeating the ritual that had propelled me across the first time, I was able to gain the side from which I had come without incident. We decided to hike back to the truck for a sandwich and coffee. Jim had had no luck. When we finished lunch, we discussed it a bit but decided to have another go at em, so back across the bridge we went and this time Jim opted to join me at the pool above it. I demonstrated my procedure for crossing the fence, but Jim, a few years older, few pounds heavier, and a couple of inches shorter than I, was having difficulty. Finally, he got up on the second pile, but then lost his balance and came down straddle the fence. I heard a startled whoop (and perhaps a few unprintable exclamations) that the contact had caused and turned to assist him. Luckily, he was able to get his right leg under him so that only the inside of his left leg actually contacted the wire and as heavily clad as we were for a February day, I don’t think the charge was too bad. I returned to the crossing sight and stood there so that Jim could use my shoulder to balance on and he was able to make it across.

We fished for another hour or so. Using the same tactic that had produced a fish earlier, I caught a nice 17-18 inch rainbow. Jim wasn’t as fortunate. As the slightly bright spot in the gray of the day that defined the position of the Sun began to descend toward the mountains to our west, we repeated the ballet at the fence and left for the warmth of Jim’s house in Harrisonburg.

Think I’ll make a nice stout wading / hiking staff. I said. Jim just grunted and rubbed his leg.

[Editor's Note: Fred Laird is a retired construction superintendent, a fly fisherman and an author who lives in Woodstock, Virginia, and who can make light of getting zapped between the legs while stepping over an electric fence. Well, it was his brother-in-law. His collection of short stories, Casting From The Far Bank, can be ordered on the web from Publish America or Amazon.]

The world is replete with examples of fisheries that once were. Whether it be bluefin tuna, coral reef fishes of southeast Asia, the northern cod of eastern Canada, Atlantic salmon throughout most of their range or the Chinook and steelhead runs of California’s Central Valley and northern coast and the Columbia, to name but a few, the story has been the same. The human animal has consistently placed a lower value on fish than the economies that have grown to compete for them and, eventually, against them. The end result, each generation of us lowers the bar and re-defines a benchmark for the next. Regrettably, succeeding generations rarely understand or appreciate where the bar once stood.

Some isolated opportunities still exist to savor what little remains globally of the once abundant premiere river sport fishing opportunities for iconic species like steelhead and Atlantic salmon. Kamchatka is the last frontier for steelhead, albeit inaccessible for most of us. Across the vastness of Russia, at its opposite corner, the Kola Peninsula supports the best of what remains of Atlantic salmon fishing. Some might place the rivers of Iceland on equal footing. In North America the single remaining opportunity to reach out and touch a piece of past glory rests with the Skeena watershed in northwestern British Columbia. Alaska may boast more pristine environments than modern day Skeena and it undoubtedly reflects abundances of anadromous fish no longer found outside its borders but it does not support the world record class wild summer steelhead of the fabled Skeena.

The Skeena steelhead fishery story began to unfold with the arrival of commercial fishing in the late 1870s. By the turn of the 20th century the commercial fishery and its inevitable proliferation of canneries had assumed ownership of fish and fishing. No one will ever know with certainty how many fish of any species, especially steelhead, once occupied the waters of the Skeena. Regulations governing fishing and catch recording lagged the blossoming fishery by several decades and fisheries science took even longer to develop, let alone be applied. Aboriginal people sustained themselves on the strength of Skeena fish for countless generations before the commercial fishery began but their numbers, distribution and technology were never a threat to fish, at least not until the European descendent entrepreneurs arrived.

There is no record of any description to suggest the era prior to the arrival of commercial fishing saw fish abundance influenced measurably by those who preceded it.
Sport fishing as a detectable element of the Skeena fishery mosaic did not materialize until more than a half century after the first gill nets were deployed in the path of Skeena bound salmon. Not until the early economies worked through the succession from fir trading to canneries to mining and logging did a railroad and highway allow access to rivers and fish that had never been subjected to angling. Float planes and helicopters followed and jet boats were not far behind. Now we have the worldwide web and an unprecedented proliferation of fish porn. Some perceive it as the best thing that ever happened for fishing. I view it as the worst possible thing for fish.

At any time in recent history the harvesting capacity of any of the three sectors involved in the Skeena fishery, if unconstrained, exceeded the capacity of the resource to sustain it. Conservation imperatives restricted fishing effort progressively but rarely prospectively. Fishing effort restrictions always lag behind fishing efficiency improvements. Perceptions among fishing sector spokespersons hardened as they saw their rights and lifestyles being compromised. The debate of the day around steelhead became conservation versus allocation. Amicable resolution of that issue is as likely as peace in the Middle East. Nonetheless, governments of the day have contributedresources thought not to exist toward the process of resolution. The investment in interpretation and application of policies and unanswerable questions has spawned a growth industry whose output is measured in everything but the status of fish and fishing.

So, how long will Skeena steelhead and the sport fishery as it has come to be known last? How did we get to where we are? What will it take to see an outcome different from everywhere south where the obvious inverse relationship between the abundance of people and the abundance of fish has relegated fishery after fishery to photo albums? Will lessons learned elsewhere ever be applied?

Much has been written about particular aspects of the history of the Skeena watershed. Richard Geddes Large’s 1957 piece “Skeena, River of Destiny” is an intricate and wonderfully readable description of early developments stemming from the first furtraders and missionaries through two world wars and the economies that developed thereafter. Cicely Lyons milestone, Salmon Our Heritage, published in 1969 is an excellent account of the history of the commercial fishing industry in British Columbiaas seen from the corporate boardroom. Geoff Meggs 1995 book, Salmon, The Decline of the BC Fishery, sharply contrasts the boardroom accounts. Between Lyons encyclopedic documentation and Meggs take on exploitation of workers is K. Mack Campbell’s warm personal reminisces of the rise and fall of the outlying canneries along the BC coast (Campbell, 2004).

More recently Allan Gottesfeld and Ken Rabnett’s 2008 publication “Skeena River Fish and Their Habitat” documents and knits together into a highly instructive reference a huge volume of technically focused background material originating from sources unknown or unavailable to most.
Hundreds of references embedded in a half century’s worth of scientific literature on fish and fisheries include Skeena related material. The explosion of records and reports emanating from the golden age of process, from 1990 to the present, add to the mix.

Foremost among references on sport fishing in the Skeena is John Fennelly’s 1963 classic “Steelhead Paradise”. Paralleling the proliferation of scientific literature has been the steadily increasing volume of sport fishing related publications in magazines, journals, hard cover and, of course, the worldwide web. Nowhere, however, is there anything that documents the steelhead sport fishery development and the struggle of successive generations of advocates to preserve what too few know as an international treasure. It’s a story worth telling.

The fly fishing only section of the Campbell River

Photography by Nick Didlick

The simple sign marking the Fly Fishing Only water on the Campbell River in Campbell River, British Columbia. The rivers around here where made famous by resident Authors like Roderick Haig-Brown and Van Gorman Egan.

This picture is available for you to download to use as a desktop picture for your computer by right clicking on the photo and saving to your desktop.

The Salmon River on Vancouver Island, rises as snow melt in Strathcona Provincial Park, and runs more than 80 kilometres before it hits the ocean, near the small town of Sayward.

With the headwaters protected by the oldest park in British Columbia, and the lower river now surrounded by healthy, second growth forests, the Salmon has been coming in for a lot of attention from fisheries experts in recent years, because of its amazing potential.

Starting in the mid-70s, the province began a series of projects aimed at improving habitat. Impassable log jams that were blocking fish access to several small tributaries were busted open, long stretches of the mainstem were fertilized to replace nutrients lost when salmon runs declined, and in one key event in 1976 a large boulder was blasted out of a canyon where it had halted upstream migration.
By breaking up the boulder 12 kilometres of prime spawning habitat was opened up to salmon, trout and steelhead.

The Salmon River Diversion

That seminal event allowed spawning fish to reach the base of a BC Hydro diversion dam that in the late 1950s had been built upstream of the impassable canyon, to direct water to a nearby power generating system. But the arrival of fish soon faced the Crown corporation with a problem, because a few salmon, as they will, found a way to slip past the dam. At about the same time, steelhead were stocked upstream, allowing the upstream waters to become colonized, although the population remained small.

Over the years provincial fisheries managers, the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Sayward Fish and Game Club have pushed BC Hydro to fully open the upper 40-plus kilometres of river to salmon.

In the late 1980s, with some success, a smolt screen was installed on the diversion canal, to redirect fish back into the Salmon as they migrated downstream. Despite that, estimates are 30 % of the fish die and many more are flushed down the canal; in effect transferred into another river system.
In 1991, DFO built a fish passageway around the diversion dam but it never worked properly. Subsequent studies found fish went in at the bottom end, but never came out at the top, apparently getting confused or forced back by the currents.

Several years ago Mike Gage, a member of the Sayward Fish and Game Club and Chair of the Campbell River Salmon Foundation, went to look at the diversion dam and saw hundreds of coho milling at its base.

He watched as they exhausted themselves trying to jump up the steep, sloping front of the dam and promised himself he would do something to help them. Since then Mr. Gage has been a driving force in an effort to get a new fishway built around the dam.

But when we spoke, in August 2011, he was getting frustrated by the lack of progress. He had spent four-and-a-half years in meetings and people were still only talking endlessly talking about finding possible solutions. Maybe. But first lets have a report on that.
To him the answer is simple. A short fish passage needs to be blasted through rock beside the diversion dam. That would allow coho and steelhead to migrate upstream.

And if the diversion canal was shut down for a few months, during the outmigration of fry in the spring, the loss of young fish could be eliminated entirely.
We could really do something up there, says Mr. Gage.
Indeed they could. A consultants study, prepared in 2010 for a multi-sector committee studying the fish passage proposal, outlines the remarkable potential of the Salmon River.

At full adult recruitment, spawning habitat below the diversion was estimated to be capable of supporting over 58,000 steelhead and 99,000 coho, while the upper river was estimated to be capable of supporting about 16,600 steelhead and 26,000 coho. Those are very high numbers and greatly exceed the spawning targets of 1,500 steelhead and 5,600 coho for the lower river, and 500 steelhead and 1,600 coho for the upper river, states the report.
Those are big numbers and exciting numbers to anyone who fishes. The Salmon, in short, could be made into one of B.C.s best salmon and steelhead rivers.

The Salmon River above diversion

B.C. has lost a lot of fish habitat over the past century. The opportunity to turn the clock back, to not only restore a river but to make it more productive than ever, is a rarity.

BC Hydro, DFO and the province have been talking about the Salmon River fish passageway project for too long. It has been 35 years since provincial fisheries workers blasted the rock out of the canyon, opening a way for fish to colonize the more than 50 kilometres of pristine river that lay upstream. And over four years since the committee began to discuss options.

The opportunity to fully realize the potential of the Salmon has been identified. Now some action is needed.
Lets get on with it.

Dave’s Dream

Dave’s Dream a.k.a. the Pitt River Special is a Steelhead Fly pattern that has proven itself for me over a number of steelheading seasons. A sparsely dressed fly, Dave’s Dream resembles a Comet Fly and works well in clear water conditions in all types of rivers we find on the West Coast of Canada.

Dave’s Dream is named after a fishing partner of mine and it was perfected during spring fishing trips to the Upper Pitt River over a number of seasons hence the name and its alias. While developed as a Steelhead pattern I have hooked and landed Bull Trout, Rainbows and Cutthroat on this handy little pattern which is fast becoming one of my favourites.

When fishing in the fall, winter and spring Dave’s Dream can be found in my fly box along with Kelsey’s Hope and  Claire’s Clothes in what I secretly call my Grand Slam of flies. Now with this, the last in the series of fly patterns here in the Fly Box on A River Never Sleeps the seceret is out.

Below is a step by step guide to tying Dave’s Dream.

What you will need to tie Dave’s Dream

Hook: Tiemco TMC 8089NP Size 10 for a large fly. I have subsituted a Mustad #34007 which works great but like the large gap on the TMC 8089NP
Eye: Spirit River I-Balz Nickel 5/32″ 12CT
Body: Orvis Super Strong Tippet material 25 pound test (Diameter .015) over UNI-Mylar #12 Gold/Silver Tinsel. If you saw last month’s Fly Box which featured Kelsey’s Hope you will be familiar with this step.
Wing: Natural Mallard Flank over Just ADD H2O Gliss’N Glow color Live Glow.
Tail: Just ADD H2O Gliss’N Glow color Live Glow
Throat: Seal Fur dyed Fluorescent Orange
Thread: Black Waxed Monocord 3/0.

Step by step Dave’s Dream in the making

	Position the Tiemco TMC 8089NP Size 10 for a large fly in your vice.
	Tie on the Black Waxed Monocord 3/0 to the point of the hook and tie in 4 or 5 strands of the Just ADD H2O Gliss’N Glow color Live Glow and leave it long to act as a tail.
	Tie on the Orvis Super Strong Tippet material 25 pound test (Diameter .015) and the UNI-Mylar #12 Gold Silver Tinsel so that the silver side will be on the outside. Bring the tying thread to the head of the hook.
	Wrap the UNI-Mylar #12 Gold Silver Tinsel silver side out for the length of the body and tie it off and trim off the excess.
	This is the tricky step! Wrap the Orvis Super Strong Tippet material 25 pound test (Diameter .015) around the hook and over the UNI-Mylar #12 Gold Silver Tinsel. This will give the body of the fly some depth and protect the tinsel from ripping on the teeth of a hooked fish. Carefully trim off the excess.
	Tie in 4 or 5 strands of the Just ADD H2O Gliss’N Glow color Live Glow and leave it long it will be the under wing.
	Tie on the Natural Mallard Flank as the over wing.
	Tie in the Seal Fur dyed Fluorescent Orange as a throat.
	Tie on the Spirit River I-Balz Nickel 5/32″ 12CT to the top of the hook near the eye. Whip finish and cement the head.
	Trim your Dave’s Dream so the 4-5 strands of Gliss’N Glow hang well back of the bend of the hook. Trim the Gliss’N Glow under the wing slightly longer than the Natural Mallard Flank. Trim the Orange Seal Fur Throat to look like yoke.

True Stories of the Ones That Didn’t Get Away. Jeremy Wade, host of River Monsters on Animal Planet. Da Capo Press. US $26; Cnd $30.

Jeremy Wade has just about as much fun fishing as you possibly could without getting killed. Not that he hasn’t come close a few times. Actually, given the dark waters he often swims in, he may have come a lot closer to getting eaten, or at least badly mauled, a lot more times than even he can guess.

As host of the popular television series, River Monsters, of course he has to take risks. It is good for the ratings. But reading this lively and well written account of his adventures you pretty quickly realize he’d be doing this stuff anyway, even if he wasn’t getting trailed by a camera crew. Television, it’s pretty clear, is just a way to pay the bills while he chases around the planet for the biggest, meanest, most dangerous and most exciting fish he can find. If you can call some of these things fish, that is. With names like Goonch, Wels and Bols kata (a name that sounds scarily like balls cutter for good reason) you have to wonder. Some of them really are monsters, and not just in size but in attitude. Take the Goliath Tigerfish, for example, which earned it’s name one suspects because it has teeth like a tiger. Often people who see the book cover, which shows the author holding a fish with enormous, rapier-like teeth, express disbelief that it’s real. But it is – and yes, it really does have giant teeth, all the better to eat you with.

River Monsters isn’t about fly fishing and some may wonder why it is reviewed here. The simple truth is, this is a book that will appeal to anyone who fishes. If you ever stared down between the planks on a dock as a kid, watching with fascination as fish materialized and vanished in the shadows, you will like Jeremy Wade and the tales he tells. He describes himself as a biologist and fishing detective, and others have called him “the greatest angling explorer of his generation.” That he is, and a bit of showman too, but more than anything else I think Jeremy is just a guy who loves fish and who has never become bored with the great sport of angling. It’s true most fly fishermen would never want to fish with the big, stinky gobs of bait, or big spoons he often uses, not to mention the thunderstick rods he uses to subdue his catch, but most of us would be thrilled to hook any of the fish that he tracks down and pulls out of distant, murky waters. He has a blast doing it and it is hard not to get caught up in the sense of adventure.

One might expect a book by a television host to be self aggrandizing and shallow. But River Monsters is neither. Jeremy Wade has done his homework on the biology and he has worked hard for the amazing fish he’s caught. His story is inspiring really, for though most of us may never pursue any of the species in this book, the great stories about how they were caught, and about how much he put into the chase, serve as a reminder of how fun and exciting this sport is – and of how much more there is for us all to discover.