Sharphooks
Well-Known Member
For more Octobers then I’d want counted back to me I’ve been going to Skeena country to fish steelhead. It’s a seasonal station of the cross thing. I smell one leaf changing color and I’m already packing up the truck to make sure not another leaf falls off a tree before I get there to see it happen.
I’ve had the good fortune to have seen quite a large chunk of this world over the years and I’ll say with zero hesitation ——there’s no place I’d rather be on the face of the globe then North Coast, BC. I’ve been going there by truck and camper in the Fall and by boat in the summer
On the way out the door, a fellow steelhead fishermen who knows that country from back in the good old days when there were more fish then people posed a question that sounded like a raw challenge:
Where do you think you can possibly go in Skeena country these days and escape the obnoxious guides in their jet boats full of prosperous looking Euro guys waving Spey rods in your face?
I’d been mulling that same question over all September: what used to be a wilderness camping experience with lots of fish and zero people up in Skeena country in the 80’s and 90’s had in the last decade become precisely the opposite: an over-subscribed sports bar with fleets of 20 foot jet sleds piloted by sharp-elbowed aggressive guides making their endless rounds up and down the rivers. Those sleds are sophisticated pieces of machinery these days—-they can go across wet pavement just as easily as they can go up and down a Class IV rapid: no fish can hide and no fisherman like myself who is looking for the peace and solitude of a wilderness river experience can hide either.
Faced with such sad baggage I had a Eureka moment: once I’d be up on the upper Skeena I’d be just a few hour drive from Prince Rupert. Why not book a ferry to Haida Gwaii this year? Surely that place is so far removed from the world there won’t be any jet boats on those rivers? So I bellied up to the BC Ferries bar and got my ticket out of Prince Rupert for Skidegate, Haida Gwaii.
I arrived in Skeena country on my birthday. That fell on a weekend this year—- as a non-resident angler, I cannot fish for steelhead unguided on any river on weekends. So I did the next best thing—- my dog and I went mushroom picking up in the high country:
We were specifically looking for Matsutake or Pine mushrooms. They have an intoxicating smell and an out of this world taste. It was a three hour hike to get to where I knew the professional pickers find them. They show as bumps under the moss and you feel like you’re reaching out for a precious jewel when you find one. I cut up some slices and decorated a coho fillet I’d brought along to celebrate my birthday and grilled it over a drift wood fire
The next day we were up at O’dark thirty with a miners head light and rod strapped to the bicycle. The dog I and pounded through the dark on a logging road for about 7 km to get to the river and begin our long hike down into a canyon. No jet boats on this river. Way more bears then people
The river was the lowest I’ve ever seen it. As in so low you could literally see every rock in every run—-no place for a steelhead to hide.
I decided that if I was going to get skunked under these conditions I’d rather get skunked fishing a dry fly. In the very last hole before a steep impassable canyon sprouted out of the rocks, I skittered my deer hair dry fly over a postage stamp sized piece of water, the only place in the hole where I couldn’t see bottom. In a hiss of sly movement the fly got sucked off the thin river skin and instantly there was a glorious throb of muscular take down....and just as quick a fish was in the air, once, twice then eight more times. It was spectacular to see a fish roused like that ...it felt oh so good to be back in my element with a wild steelhead shattering river water on a glorious October day and to be absolutely alone with just a dog and a fish and lots of quiet stone.
On the way back to camp all flush on my dry fly caught fish we ran into six black bears. Two huge males and a sow with three cubs. It was a bit of a miracle that I saw the bears before the dog did. I managed to get her back on a leash and under control without her amping up the situation with all her yappy agro. The bears went on their merry way doing what bears do while I, now drenched with sweat and nursing a pounding heart regretted wearing neoprene waders for my bike ride through thick bear country.
The next day I hiked upstream for 7 km....the river was bitterly low..... I was now above several of its tributaries. The upside was being able to wade across holes that usually were impassable. I got to a hole that really would have been the only place a steelhead could hide. Nothing. That was the sign for me to bow out....in past years I had seen brown bears on this part of the river and with a yappy dog, I didn’t want to chance another bear encounter so fishing over a empty river made little sense. We worked our way back downstream but before calling it a day, I thought I’d try a deep canyon bucket that earlier I had to forego with my fly rod ....not enough flow to move a fly line through the hole. I took out what I call my nuclear weapon...a level wind reel and a spoon. First cast, a 12 pound doe. God, these are such beautiful specimens of fish!
The next day I hiked down into one of the canyons on the Bulkley River. This is a spectacularly beautiful place. It’s usually overrun with jet boats but this time I got lucky. The Bulkley was so low that the jet boats that I usually dealt with weren’t risking taking their clients on the ride.....there’s a rock garden of jagged teeth right in the middle of a Class IV chute that the lack of rain left fully exposed and impassable—-that little rock garden would tear the bottom out of a jet boat but for me it was like being given a bouquet of wild flowers by a pretty woman....I had the canyon to myself!
I’ve had the good fortune to have seen quite a large chunk of this world over the years and I’ll say with zero hesitation ——there’s no place I’d rather be on the face of the globe then North Coast, BC. I’ve been going there by truck and camper in the Fall and by boat in the summer
On the way out the door, a fellow steelhead fishermen who knows that country from back in the good old days when there were more fish then people posed a question that sounded like a raw challenge:
Where do you think you can possibly go in Skeena country these days and escape the obnoxious guides in their jet boats full of prosperous looking Euro guys waving Spey rods in your face?
I’d been mulling that same question over all September: what used to be a wilderness camping experience with lots of fish and zero people up in Skeena country in the 80’s and 90’s had in the last decade become precisely the opposite: an over-subscribed sports bar with fleets of 20 foot jet sleds piloted by sharp-elbowed aggressive guides making their endless rounds up and down the rivers. Those sleds are sophisticated pieces of machinery these days—-they can go across wet pavement just as easily as they can go up and down a Class IV rapid: no fish can hide and no fisherman like myself who is looking for the peace and solitude of a wilderness river experience can hide either.
Faced with such sad baggage I had a Eureka moment: once I’d be up on the upper Skeena I’d be just a few hour drive from Prince Rupert. Why not book a ferry to Haida Gwaii this year? Surely that place is so far removed from the world there won’t be any jet boats on those rivers? So I bellied up to the BC Ferries bar and got my ticket out of Prince Rupert for Skidegate, Haida Gwaii.
I arrived in Skeena country on my birthday. That fell on a weekend this year—- as a non-resident angler, I cannot fish for steelhead unguided on any river on weekends. So I did the next best thing—- my dog and I went mushroom picking up in the high country:
We were specifically looking for Matsutake or Pine mushrooms. They have an intoxicating smell and an out of this world taste. It was a three hour hike to get to where I knew the professional pickers find them. They show as bumps under the moss and you feel like you’re reaching out for a precious jewel when you find one. I cut up some slices and decorated a coho fillet I’d brought along to celebrate my birthday and grilled it over a drift wood fire
The next day we were up at O’dark thirty with a miners head light and rod strapped to the bicycle. The dog I and pounded through the dark on a logging road for about 7 km to get to the river and begin our long hike down into a canyon. No jet boats on this river. Way more bears then people
The river was the lowest I’ve ever seen it. As in so low you could literally see every rock in every run—-no place for a steelhead to hide.
I decided that if I was going to get skunked under these conditions I’d rather get skunked fishing a dry fly. In the very last hole before a steep impassable canyon sprouted out of the rocks, I skittered my deer hair dry fly over a postage stamp sized piece of water, the only place in the hole where I couldn’t see bottom. In a hiss of sly movement the fly got sucked off the thin river skin and instantly there was a glorious throb of muscular take down....and just as quick a fish was in the air, once, twice then eight more times. It was spectacular to see a fish roused like that ...it felt oh so good to be back in my element with a wild steelhead shattering river water on a glorious October day and to be absolutely alone with just a dog and a fish and lots of quiet stone.
On the way back to camp all flush on my dry fly caught fish we ran into six black bears. Two huge males and a sow with three cubs. It was a bit of a miracle that I saw the bears before the dog did. I managed to get her back on a leash and under control without her amping up the situation with all her yappy agro. The bears went on their merry way doing what bears do while I, now drenched with sweat and nursing a pounding heart regretted wearing neoprene waders for my bike ride through thick bear country.
The next day I hiked upstream for 7 km....the river was bitterly low..... I was now above several of its tributaries. The upside was being able to wade across holes that usually were impassable. I got to a hole that really would have been the only place a steelhead could hide. Nothing. That was the sign for me to bow out....in past years I had seen brown bears on this part of the river and with a yappy dog, I didn’t want to chance another bear encounter so fishing over a empty river made little sense. We worked our way back downstream but before calling it a day, I thought I’d try a deep canyon bucket that earlier I had to forego with my fly rod ....not enough flow to move a fly line through the hole. I took out what I call my nuclear weapon...a level wind reel and a spoon. First cast, a 12 pound doe. God, these are such beautiful specimens of fish!
The next day I hiked down into one of the canyons on the Bulkley River. This is a spectacularly beautiful place. It’s usually overrun with jet boats but this time I got lucky. The Bulkley was so low that the jet boats that I usually dealt with weren’t risking taking their clients on the ride.....there’s a rock garden of jagged teeth right in the middle of a Class IV chute that the lack of rain left fully exposed and impassable—-that little rock garden would tear the bottom out of a jet boat but for me it was like being given a bouquet of wild flowers by a pretty woman....I had the canyon to myself!
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