Summer run steelheading???

It hardly seems like summer run steelheading at this point, but I guess technically that's what it was. Once Sonya and I could make it to the river I figured we could just stay wet and avoid the 3 feet of snow that covered anything that wasn't wet. I dangled my thermometer in the water for a few seconds. "One", shit the river was almost freezing.

I glanced back towards the truck which was probably still warm and my thermos of coffee was surely still boiling hot. It looked damned inviting, but we turned our attention to the river. The water was still low and crystal clear, and I knew there had been a good number of fish in this stretch a few weeks earlier. Type 6 heads and weighted flies were the tools for the day and the ice was building up on the guides every few casts. I would have stopped an hour earlier if my wife hadn't kept her focus and rhythmatic spay casts shooting out in front of her.

"Fish On!" and Sonya went to work on a nice buck that didn't want any part of it. We both soon realized that landing the fish was going to be the worst part of the process. Looks like I get to tail the fish once it slides into the shallows, and I can tell you the water felt far below freezing on my skinny pale fingers. I had to do some serious talking to even get her to pose with the fish, as it too involved the icy waters, but she soon had the fish lifted just above the water for a nice photo and off he went.

Soon the sun came up a bit higher and the air temp jumped to a balmy 6 degrees, which doesn't sound like much, but the water warmed slightly and the fishing TURNED ON! Seven hooked with 6 landed fish in just a few hours and we were back in the truck and lucky to find some barely warm coffee.

The Skeena River and its tributaries are some of the most amazing rivers on the planet, and offer anglers months and months of world class fly fishing. In this same stretch I was fishing dry flies in August and now here I was swinging tips in November and I have little doubt the rivers will continue to fish until they are completely frozen. I heard great reports coming from the Babine, Bulkey, Skeena, Kispiox and heard Sustut was still fishing.

Now if we can only keep the Fish Farms out of the mouth of the Skeena and the Coal-Bed-Methane mining operations out of the head waters of the Skeena, we might just keep the fisheries healthy for another few years. http://www.friendsofwildsalmon.ca/

"The Adventure Continues"

Tim