Helmsdale monster

The river Helmsdale will swing into action soon as the 2007 season gets ever closer. Chances of an opening day fish were boosted by the fact that World Spey casting champ Gordon Armstrong will be amongst the starting line up. The river will once again be open to the public for the first 3 days beginning on Thursday 11th January and if last year is anything to go by we will be celebrating the occasion with the first fresh Springers in Scotland. Hugh ( Shuggie ) Wilson grassed the all important first (9lbs) on the 13th on an Ally's shrimp in the Oasis pool Bt 3. The Atlantic salmon was fresh run and was the first of a record braking 6 fish taken in January. This might not seem much but it was a real talking point in the Highlands as sea-liced Springers are rare at this time, needless to say I got in on the act on the 17th Jan with my earliest fish ever at 8lbs - another small salmon but what size of fish is Mike Sheply holding up?? This was a true monster for the Helmsdale and at approx 48ins long i think we can safely put it in the 40lb bracket...The huge skeleton was discovered this season below the kildonan falls on beat 6. After spawning for probably the second time this cock fish had obviously run out of gas on the return journey to sea, hopefully its DNA contribution will help boost some bigger fish for future Spring runs "oh to have hooked that one in Jan!!".

Irish Netting

It is great to see that the Irish Government have finally accepted that the extensive off-shore drift netting operations should end. I do wonder however what's going to appear in the small-print and I am particularly interested in how the Foyle drift nets fit into the overall plan, watch this space...

http://nasfonline.net

Ireland

SALMON CONSERVATION WINS THE DAY: NOVEMBER 1 2006

It has taken many years of pressure by NASF and its allies in Ireland and the other European countries but at last the Irish Government has agreed to stop drift netting of salmon in its coastal waters.

The government announced today that it was adopting the key recommendations of the Independent Working Group on Salmon for a compulsory buyout of the drift netting licences. It is setting up a hardship fund of over 25 million Euros to address the financial losses that the netsmen will suffer. Another 5 million Euros will be set aside to help rural communities overcome the loss of income from the closure of the drift netting.

In an effort to allow more salmon to reach their spawning grounds estuary netsmen will be allowed to volunteer to join the buyout scheme.

Fifty years ago a small number of Irish inshore fishermen were helped to make a living by the huge shoals of salmon that swam close to the coast of Ireland as they returned to European rivers from their feeding grounds in northern waters. Only a small percentage of the fish were caught. as the salmon could often see and avoid the thick and clumsy hemp nets then in use.

When near-invisible monafilament nets were invented hundreds of new salmon licences were issued and the once-modest fishery mushroomed into a giant industry that was soon killing half a million salmon or more annually. Despite the Atlantic-wide decline in salmon numbers in recent years successive Irish fishery ministers refused to curb the over-fishing or accept the advice of their own scientists.

Finally, when it became clear that Irish salmon stocks were falling far faster than elsewhere, a quota system was introduced. The quotas figures were set so high, however, that the drift nets were allowed to take an ever-increasing share of the total European salmon catch. As a result, great damage has been done to the wild salmon stocks of Irish rivers and those of its European neighbours. Conservationists are now hoping that many thousands of salmon that would otherwise have died will be able to spawn and restore stock numbers.

Orri Vigfusson, Chairman of the North Atlantic Salmon Fund, said: "We have campaigned for this day for the last 14 years and we are delighted that the Irish Cabinet has taken the action we have long recommended. It was not an easy decision to take in the face of vested interests that have shown no concern for the future of the salmon resource.

"I do commend the courage shown by the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural resources (Mr Noel Dempsey) in facing down the opponents of conservation who always got their way in the past. Hopefully, he has acted in the nick of time to save what is left of the Irish salmon resource and inject new hope for a revival of the salmon stocks of other European nations.

"Providing proper enforcement is introduced to prevent illegal netting and the rules of the scheme are fair to both netsmen and anglers the Irish goverment can be assured that NASF will use its influence internationally to help the buyout scheme succeed."


The North Atlantic Salmon Fund, NASF, a coalition of voluntary conservation groups who have come together to restore stocks of wild Atlantic salmon to their historic abundance.

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

BC with Tim Pask

I recently had the good fortune to explore the Skeena watershed with my great friend Tim Pask. The Skeena is a vast waterway draining an awesome wilderness of forest and mountain fed by tributaries that are amongst the most storied rivers in fly-fishing history. Names like Sustut, Babine, Kispiox and Bulkley are legendary to anyone who has ever contemplated the pursuit of the magnificent steelhead.

Enough of the hyperbole, what was it like?

Pretty amazing actually, even from a purely visual point of view BC almost defies description, the mountains are higher and the trees taller than just about anywhere else I have fished so far. The amount of animal life is mind-boggling and there truly are bears in the wood and in fact on the riverbanks and even in the gardens (black ones in the latter case). The ubiquitous symbol of North America the Bald Eagle was everywhere along with Beavers, Coyotes, Wolves, Moose, Mule deer and just about every other type of creature large and small. I found myself drawn to sand banks on the river side if only to try and decipher the animals that had passed that way and I'm still not to sure if I lie down and play dead when confronted by a Grizzly or fight back. As Tim said to me the operative word is DEAD! However I would emphasise that the vast majority of encounters between human and Grizzlies are benign as long as appropriate behaviour is observed and like most creatures they simply want to get on with their lives.

The fishing for someone like me coming from an Atlantic salmon background was fairly straightforward to get into. Double handed rods (Skagit style sink tips) and swinging string leech patterns down and across, I could have been on the Tweed or any other river. I was thoroughly briefed by Tim on "good form" steelhead etiquette passed on to him by the likes of Dylan Tomine (A fine storyteller who does apparently fish from time to time!) I was told that steelheaders expected blank days and that anything else was a bonus and then let loose on the hallowed waters. Our first stop was one of the tributary rivers and it was soon quite clear that the rivers were running very low for the time of year although the beautiful green translucence and power of the water did have me questioning what it was like at normal height.

For those of you who haven't fished for steelhead before I will give you a little fact that I found adds immensely to the fishing experience, steelhead do not always grab the fly straight off but often they will move to the fly and pull it several times before actually taking hold. The compound effect of this is that it prolongs the take, which we all know is the best part of the action making this type of fishing excellent adrenalin junkie action. Typically you get a knock, pause, tug, pause, knock, pause, tug, and... WHAM "Ohmagod" sort of effect as either a big buck (male) heads off to mid-river and starts to dog it out or a hot female (we all like those) somersaults 5 feet in the air and screams of for the Pacific at turbo speed.

We were fortunate in our wide-ranging explorations and hooked, lost and landed more steelhead that we rightfully deserved, although it has to be said that my good buddy Tim did suffer for his art, particularly when at one point I had 10 hooked and landed and he had 10 lost in succession.

Tim assured me that he had been suffering from this bad luck ever since he had inadvertently (deliberately) toppled over a small "Inukshuk" pile of stones at the side of a nearby pool. He felt he had disturbed some powerful medicine and possibly angered the fishing God's. The effect had only been compounded for him by an incident that same afternoon where a coyote had crossed the river to quote "In broad F-king daylight, balls of steel" not far downstream of his house while he was sitting on the bank changing a fly (just having lost a fish right?). After initially shouting and dare I say throwing a stone or two at the coyote he was disturbed to find that far from having his cat in his mouth the coyote was both unperturbed by his actions and positively insolent in it's demeanour. Having shook the water out of it's coat it proceeded to sit down and yawn while Tim hurled abuse in it's direction, Tim's vocals were cut short when he noticed the Coyote was sitting right beside, you've guessed it, the badly rebuilt "Inukshuk" of river magic and power fame. After having given him "The Look" the coyote nonchalantly headed off into the woods. Well as Tim said, if that wasn't a message he didn't know what was and that I had to understand that "all kinds of weird shit happens" and he for one was a believer. I saw the danger and I didn't let him get onto the powerful things that Shisi dogs had done for his business but totally reassured him that tomorrow would be the day.

The next day Tim and I accompanied by the redoubtable Tony "Magnum Lite" were heading somewhere between the mouth of the Sustut and the Bulkley to try our luck in various secret spots and I for one was beside myself with excitement and not a little trepidation. The Skeena is big river and for a newcomer pretty forbidding.

Needless to say Tim caught and landed an absolute screamer of a fish somewhere between 25-30lbs despite an early scare where I hooked and landed a hotter than hot hen that took me the best part of 100 yards down river thereby increasing the pressure on Tim by a factor of 10. The location? Close to a river mouth somewhere near a Skeena tributary that's all I can say.

BC is beyond awesome and Canada is a wonderful, friendly and easily accessible country. I for one intend to spend a lot of time there in the coming years and I am more than happy to answer any questions or enquiries about the fishing opportunities. Our network is second to none and watch for many more exciting developments to come.