British Columbia: 4 rivers part 1

Upon leaving AK we heard a story from my friend's Ben's boss about breaking down on the Cassiar in Deese Lake, and going to a sketchy repair shop where the owner closed the garage behind them... Well sure enough we got a flat tire in Deese Lake. We visited a mechanic named Charlie, and we were not locked in his garage.

Lower stretches of the Cassiar near Bell 2. Approaching the Nass and Stikine river systems. The beginning of steelhead country, and wet weather.

Cranberry River Blown Out

I had anticipated my first trip steelheading for a year after the first switch rod I bought. The first time I cast a spey rod was without a fly on the Pueblo tailwater. The next fall I caught my first fish on the swing in Pueblo.

I remember a few years ago picking up Fly Fisherman Magazine and skipping any sections regarding spey fishing, Salmon, or Steelhead. I only cared about trout, big trout. Well those sea run fish are big trout, and after I learned to cast (still learning) and realized it was pretty cool, I started to get addicted. It was just like streamer fishing, but less tiring. And the takes are so cool. So when I had the chance to finally go steelheading, I made it happen, and just happened to fish the most famous wild steelhead river system in the world, "The Skeena." Now I search for articles on Spey Fishing.

Base Camp in Smithers, Finally. 1557 miles from Sunrise, AK to Smithers, BC

Task 1: We showed up in Smithers, with no idea where to fish. The Skeena Watershed has many tributaries, and our first two days were used buying gear, licenses, maps, and trying to dig up real information on where we could find steelhead.

Task 2: was trying to find a shuttle. We scouted a couple of the floats and decided a cheap mountain bike would be adequate for running shuttles. So we opted for a Canadian Tire Super 8 for 100 looneys, Boy, was that a mistake! The first float required a 10 mile shuttle. Ben dropped me off at 8 am and came riding back at 9:45. An hour and forty-five minutes to ride 10 miles?? Well 5 minutes into the ride, the right pedal fell off, so Ben rode 1 legged until he found a construction crew that let him use vise grips to put in back on. Two miles later the seat sank, and he did not have a set of allen keys to fix it. Needless to say he was a very unhappy fisherman when he showed up at the boat launch and I had just finished swinging the first run.

First morning on the river. No steelhead this day

Day 1 Our boat with a homemade skid frame was more than adequate. However it was the equivalent of a Volkswagen Beetle (the raft) with a V12 Engine (the oars). Our first day we didn't touch a steelhead, didn't see a steelhead, and only saw one guy hooked up, all day.

Ben hooked into our first ever Steelhead

Day 2 we switched to a smaller river, which felt more familiar, we actually felt like we might be able to find some steelhead.  However on this day it was my turn to run the shuttle. Again it was around 10 miles, but this time it was on a muddy logging road. I hopped on the bike, and the pedal fell off. The threads on the pedal had been completely polished off. So I walked with the bike for half an hour trying to hitch a ride. No one would pull over. So i wedged the pedal back in, used the inside off my foot to hold the pedal in, and biked the next ten miles. During that time my handlebars loosened and slid over, and rotated upside down. That was the last shuttle run on the Super 8. After fishing two runs in the am, we were floating through a big tail-out, and I was standing up looking down into the water and spotted our first pod of steelhead, SO COOL! We got out and fished the tail-out, but to no avail. Ben finally found a piece of water he thought looked excellent, and sure enough he hooked our first steelhead.

On a fly Ben tied the night before! His first BC Steelhead

My first steelhead

Ben than let me swing through the same pool and I hooked my first steelhead. After getting a tug two casts before.

We hooked one more steelhead that day in the inside seam of a Dog leg right on the hang down, but the fish charged upstream and spit the hook. We spent one more day on river number 2  and made some friends, who helped with the shuttle. No more bike.

Day 3, the temperature started to drop and only yielded 1 Steelhead.

Literally the temperatures went from a high of 38F and low of 32F for our first 5 days in Smithers to a high of 31 and a low of 17. Day three on river 2 was the end of fall steelheading and the beginning of winter steelheading. The winter weather in AK and the Yukon caught up to us.