DAY 1 - 4am
comes quick if you have nothing packed for a
five day fly fishing trip for who knows what. It's
9:30 PM and I'm scouring my drift boat, kayak,
dry bags, wader pockets, wading jackets, and
fly tying bench to scrap together a "catch any
trout in the world" selection of trout stuff for
this trip. Some experienced anglers would
argue that could include just two patterns, a
Chernobyl Ant and a Wooly Bugger. But, I'm not
too proud to say that's not the plan on this trip.
If you've heard of a fly pattern, we've probably
got it on this trip because I was very unclear
about what we were getting in to, which I like.
Which rivers? Yeah, I'm not totally sure about
that either. Our guide, Craig, rattled the two
or three unheard of rivers off over the phone,
but they didn't really register to me, so the
plan was to basically bring everything that I
know a trout would possibly eat. Actually no,
that's sort of a lie, I remembered one of them
and Googled it on my iPhone a while back, but
there was just one really bad blog, and then
also a PDF link to a fish census report, but
the lines for different species just read "n/a"
from 1956 and on. So yeah, that's how I got to
now, "I'm bringing it all.” A short tying session
later, followed by stuffing five single hand rods
and three spey rods in to my Fishpond travel
tube, cramming my Bugger Beast to the max
with every streamer I could find, and packing
the rest I knew I could maybe need, knowing I
wouldn't use half of it. I was unsure, but pretty
pumped up, and so was Dad, he loves BC's
Vancouver Island.
To give this adventure a little context, Craig has
been Dad's hunting guide on Vancouver Island
the past few years and after many nights on
the boat together, it dawned on both of them,
as well as the owner of the outfitting business
Eric, that they know lots of rivers that most
other people know very little about and they
more than likely have some great fishing, or
at least maybe. Plus, they have all the boats
and tools to actually get to those rivers on a
consistent basis and stay up there without a
lodge. So, they asked Dad if he and I would be
interested in coming up with them to help
scout the rivers before they start offering the
trip to other fly fishermen. This is something I
will say yes to 100% of the time, so hit me up.
We flew from Great Falls to Seattle, then
Seattle in to Canada's Vancouver, and then
finally up to Vancouver Island. We were met
by Lorna Mikkelson, she and her husband Eric
own the outfitting business. Lorna bought us
lunch, and told us about her latest adventure
in Spain on the way up to Campbell River (now
Dad could be going Ibex hunting in Spain).
We were met at the docks by Jim, who I knew
from a previous trip, and his son, Craig. Craig
and Jim were ready to go in their 31 foot
welded aluminum cabin slash apartment slash
our hotel for the trip that they customized,
towing a 17 foot jet sled that hid 200HP for
running the rivers that they also built out. We
got going right away because we had a 45
mile boat ride to get completely off the grid
to some rivers that are rarely touched by fly
fishermen. On the way up, we stopped to set
crab and shrimp traps for later.
Our plan was to camp on the boat for four
nights so that we could keep the "mothership"
(this is a place holder name until Craig names
his new boat something better than what he
had so far) at the mouth of the river while we
explored the rivers during the day with the
smaller jet sled. Night one, we met the only
resident in the area, Chuck, who bought his
piece of land from the logging companies
after they left. They filmed some major movies
here at Chuck's, but if I talk about the movies,
that would give away our new spot. The film
crew was here for a month and a half to shoot
the twenty minute scene required for the
movie, built a monastery, had four A-list stars
staying here at Chuck's place, then left and
took it all down. He let us tie up at his dock
for bringing him some groceries and new
strawberry plants. After over eating some top
shelf ribs prepared by Craig's wife, and a few
games of cribbage, we went to bed excited for
the first day of exploration.