North 40 Fly Shop eMagazine December 2016 | Page 16

SKEENA DREAMS
STORY BY: STEPH AVENA

“Don’t give up on the dry fly, eh.”
I wheeled to see where the encouragement came
from as I hopped cobblestones along the Magic
Mile of the Bulkley. Wading 10 feet off the high
bank, just upstream, was a gray-haired hippie spey
caster, smoking a pipe and sporting a black beret.
He must have lobbed the earlier “hoot” I heard
when a pretty little hen smashed a purple “Mist
Jackal” midway through my swing…. on a sink tip.
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He followed his piece of unsolicited dry line advice
with a dry-fly tale. A thick yarn, like his handspun
rams wool sweater…. softly spoken in Canadian
across a silent run: “Why I recall it was October
28th, 1985, eh…. down in the tail-‘ooot’ by the
coin-op laundry, I snuck ‘ooot’ while my clothes
were washing, eh. And seeing as how it was ab‘ooot’ 7 degrees, I tied on a Bulkley Mouse and
threw ooot 50 feet of line, eh. When all of a sudden,
this 15 lb. doe grabbed it and proceeded to do