North 40 Fly Shop eMagazine December 2016 | Page 21

and begins ‘beading’ the far bank with his levelwind. All of a sudden, his float goes under and we
are cheering him on—first fish we’d seen all day!
After a brief fight, he loses an unseen leviathan
that sucked his 12 mm bead and bowed his heavy
casting rod. Upon retrieval, his hook is bent
straight and he has to re-rig. Intrigued, we all pile
in to the run to find redemption--of course, to no
avail. I’m guessing that his only English was “Three
o’clock bite” and “Big Fish” because our attempts
to communicate thereafter always ended in those
two phrases.
Skeena lessons learned: when it’s cold, fish in the
afternoon (I guess 3 o’clock is good); use heavy wire
hooks and smoke a lucky pipe!

Skeena Schemes
Arriving on a Saturday, our only option to fish was
to hire a guide. Why you ask? Because the special
interests in BC have seen fit to limit foreigners
to mid-week fishing! Yes, there is a downside to
fishing the Skeena system: no steelheading on the
weekends unless you are a Canadian Resident (or
fishing with a licensed Canadian guide).

for home waters. And we did catch all three. For
bar-hopping, a jet boat was key, as we would have
been lost in our pontoons. Most importantly, we
got to try out the long casts and hooked fish into
the mid-teens.
If you go to the Skeena region, take along a twohanded rod and enjoy the ample flywater. I’d also
recommend a nymphing rod for dunking 12-14 mm
beads and steelie nymphs. Some patterns that
caught fish were the Chrome Roper #4, Mist Jackal
(Blue) #4, Freight Train #4, and the Ho-Bo Spey
(Or. /Purple) #6. I also found out the locals like the
Prom Dress too. Black and blue were good colors
to try in all the patterns we used. The water clarity
conditions that we encountered in most tribs were
good--which required smaller patterns than we
had expected. Warm clothing is a must because
even in Mid-October it snowed on us twice. If you’re
into smoking a pipe—you’ll be in good company.
Learning Italian? You can practice AND fish at the
same time. And don’t forget your camera—so you
can remember your own Skeena Dreams!

So, knowing that foreigners like Austrians, Italians,
AND Yanks, cannot fish the Skeena system on
weekends, it poses an interesting problem for
freelancing anglers. Solution? Fish the best streams
midweek! And when the weekend comes, if your
arms are still hanging on from all the casting,
rowing and fish fighting, by all means, hire a guide.
But, if your arms are spent, Smithers is a great place
just to hang out with museums, hiking/biking trails,
shopping and even a ski resort right above town.
In our case, hiring the guide to fish on a Sunday
turned out to be a good decision. Although the
fishing was tough in bright, cold, weather we got to
swing the ‘fish superhighway’ that is the mainstem
of the Skeena. At any moment a pod of bright Coho,
a greedy Dolly Varden, or a mint steelhead could be
swimming by the bar you’re standing on, headed
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