Thompson needs help. ( Remembering when )

[phearless]

From a fellow fly fisher.


On a late November day, the kind swathed in the warm, shirt sleeve temperatures of a fading autumn sun, I drove past the mighty Frog, in summer one of the most daunting midstream rock giants to negotiate in a river raft, now with only its feet wet - the first sign of high desert, winter low water; then Goldpan, the American Bar and finally, the Graveyard, normally picketed this time of year with the lances of spey anglers from the world over on their annual pilgrimage to the Thompson. All eerily empty: Spence's Bridge a veritable ghost town with no SUVs at the cavernous Log Cabin Pub or the old Steelhead Inn, now incongruously named Garuda. In this sad season there will be many rooms at the inn for Vishnu. For the first time in history and in my thirty two years fishing the river, it is closed for the steelhead season; a casualty of the senseless mismanagement that has allowed gill nets in the aboriginal and commercial chum fisheries to devastate the remnant return of those magnificent steelhead in a year where now fewer than 850 are predicted to return. I am especially grateful that Joe Healy let me tell the Thompson story in the last Fly Rod and Reel for as Haig-Brown once said, "rivers need friends", and this great river, my friends, needs a great many, great friends.


The bighorn sheep are still there, as thankfully so are the chukars that my dog, Thompson S Hunter so earnestly rustled up, but the soft breeze and pale sun, the laughter of coyotes and screaming of eagles notwithstanding, for the first time ever, I felt deeply, palpably lonely on my own land; like visiting one's hometown after the apocalypse . I couldn't even bring myself to look at the river much less walk over and scan its vast, restless skin for signs of rises. I pray that the steelhead showed up, sneaking undetected through the gauntlet of doomsday machines that the Department of Fisheries in its medieval delusion still allows to pillage the Fraser and in doing so, eviscerates the Thompson and its precious migration. For those who care, I think now is the time to write to the Federal Minister of Fisheries, he who is in charge of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada and let him know what we think of the debacle over which he is presiding. Perhaps the economic pain created will get his attention. I feel deflated, but not yet defeated. But I couldn't stay any longer in the place I love above any other on this planet. I went home a day early.

Ehor Boyanowsky


Ehor is a Professor at SFU
A fellow Totem Flyfisher
Keeper of the Thompson River

[chauchey]

I knew it was going to be a low return year...but I had no idea it was going to be THAT low. When people are hauling away garbage bins full of female chums, just for the eggs, you have to ask yourself what happened to the males in those nets? The steelhead in those nets? The fish(in the form of eggs) that would have returned in 4 years from now, in those bins?
I for one would support a total closure of salmon fisheries for 4 years, from nets to sport anglers from the mouth of the Fraser inland, if it would be strictly enforced by the DFO, and by the police. I know it would put a world of hurt on the tackle shops, but perhaps they could be helped in the form of meaningfull grants and deep taxbreaks over the course of those 4 years, and perhaps a catch and release only fishery. Something has to be done. And there are many days where it seems that only the guys who walk the river banks searching for fish, that desire to be a part of the solution, more than the problem.
I love my local tackle shop. They give me good advice every time I go in there looking for a new fly, or new tackle. I know that whatever the solution is going to be that they will have the hardest time making it through. If the sport is to revive after a prolonged shutdown, these small local shops will have to be provided for within the same plan that provides for the shutdown of the fishery.