heron counts! i got the morning blues...

I woke up and it was 6 degrees below up here on the mountain. But i am a mountain lion and sprung up with my canines bared in a rictus (good word that) of cold and ejected old Lois who is moaner and gets cold feet. But we have signed up to do heron counts at a place called Colony Farm and nothing would deter me.

So what are heron counts. Herons live in colonies and people have become worried that urban noise and polution might be affecting their numbers. We quite enjoy it, but when the temperatures drop low I have to exercise my iron will to get us moving. This morning we only saw one heron and it was hunched and cold and bedraggled and I could not to scope it well as my eyes were full of cold drizzles, not to mention my nose full of snot.

On a good day we can see Seals that come up a tributary of the Fraser River, and Beavers, and Coyotes and sundry other critters. The tributary also has a chum salmon run that people are starting to build up so No Fishing. But it is also fascinating because one side of it is bordered by a Native North American Reservation. or as some people say a First Nation Reservation. The word 'Native' by itself  is big no-no in Canada. At the moment some of the men are carving a wonderful wooden canoe fo ceremonial purpses. It will have 12 paddlers and is long, smooth and made out of a huge cedar log.

We stopped to wonder at it and were well received. The chief carver told us that the craft had been in his family for generation and he had been apprenticed to his father and that the two of then travel all over Canada creating these masterpieces. If they are not paddled, museums clammer for them. Good looking, lean with a sort of Mohawk look, but I checked and he did have a tomahawk let alone a tommy gun.

Next Blog: the Perry's as Stream Keepers! 



















































fraer

siberia

The wolves howl and the end cometh! The trees weep white and conceal the shapes of dreaded wolverines! Will I make it through the night? Winter has come and I think fishing is over unless I have the fortitude to wade through the snow and try for Steeelhead ( rainbow trout that go to sea and then come back to spawn). I now realise that I have fallen too much in rivers and do not want to usher in a cold and watery grave.

So if I cannot write about fishing I am going to send you a picture of my Salmon bracelet made of silver and designed by a Native North American Chief. At the moment Lois and I are having difficulty doing it justice through a comeral lense then I will take it over the seas. i will then carry a notice saying: DO NOT STEAL! I do not want to leadyou on the path of temptation

minus minus temperatures

It is now below zero! Even the wolves do not howl! All I can do is tie flies. I start with the best names. I like 'Woolly Buggers' best. As it says it is fuzzy and has peculiar sexual habits. What more could one ask for. One trawls it. Not through gay bars, but through deep water after big victims. It will take both salmon and trout, but who knows? I have never caught a salmon on it.

My next favorite is called 'Tequila Sunrise'. It reminds me of one morning when I woke up in El Paso with a gringo in my mouth and had to spit 10 times before I could release the bugger. The fly is gaudy and sort of pink like a dance hall lass. Like a dance hall gal it does catch. Its victims do wriggle. Not on a bed but up and down and down deep. so endeth the first lesson. Fasten your fly.

pink salmon

You have to understand that this blog is a bit of a cheat. It is really the work of John and his wife known as Mighty Lois. John would not even have begun if Lois had not shown him how to start and then written down easy steps on how to find it again. So it goes when you are born incapacitated and make no effort to lift your rod. So if you are expecting me to slide off into digressions  about how to tie non-slip-knots and piscatorial lore like that - Forget It. That's Lois's business and will always be so. E.G! She worked out how to put single hooks on the deadly Tasmanian Devil lures that wiggle more enticingly than a belly dancer and lure in mesmerized Pink Salmon. But that is another story which we will return to later.

You have to know a bit about Pink Salmon first and the Fraser River second. Pinks are different from other salmon. They don't hang around.Once they leave the eggs that the female salmon has laid in gravel redds (spawning beds) they don't linger. Smolts (young salmon) disapear and head for the vast Pacific. No one seems to know where they go and what they do out there. But it is definitely known that they come back to the Fraser every second year. Then a sort of hysteria grips the fishing community round the Fraser and Vancouver. The Pinks come in massive streams of silver and are easy to catch. Once in the Fraser they split up- searching for their natal waters to spawn. It is now that they return to rivers like the Vedder to complete their life cycle. The males undergo a grotesque metamorphosis. As the pilgrims meet the fresh water their bodies change. The females become gravid with eggs and the males start tp develop grotesque humps on their backs. Quasimodo's meet quivering queens.  Milt unites with egg and the race is reborn.  A sacred rititual which carelessness and greed must never desecrate.



!t was a let down coming back to Canada from Australia last month. All seemed doom and gloom. Newspapers were full of the failure of the Sockeye Salmon run. Was I about to witness the death of one of the world's most wonderful spectacles - salmon pouring up the Fraser River? What would happen to the arrival of the mysterious 'Pinks' - they only came back to the Fraser every second year and

Coho fishing; Vancouver Island

The rain hit the Island in gloomy sheets. In the north they had to save people from watery  graves. What would happen to their fishy cousins, the Coho? Could such a battering sweep them away from their spawning grounds, wipe out a generation? Fisher-people are subject to such miseries and mental agony: uneasy lies the head that wields the rod.

All the way from Nanaimo to Campbell River I craned from bridges and spied on rivers. The list mounted as quickly as Miss Jane Moneypennies' notes for a James Bond mission. Clues like too fast, too muddy, too many logs and snags coming down were all listed. Worries mounted like flotsam and jetsam. Would unruly precipitation make a guides enthusiasm soggy, dampen the chances of getting that first palpitating take.

All neurotic misery. There was still fish-able water near Campbell River that our charming guide would take us too, even though the chance of hooking one brought on a  morbid tingle. In a nameless secret river the water was still torrential - no possibility of casting a fly. The name of the game would have to be spinning. Second choice. Metallic lures rather than handcrafted feathery works of art. Forget poetic lines about no birds singing on a dark day; here even the bloody coho refused to jump. Were even silver flashes ascending high to be denied us? Were the piscatorial gods to be deemed dissatisfied with all our sacrifices?

So few other rods about that we began to feel that maybe Moby Dick, recast as a killer whale, had ploughed up from the sea and spoiled the water. There were only a few ghost casters flinging flies from the banks. They seemed to flee from the driftboats' intrusion and resent the furrows left by hardworking oars. Two other sinister craft eventually came our way. My downcast mind had already become fixated on pirate galleys.Would Captain Morgan raise the Jolly Roger over out fishless hulk? By now you should have twigged that tear ducts had obscured my vision and and were creating specters.

I have avoided using the "Royal We" when describing this saga. In fact I have neglected to say that my faithful spouse was seated forward of me, holding firm against rapids, clutching rod and binocular and staying cheerful against all odds.Her clutch zinged first and a big bar of rocketing silver did battle agaist my low mood.

Immediately little Lois was beset by the usual barrage of male advice. Shouted: keep your f... rod tip up! Screamed: tighten your bloody clutch! Until her dulcet tones joined the chorus: Shut up, or I'll throw the rod overboard! Well, she didn't
and instead her rod bent double like the bough of an overloaded pear tree with spectators salivating all around.

That guide! He navigated a rapid that the Coho, who we named Lucy, insisted on speeding through and then fell in love with what looked like an an old beaver lodge. Hysteria faded and Lois was left to slog it out with a rambustious Coho. She! With damage done by various fishing falls, hospital trips and first name terms with nurses... She had never moaned and here she was beset by a silver crowbar. What would give way first, a fish fin or a human limb.

My heart soared like a hawk as Miss Lucy drew near. Guide tails her and holds her up. Fresh from the sea she drips sea-lice and estimates range as high as 16 or 17 pounds. She is cradled gently for photos; this babe not destined to be an Ernest Hemingway trophy. She will live for ever on a computer, digitized, her own source of immortality. The river does not allow big-noting slaughter,the water gives and insists on  taking back. Released, a slick-chick flicks her tail insouciantly. Against such style the boat can only respond with slapping high fives, human palms are not full of grace. Suffer Lucy to come back home safe, her offspring have yet many mysteries to make.