Only in this and mystery - castingwest.com · Only in this land of magic and mystery can you catch the two biggest steelhead of your life in less than a half-hour of fishing. ...

HaidaGwaiiThe Gift of

Only in thisland of magicand mystery

can you catchthe twobiggest

steelhead ofyour life inless than ahalf-hour of fishing.

by Todd Tanner

’ve been cursed. How else can I explain the fact that,

despite years of trying, I can’t catch asteelhead to save my life. I’ve spent daysswinging the “hot” pattern. I’ve had onefish after another roll right in front of me.

I even had a double digit steelhead on Oregon’sNorth Umpqua leap out of the water and land onmy fly line. But with the exception of a fewdiminutive smolts, my steelhead catching days havebeen as barren as the Siberian tundra. So it waswith both hope – ah, that fair lady springs eternal inevery fisherman’s breast – and some degree oftrepidation that I decided to visit Haida Gwaii andply its waters for the great silver fish. Haida Gwaii.The Islands of the People. The name rolls off thetongue, an invitation to mystery and adventure.

Haida Gwaii.Of course, you might know the islands by a different

name. They’re frequently called the Queen Charlottes. ButHaida Gwaii is their true name, the mystical, spiritual titlethat both fits and serves the place. Centuries gone, theHaida were rulers of the British Columbia coast, theirname invoking fear from Alaska all the way to VancouverIsland, and who knows what doom those ancient spiritsmight rain down upon my head if I wax too free withtheir secrets?

I can tell you, though, that the islands are perhaps 75miles out in the Pacific just south of Alaska, and thatthey possess both great beauty and sadness. The beautycomes from the ocean and its bounty, and from theforests, which are vast indeed and which are home toeagles, huge black bears and black-tailed deer. Thisbeauty also springs from the Haida culture and itsincredible artistic tradition.

The sadness, of course, comes from a great peoplebrought low, and from the occasional signs of humangreed. There are places on the islands where clearcutsscar the landscape and stumps the size of Cadillacs sitlow and mute, poignant reminders of forests that nolonger exist. Thankfully, the islands contain vastprovincial and national parks where nature still reignssupreme, and where you can walk for miles withoutseeing a beer can or a candy bar wrapper. But treadlightly, for lore has it that Haida Gwaii’s ancient forestsare home to the unseen and eternal, and theseguardian spirits have little love for despoilers.

our of us left Vancouver in February, flying northin a little West Coast puddle jumper. My wifeMolly was along for the adventure, as well as ourfriends Bill and Kristy McConnell. Both Bill and

Kristy are instructors at Tom Brown Jr.’s world famousWilderness School, which means they’re exactly the kind

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of folks you’d want along on a trip to a sparsely populated,heavily forested island off the northern coast of B.C. Ofcourse, Bill is also a serious steelhead fisherman, and it hadcrossed my mind that some of his fish-catching mojo justmight rub off during the course of the trip.

The islands of Haida Gwaii came into view about an hourand a half into our flight, poking up out of the Pacific like thebacks of salmon spawning in a tiny creek. It was a beautifulday from my windowseat, though fog coveredeverything down at sealevel and those first darkhumps of land projectingup from the mist seemedhardly larger than whales.

We landed on GrahamIsland and met up withour host, Peter Dymentof Kumdis River Lodge.Peter, who’s young,handsome, and one ofthe island’s only flyfishermen, drove usback to the lodge, gotus situated, and thencooked up a deliciousmid-afternoon lunch.Afterwards he asked if,perchance, we wantedto spend a couple ofhours catching sea-runcutthroats on theoutgoing tide.

Now I sure didn’t travelall the way to the HaidaGwaii to concentrate oncutthroats, a fish I canfind by the bucket loadhere in Montana. On theother hand, I’d neverfished for sea-runsbefore, and I did want toget a fly in the water assoon as humanly possible.So Bill and I grabbedour rods, threw on ourwaders, and walked through the woods to the outlet of theKumdis river, which is about fifteen minutes by forestedtrail from the Lodge. The path wound through trees thatpredated the arrival of Europeans on the Islands, huge,shaggy old grandfathers who cast immense shadows onthe moss-covered ground, and it only took us a fewminutes to figure out where we were.

Fairy Land.God, what trees! Cedar and hemlock and spruce; the

forest primeval.

And then we hit the river and saw, I kid you not, risingtrout. We were damn near to Alaska, it was the 12th ofFebruary, and there were trout rising. I almost cried.

Which isn’t surprising, especially considering the factthat every one of my thousand or so dry flies was sittingback in my truck at the Vancouver airport; victim to airlineweight limits. Still, only an imbecile would leave behind allhis dry flies, and if the name fits . . . All I can say is that it

will never happen again.Peter, who had the

grace not to laugh at myexpression when I firstsaw those rising trout,looked through my boxesand picked out a pinkPolar Shrimp. Bill, whoshall henceforth bereferred to as “Quick,”hooked up before I evenhad my fly tied on, andthat, my friends, was myreal introduction to thewaters of Haida Gwaii.Cast, swing . . . nobodyhome. Cast, swing . . .son-of-a . . . He ate it!

It was perfect. Theriver slid down into thebay, bugs and shrimpand salmon smolts werehitching a ride to thedeepwater sanctuary ofMasset Inlet, and thosecutts – Peter said a fewmake it up to six pounds,the ones we werehooking averagedthirteen to sixteeninches – were defendersof the salt, doing theirabsolute best to makesure no tasty tidbitslipped through theirpicket line into thefertile waters of the bay.

Beautiful, beautifulfish, and I decided right then that if the steelhead didn’tcooperate, I was going to be spending a lot of time at themouth of the Kumdis river.

he next morning, a Thursday, found us a ways southof the lodge on a tiny dirt road off of a smaller dirtroad, which had itself branched away from a decentsized dirt road. Not much in the way of pavement

on Haida Gwaii. And here, at this particular point in my story, I come to a

eter Dyment, the handsome young manager of Kumdis RiverLodge, is one of the few fly fishermen on Graham Island.P

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moral dilemma. Do I name the river? I think, given theevents that follow, that my answer must be no. I’ll offera hint, though, for those of you who care to do yourhomework. The Haida called this fair sylvan stream“The Giver of Life.”

If you come with a fly rod in hand, and if you ask politely,I’m sure Peter would be happy to show you around.

We parked overlooking a waterfall that dropped a smalltributary creekinto the mainriver, and Peter,who is not onlythe lodgemanager butalso its aceguide, gave usthe skinny.

Slide down thesheer side hill tothe water, walkupstream untilwe hit theshallows, andthen cross over tothe far side. Atwhich point we’dbe presentedwith the first ofthree primespots, the aptlynamed WaterfallPool. Below thatwere our ultimatedestinations, theCorner Pool andthe TwentyPounder Hole. Aswe were riggingup, I asked Peter about the possibility of heading straight tothe Twenty Pounder Hole. He just smiled.

I’m not, I must confess again, a good steelhead fisherman.Sure, I know the routine. Cast, mend, swing the fly – slowly –until it’s directly below you, then step downstream, lift thefly and cast again. It’s a strange rhythm for a trout fisherman,far more structured than the typical dry fly angling I enjoy,but it does have its benefits. Not the least of which is that itcatches fish. At least, that’s what I’ve been told.

I ended up following Mr. William “Quick” McConnelldown through the Waterfall Pool that morning, where heearned his nickname for the second time in less than aday. He dissected the top of the pool to no avail, carvedthe middle into nice little slices without any action (duringwhich time an eagle flew a dozen feet over our heads onits way up-river), and then stuck the trip’s first steelheadnext to a big log toward the bottom of the hole.

Ben Franklin had his kite, Bill his first Haida Gwaii

steelhead. Both, I believe, felt the electricity. That damn fish beat the hell out of Bill for a minute or so,

and then just as I was about to snap our first, and perhapsonly, picture of a nicely bent fly rod, the line parted. Coitusinterruptus. Ouch. I didn’t say a word, but it was pretty clearthat my curse had laser-beamed down the lens of my cameraand sliced Bill’s line from afar. Sorry about that, my friend.

Bill, of course, had no idea that my hex had provenmore virulentthan ever. Hejust figured thata monster of ahot fish, twelvepounds at aminimum,probably closerto fourteen, hadworked himover and wasnow enjoying agood chuckle atthe bottom ofthe river.

Still, we wereless than anhour into ourfirst day and asteelhead hadbeen hooked.I’ve seen weeksgo by without asteelhead at theend of a line.Things weredefinitelylooking up.

An hour ortwo later we

were finally down at the Twenty Pounder Hole and Iasked Peter how the spot got its name. Turns out it wasfrom a twenty pounder. Go figure.

It was my turn to lead through the run, so I quizzed Peterabout what to expect. He told me that there were usually acouple of fish in the hole, with the first typically sitting in adeep slot where two currents converged. I ran a fly throughthere once, then again, then a dozen more times for goodmeasure. No dice. Pretty spot, though.

As I moved down the run, I started noticing one particularunderwater boulder. Now I’d never caught a West Coaststeelhead on a boulder, or anyplace else for that matter,but that rock sure looked like a prime spot. I pointed itout to Peter, and he said yes, that’s where the fish shouldbe. So I made my cast and started my swing. My fly nevermade it to the rock. It stopped mid-current five feet shortof my target. Bottom, I thought. Well, maybe . . .

ill McConnell wears one of the brightest smiles you’ll ever see after landing thishuge steelhead that snapped his fly rod.B

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Steelhead!!!She shook her head a few times, the

“low head-shake” that gets Bill’s juicesflowing even more than the aerials,and then she came up and wallowedon the surface. Thrash, roll,headshake, swirl, throw the hook.Everything was going great until the“throw the hook” part. Double ouch.Thirty seconds of ecstasy and she leftme standing with my fly rod gone limpin my hand.

I reeled in, cut my fly off, tied it onagain with a fresh knot, and lookedback out at that underwater boulder.What the hell . . .

The fly, an ugly little thing withweighted eyes and a black rabbit haircollar, swung toward the rock, thenstopped. Again. And once again, therewas the low head-shake, the massiveweight, the thrashing, wallowing,rolling, and then after four or fiveminutes Peter had her tail and Bill,God bless him, was snapping photos.Imagine that. I had landed a beautifuleleven-pound hen, my second fish intwo casts. On Haida Gwaii. On theGiver of Life. The curse was over.

he next day was Valentine’s day,and we spent it with our wives.It’s hard for me to say, in factit’s probably dangerous for me

to say, but our hours of beachcombing, of wandering through theold growth forest, and of finishing upwith French Chef Jean’s Surf & Turfback at the Lodge, fell just a little shortof landing my first steelhead.

Saturday, Bill and I were on ourown. Peter had pointed out anynumber of productive places for us tofish, but we decided that we’d betterget back to where we’d had all theaction on Thursday. We fished theWaterfall Pool at first light, but myheart just wasn’t in it. The TwentyPounder Hole was calling my name,and I simply couldn’t resist.

I hiked down and started at the topof the run, where I immediately threw

my backcast into a tree. Bill was justcoming around the corner when I gotthings straightened out, and LadyLuck, fickle dame that she is,happened to be sitting on my shoulderat that exact instant. I had on a big,black, rabbit-strip leech and it slippedsideways through the tea-coloredwater, hanging in the current just longenough for a hen of about fifteenpounds to decide that she really didn’tlike the damn thing. The hookup wassolid, my knots all held, and afterseven or eight minutes, I was cradlingthe biggest fish I’d ever landed on a flyrod. Rose bled into blood red on herside, a wild sunrise etched into herscales; and she was so fat, so damnthick, that my brain couldn’t acceptthe size of her; there had to be somemistake, this fish was simply too big.

Incredibly, twenty minutes later hertwin sister, less a pound or so, jumpedon that same leech up in the CornerHole, and took me down through alittle rapid before she finally came tohand. God, the two biggest fish I’dever landed had come less than a half-hour apart on a river so pretty it washard to concentrate on the fishing.

No wonder they called it The Giverof Life.

Now lest you think that Bill was leftwith the short end of the stick, let mepoint out the fact that he also hookedand landed a beautiful, chrome-brightbuck in the Corner Hole that morning,a fish of eleven or twelve pounds. Andas the river rose that afternoon – we’dhad a day or so of steady rain at thatpoint – he stuck the fish of a lifetime.

We were working the top of acanyon at a place Peter had calledKing Creek when Bill yelled up tome. No, that’s not quite right. Hescreamed in my direction as if awildcat was shredding his drawers. Iwaded over to the bank, grabbed thedry bag with the camera, and cameracing downstream. When I got close,the situation became clear. Bill hadhooked a huge steelhead in a littleback eddy amid a swirling maelstrom,and he was basically screwed. Afterall, a great big fish in great big wateralmost always equals heartbreak.

Still, Bill is a fly fishing stud and hepulled out every trick he knew. Andbelieve it or not, after ten minutes hehad that fish at his feet. I was three-quarters of the way through a freshroll of film when he said, “I need youto tail this steelhead.”

“I can’t do it,” I told him. “I needthese photos for the story. You’regoing to have to handle him yourself.”

Now another, less competent,fisherman might have cursed myoffspring for a dozen generations atthat point, but Bill just knelt down andtried to wrestle that fish up out of thewater while still holding onto his rod.He damn near had him twice, but athree-foot-plus fish with a tail too thickto grab is almost impossible to handlewith one hand, especially while you’retrying not to get swept away by thecurrent. Bill and his steelheadeventually parted company before hecould get the hook out, but I’ll still givehim credit for landing that fish. Youmay or may not care to agree, but inmy mind, if you touch a fish that big,you’ve landed him. After all, you werejust going to turn him loose anyway.

That buck was dark as sin on top,scarlet on the side, and I’d bet mytruck that he wasn’t an ounce undereighteen pounds. Hell, he couldeasily have been more than twenty.

Godzilla on a fly rod.

ow, a rhetorical question.How can you go fromhooking and landing hugesteelhead, to eating quail,

mussels, salmon, jumbo shrimp and filetmignon, to sitting in a hot tub andlooking out at Masset Inlet withoutfeeling like the luckiest person on earth?The only possible answer: You can’t.

Kumdis River Lodge may not be thefanciest place I’ve ever stayed – theexterior doesn’t boast the glossy newwood of many modern lodges; rather itshows the gray-as-the-skies, weather-beaten patina of old porches and oldsailors – but it’s as comfortable as apair of brain-tanned leather moccasinsand it’s the perfect place to sit in frontof the fire and talk of days just past (ordays still to come) with a couple of

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your closest friends. And with Peterand his partner Kirsten on hand tomake sure you’re happy and well fed . .. Lord, Kirsten made crepes one night,light as sunshine and filled withcoconut and oranges, and they werebetter than just about anything youcould ever imagine. What a wonderful,wonderful place.

We were up bright and early onSunday morning, and Peter went outwith us. Fishing, this time, instead ofguiding. We drove along Masset Inletin the predawn darkness, and Bill andI made him pull over so we could getout and look at the full moon over theBay. Sometimes words fail. Not often,but sometimes.

I hope that at some point in yourlife you’re blessed with what the threeof us experienced that morning, whena thing that the Native Americansused to call “The-Spirit-That-Moves-Through-All-Things”came down andtouched our hearts. Whatever yourphilosophy or religion, whatever yourbeliefs, there are moments in lifewhen something vast andincomprehensible reaches down andcradles you . . . the moon over thathuge expanse of water was riven intothe very fabric of my soul, and . . .well, sometimes words just fail.

Sunday turned out to be Bill’s day.Not that Peter and I didn’t hook andland fish. We did. Heck, Peter stuckfour, and I kept the skunk off with apretty ten-pounder. But you wouldn’thave known it was Bill’s day until anhour before dark. He hadn’t toucheda single fish and he just didn’t seem toexude the confidence he normallypossesses. Still, the man is a predatorand that counts for a whole bunchwhen you’re out on the river.

I was fishing downstream aroundthe bend from Bill when Peter camecharging down the bank.

“Where’s your camera?”“In the truck.”“Billy’s got a hell of a fish on. I’ll go

grab the camera and meet you backup there.”

I went racing up the bank to findBill standing in a long, slow, tail-out with his rod bent into a shape

the manufacturer had probablynever envisioned.

“Nice fish?” I asked.His Cheshire Cat grin said it all, but

he just couldn’t resist adding one word.“Huge.”It was an epic struggle, not man

against beast or man against nature,but rather two wonders of creationtethered together at one of the mostbeautiful places on the planet, one acreature of water and instinct, theother a creature of dry land andVision, neither completely in charge,neither able to tip the scales his wayfor long.

Then, after minutes of holding up toincredible strain, Bill’s rod broke.

It happened late in the fight, at apoint when it seemed he mightfinally bring the mighty fish to hand.The rod simply snapped off, in thebutt, no less, and the top two-thirdsof the rod slid down the fly line andlodged in the monster’s mouth. Thesteelhead went berserk. And Peter,may the Lord’s light shine down onhim forever, saved the day.

He went racing out into the river,made an incredible grab on that huge,thrashing fish in thigh-deep water, andcame up with its tail in his hand. Hestaggered over to the bank, holdingthat gargantuan crimson buck out ofthe current, and presented him to Bill.

I was stunned. Bill, whose jawdropped and then rebounded into oneof the brightest smiles I’ve ever seen,seemed even more so. In fact, fromthe look on his face, I thought he wasgoing to kiss Peter. He didn’t, but hesure kissed that fish.

Haida Gwaii was warmer than it hadany right to be in February. The dayswere in the 40s and 50s; most nightswere down around freezing. As far asthe fishing, Bill and I hooked fifteensteelhead in three and a half days, andlanded nine. A couple fish were in thetwenty-pound class, several more wereat least sixteen pounds, and only onewas under ten. There aren’t manyplaces in the world where you’re goingto do better.

Lodge manager Peter Dyment isa true gem. Kumdis River Lodgeserves up some of the best foodI’ve ever eaten, and the wholeexperience, from the fishing, to theprimeval forests, to the killerwhales we saw chasing salmon inBearskin Bay, was extraordinary. Ifyou’re a fly fisherman, I highlyrecommend Kumdis for your nextadventure. The steelhead seasonruns from late October into April,the silvers show up in August andstick around through October, andcutthroats are available year-round.To book a stay at Kumdis RiverLodge, contact Langara FishingAdventures at 800-668-7544.

I tried a bunch of new gear on HaidaGwaii and most of it was first-rate. Ifished a GLoomis 9’6”, 4-piece, 7-weight GLX, which turned out to be awonderful rod. It cast beautifully, andeven though Peter and Bill thought Imight be a little undergunned, therod handled every fish I hooked withno problem at all. (And, I might add,without exploding.) I used a new Rossreel, the Evolution, and it was so lightand sweet that I might just have topick up another, smaller version fortrout this spring. A truly excellentreel. We fished sink-tips exclusively,and my multi-tip Rio line, withinterchangeable Type III and Type VItip sections, was outstanding.

As far as clothing, you’d have tobe a little crazy to travel to BritishColumbia in February without good,heavy wool. My Filson Mackinawwool pants and jacket were ideal. Forfishing on such a notoriously rainyisland, I depended on Dan Baileywaders and my Patagonia SST wadingjacket. Both were excellent. Thewaterproof, breathable waders andjacket kept me dry and comfortable inthe rain, while interior layers of wool,fleece and capilene kept me warmin water as cold as 38 degrees. I wasparticularly impressed with myPatagonia Expedition Weight woolsocks. I hate cold feet, and thosesocks kept my toes toasty all day long.

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