Special Thanks to all those anglers and campers that participated and supported the 4 day interview process conducted during the week of August 11, 2005 by the Steelheader-- 72 interviews with accompaning photos were recorded in the Island 22 region, Chilliwack, BC. Your opinions and comments are valuable and important. All images taken for this project are posted here - photo copyright extends to 3rd parties not directly involved and photographed within these images.  All images copyright steelheadermag 2005. Photos -- Sports Anglers Voice concern over The Sockeye Issue.  Part I for your pic . Part II   Contacts 1  2  3  4      crossroads

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Summer Defined

Riderick Haig-Brown
Fisherman's Summer
(Historical Tibute, Published originally New York: Morrow, 1959)
  BY THE BOOKS, SUMMER STARTS IN MID June or a little beyond. Personally I am willing to call any warm and sunny day in June, or possibly even in May, a summer day, if only to flatter spring. And I am just as willing to talk about "spring run-off" when the snow melt comes pouring down the hills through late June and on into July. Seasons are quite flexible things really and it's not very profitable to try and tie them down to dates.
 The end of summer comes where I live with the first rain and southeast gales of September-there is no doubt they do change things. Yet this year we are well into October and a week ago today I was sweating in waders and shirtsleeves as I worked up across the gravel bars of the Elk River, with the sun beating down into the narrow valley. I was glad to turn off into the dark cold of the canyon below Lady Falls on Cervus Creek, wading chest-deep in the 47-degree water until the chill got through to me-then I was glad to get back to gravel bars and sunlit water of the Elk. October it may have been, but summer it seemed and could well be counted.
  Summer is not considered the best of times for the freshwater fisherman. Trout lakes are generally too warm and the fish are deep and lazy. Streams are low and clear, the fish are likely to be shy and difficult. Here on the Pacific Coast the salmon are beginning to home and most fishermen turn to salt water, to troll or mooch for the big king salmon and the brilliant cohos. The trout lakes will be cooling off by mid-September, but not much before. The salt-water harvest goes on well into October and the streams are little used until the winter steelheaders come out to look for early runs towards the end of November.
  I am willing to concede that the lakes may be off in the hot weather, and even that the abundance of salt water can have its attractions. But summer days are golden days and for me summer streams are golden streams. I love the freedom from bulky clothing, the feel of cool water against my waders, the thought of a bottle of beer or two cached somewhere under the shade of the bank and the certainty that a few hours of wading and casting will arouse the thirst to do them justice.
Most of all I love the streams themselves at low water.
  They are stripped of fat then, to bone and muscle. One can see the shape and interplay of the bones and watch the flow of sinew and muscle over and around them. Little runs and riffles that were hidden under the force of the snow run-off are suddenly clear and sparkling. Great rocks that scarcely creased the current surface now break it to white water or stand boldly out in the air frorn the pool bottom. Little glides that were lost and lapped in torrent flow are suddenly glides again to shelter a fish and welcome the kiss of a fly. The trees along the banks are heavy with green and hushed. It is a peaceful time for no one hunts and the ruffed grouse and the merganser broods are safe and undisturbed. The river warblers, yellow and Audubon, sit tight on their nests or feed their fledglings. Robins are busy with second broods and the hermit thrushes look over their nest rims with anxious eyes, but stay there crouched and still until the passerby is gone.
  Along the streams, we fish: kingfisher, heron, merganser, water ouzel and I, with perhaps a sharp-eyed mink or a playful nuisance of an otter to make an occasional diversion. The sun lights the river clear to the pool bottoms and sometimes shows up the shapes or casts the shadows of fish against them. The water feels and sounds different-it is kindly and welcoming, willing for once to commune its secrets. One moves slowly, carefully and attentively, for it is a good time to experiment and learn.
In summer the gravel bars are bare and travel is easy. One walks them in the hot sun and comes gladly to another crossing of the stream, to another bar and so to another pool. It is in summer that one finds, only half-believing, the big fish waiting in the little bubbling run near the head of the pool, drops the fly and sees every move from the first quiver of his fins as he lifts to it. In summer one searches the silent slicks that draw down, even faster, from the body of the pool. In summer the sedges hatch and the side creeks bring down the abundance of floating and drifting life that drops from the leaves of salmonberry, thimbleberry, huckleberry and snowberry lacing over them.
  Summer is the time of little rods and light tackle, of the light foot and the careful approach. In summer the caddis larvae carpet the stream bottoms, the bears come down for the berries, the doe with her fawn and the cow elk with her calf wade the water at dusk. In summer the bandtailed pigeons talk and click their wings in the tall trees, the flycatchers hover and the swallows swoop and rise like dancers. In summer the evenings are long and the pool that was dead through the day comes suddenly alive.
Man was meant for summer, and summer for man-not summer of the desert and dusty sands, but summer with running water in the cool murmur of the hills. And what better excuse is there for being there than a fly rod in one's hand?
  I first learned to fish in summer holidays from school and never gave thought to theories that it might not be a good time to fish. The stream was there, the fish were in it and fish in a stream were to be tempted, risen, hooked and landed. If they chose to lie on the bottom through the heat of the day, there would be a hatch later and they would come up. If they chose to be shy and difficult in the bright clear water, then it was a fisherman's part to stalk them, reach them and deceive them, himself undetected. And to this day I would rather see a fish, creep up to him and watch his rise to my fly than catch half-a-dozen fish unseen until they took.
  I would not discount the other seasons. Each has its own values, sharp and positive and clear. But if fishing is the quiet sport of the contemplative man, then summer is the time of times for it, when the mind and body are relaxed and easy, the sun is warm and bright, the colors strong and the days long. A man should think when he is fishing, of all manner and shapes of things, flowing as easily through his mind as the light stream among its rocks. And the mind thinks best when the body is comfortable. All summer is not sunlight and the gray days and the stormy days may be the days when the fish rise best. But for me summer is low water and high sun, visible fish and difficult fish. And I know no lovelier time. Photo of Roderick Haig-Brown with two Chinook Salmon.