The last trip?
Art Lingren
Steelheader Contributor
 Some events in the life of a steelhead angler become etched in memory, only departing the mind with death. Over the past 40 seasons the water from many rivers have flowed past my legs but I vividly remember my first trip to the Thompson River when I was 26 years old. I didn’t catch any fish that weekend on October 25 and 26, 1969 but I saw fish taken and helped someone land a fish. My first impressions: what a river and what a fish.
 For thirty-five consecutive seasons I have journeyed through the Fraser Valley and Canyon, past Lytton to the town of Spences Bridge to that river. In many of the earlier years I couldn’t wait for October to come so I could get back to that river to catch the Thompson’s magnificent, late-running, summer-run steelhead. However, as the seasons passed and I became one with the river and its fish and, although I still enjoyed taking those fish especially on surface presented flies, the trips became more a reunion, like I was going to visit an old friend who I have not seen for some time.
I have had some good seasons and some poor seasons on the Thompson. Some poorer not because of the numbers of fish I caught, there were some of those as well, but because in later years with work, family and other commitments I didn’t make as many trips as I would have liked.
 I will remember well the two trips I made this year both for different reasons. The first I fished part of four days, was blown from the water on all and managed to bring only one steelhead to the surface. It lunged at my fly three times on one drift and when it got the fly in its mouth I pulled the fly away. However, it is my parting trip in October and specifically Thursday October 16th that I will remember for many reasons.
 Charlie Brumwell and I found a stiff wind blowing in the morning, blowing so hard in fact that we had to change fishing locations for that day. We drove to Spences Bridge and, to our delight, discovered the wind was coming out of the Nicola Valley and heading upriver. I have a Bomber variant that I like to use on the Thompson and it was that poison that I attached to the end of my leader. I started at the top of the short piece of water quartering downstream and bringing the fly on the surface waking across the current. Some steelhead can’t resist a fly fished with that technique and in less than five minutes I was into an active steelhead: one of those classic Thompson fish that ran and jumped. Twenty-five minutes later I slid the hook from a lovely 34 inch female. That run produced only one fish.
 At the next spot Charlie fished the inflow while I walked down to the tailout hidden by a large, cottonwood-sapling-filled gravel bar. However, that spot was taken by others so I hiked back to join Charlie and fish through behind him. Not long after I joined him, Charlie was into the honey spot in this piece of water and his Bomber variation was taken by another lively Thompson summer-run. I helped him land the fish and before I took the Bomber from its mouth I taped it. It too was a 34 inch female but much brighter than mine.
 Two spots and two fish, as we walked back to the camper for lunch we were pleased with the morning, we really didn’t expect more. Sometimes you just never know what a day on the water will bring, circumstances and surprises happen. We drove down river to another spot and found that Arron Goodis and his friend were heading to the water we thought of fishing. We headed back to Spences Bridge, but as I drove along the highway I suggested to Charlie that we try a different spot. The river was low and I thought we might be able to swing a fly through the well-know piece of water. I left Charlie on the main run while I wandered upstream to fish a smaller piece of water with the intention of following Charlie through the water downstream.
 With a fairly high cobble bank behind me I was Spey casting about 80 feet across a difficult current to what looked like a likely steelhead spot. The way the current set up made this spot a quite difficult place to fish. The current in the main flow grabbed the line, putting considerable drag on the fly and it was so easy to lose sight of the fly as it waked across the surface. I was fishing the water as best as I could and I saw the boil from the fish before I realized that it was after my fly. The fish didn’t get the fly and subsequent casts produced nothing. I continued down the run and about 30 feet directly out from me another steelhead rolled. I thought there must be some fish moving so I retraced my steps and came back down a second time lengthening my casts to about 100 feet. That did the trick and in the next hour and a half I brought four more steelhead to the Bomber. One, another 34 incher I landed, I rose another twice but couldn’t get back, one other I pricked and I didn’t get it back, one other grabbed the fly well and didn’t get hooked. It wasn’t until I finished that piece of water and decided to put on Grantham’s Sedge that I found out why that fish, which took the fly well, didn’t get hooked. I dress the Bomber on Tiemco 7989 hook, which is fine-wired, and they do break. By the time this steelhead took that fly I had landed two steelhead taking about 45 minutes and that probably strained the tempered hook. It broke above the bend. The steelhead I landed from this run measured 34 inches, but unlike the two females we caught in the morning this was a male.
 I couldn’t see Charlie so I left to find him. I was having too much action not to share it. I found him in the camper. He had touched nothing so. I urged him to join me. Both of us went through the run again and had not a single rise. I think I was in the right place at the right time and hit a few fish that had moved into the run, paused for a bit and continued on their upstream migration or the fish were there and came on the take.
 We tried to fish parts of the next two days but weather fronts were moving through the valley and the winds made casting impossible. Some gusts were so bad I was more than once nearly toppled into the water. We find ourselves quite often at the mercy of the elements in our fishing. But that Thursday of my last trip is etched in my mind.
The Thompson River was to close November 17, 2003, because the run this year is estimate to be around 800 fish and below extreme conservation level and even our catch-and-release fishing had to be curtailed to protect the remnants of the run. However, more recent estimates put the number at 1000 and because of political pressure the river will remain open until December 31. I thought when the Director announced the closure that we may be facing a multi-year closure and if so this October trip may have been my last. Nonetheless, we are angling for a severely depleted stock and I find it is disappointing that Thompson anglers carry on business as usual using too effective techniques and putting no restraint on their personal fishing activities. All these guys care about is numbers and have very little regard for this game fish. I hope the run does survive, but without a change of attitude I doubt that it will. And when the collapse does come, future generations of anglers will not be able to experience the surge of adrenalin, enjoy the sound of line pealing from the reel and see one of the hardest fighting steelhead in the world leap into the air as it struggles to throw the hook.
To order Art Lingren's book "Famous British Columbia Fly-Fishing Waters" Click on the book above or here

 Steelheader