A highbrow fishing magazine does a series on hog heavens, where you can pay a whole pile of money and catch fish as long as your arm. Another does a special feature on fly fishing for carp.

Of course, carp are fine fish. And catching trout in stocked private lakes can be a lot of fun. We admit to doing it ourselves at times. But hey, don't tell us that fish with rubbery lips and fish that have been raised in hatcheries until they are as big as footballs are any substitute for the real thing.

Wild trout in wild water, wild steelhead in fast rivers and salmon fresh in from the sea is what fly fishing is all about.

All this raving about private lakes and new fly fishing species has got us a little worried. Aren't people giving up on wild stocks just a little too easily?

Yeah, we're going through a salmon and steelhead crash at the moment, and some of our waters are getting a little crowded. But that means it's all that more important to dig in and fight to keep fishing the way we want.

Wild, and natural.

The Editors:

Your well-written and informative article on the salmonid smolt response to the watershed restoration program (WRP)work at the Keogh River has generated a great deal of interest and many calls praising the article and the work accomplished. Congratulations on effectively getting this exciting and important message to the public. Our mandate has been scientific publication of our results in the formal fisheries literature, and this has proceeded well, but we rarely have the opportunity to get the message to the general public, so you have done us a service.

As you know, a joint B.C. Fisheries and regional team has been assembled to develop a Georgia Basin Steelhead Recovery initiative, comprised of regional fisheries staff (Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland) and UBC scientists. We meet next week to check on progress and consider options and opportunities towards intensive freshwater rehabilitation using similar techniques employed at the Keogh River, where possible.

The response we are witnessing is less of a miracle and more related to the hard work of the many involved. There has been a cast of hundreds involved in the Keogh experience over its 25-year history of work by the Fisheries Research and Development Section, but I am particularly grateful to the efforts of Pat Slaney (manager of WRP for the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks) who was instrumental in not only establishing the research station, but also for pushing relentlessly for the rehabilitation work by WRP, now conducted through the lead proponent, Western Forest Products. As I emphasized on site, the real heroes of this work have been the field staff. Mark Potyrala, now a DFO Fisheries Officer in the Queen Charlottes, assisted with the site assessments, prescriptions, and structure placements in the Keogh, supported by Rheal Finnegan (ex-DFO habitat), WRP staff, and UBC engineering students. Ken Ashley has scrambled to ensure the nutrient addition work proceeded as planned despite the sudden change in suppliers.

The current crew of Don McCubbing, Lloyd Burroughs and their assistants deserve much credit for their part in rehabilitation, evaluation during summer sampling and at the fish fence, and in reporting the results. This has been very much a team effort, and a great team it is.

Thanks again for the interest in this work. Keep up the good work of reporting on these items and issues.

Bruce R. Ward

Fisheries Scientist

President, Canadian Aquatic Resources Section, AFS

Fisheries Research and Development Section

2204 Main Mall, University of British Columbia

Vancouver, B.C. Canada V6T 1Z4

email: Bruce.Ward@gems8.gov.bc.ca

(Ed. note: We regret that credit wasn't given to all of those who worked on the Keogh River project, and thank Mr. Ward for pointing out the oversight.)

The Editor:

Thank you for the excellent story on the Keogh River restoration. As a fisheries biologist working on chinook salmon restoration, one of the challenges is conveying to the policy folks and the general public exactly what will be required to restore salmon habitat on a watershed scale.

I would like additional information if it is available. Are costs in the story valued in Canadian dollars or US?

Have the researchers cited in the story published a technical summary of their work to date and if so, where might I access that information ?

Again, thanks for an excellent story.

Kip Killebrew

kkilleb@premier1.net

Arlington, Washington, USA

(Ed. note: Yes, the costs were in Canadian dollars. Bruce Ward has published one paper, Declivity in steelhead recruitment at the Keogh River over the past decade, National Research Council Canada, Vol. 57, Number 2, February 2000. And he and Don McCubbing have a more detailed watershed restoration project report in the works.)

Hi gang:

As usual I thoroughly enjoyed the new issue and was particularly pleased to read the article on the Keogh. This is of particular interest to me as I served for seven years as Secretary-Treasurer of the Campbell River Branch of the SSBC, a group that has contributed no small sum of money towards the Salmon River fertilization project, the re-construction of the fence on the Keogh after the great flood of Nov. 1990, and a study on parr migration on the Keogh.

For several years we paid for the fertilizer used on the Salmon River. The results from that project were very encouraging and led to the Keogh project. I am proud that this branch was able to provide funding to help with this type of program, yet, I am somewhat surprised it took so long for fisheries managers to get around to using fertilizer in some of our systems.

You are undoubtedly award that R. Haig-Brown advocated this very thing many years ago, showing again how much of an innovative thinker and visionary he was.

Relevant to the Salmon River project, we noted that the median age of sea-going smolts changed from 3/4 years to 2/3 years in a very short period of time after fertilization was begun, and the smolts were bigger. Should you have the opportunity to visit this area you will be amazed at the increase in insect life in the Salmon and its tributaries, a result of fertilization. The decrease in time required for steelhead juveniles to reach smolt size allows them to migrate out of the most dangerous environment they will endure, i.e. the river, to the much larger and hopefully now more benevolent environment of the ocean. Now, if we could only get B.C. Hydro to operate their Salmon River diversion in a more fish friendly manner perhaps we could avoid the loss of both mending adults and juvenile migrants into the Campbell River watershed.

Oh yeah, should any of you be coming this way please give me a call. I would love to tour you around the Kingfisher Creek project on the Haig-Brown property. The new creek is full of coho fry and cutthroat trout. Last Fall we had coho enter the new creek earlier than we had ever seen them before. In addition, they easily accessed the new creek way above where we thought they might go. The whole riparian zone is greening up wonderfully well and within a short period of time it will be almost impossible to tell that the creek is man-made. The fish sure don't seem to mind.

Warmest regards,

Dave Hadden

Campbell River, B.C.

The Editors:

Great flyfishing site,will certainly tell more South Africans to log-on. I will be back every month.

I will be arriving in Vancover on 24th June for ten days, desperatly been seeking fly fishing destination on the net. Would greatly appreciate help with good lodges with good fishing opportunities. My wife and I would love to bring back great memories of Canadian flyfishing. Your article on the Pitt River sounds good; is the accommodation going to keep a none fishing wife happy?(just a silly question).We heard that the area called Smithers and Terrace were good as a base; can one then arrange trips from there? I would appreciate if you could help with suggestions and relative e-mail addresses.

Best regards,

Derek Cornish.

e-email:cornish@eastcoast.co.za.

(Ed. note: If your non-fishing wife likes mountain bike riding, swimming in a pristine mountain lake, soaking in a natural hot tub or lounging streamside with a book while you catch big fish, the Pitt River is a good bet. As for Smithers and Terrace - oh man, can you jump to some good fishing places from there. See our web page for details on lodges and places we like.)

The Editors:

Re News Bytes....

They are talking about closing the Thompson River down because they predict a smaller run coming back to the Thompson this coming fall... I was under the impression that the Thompson steelhead were 7 year fish, and that the return from 93-94 would be the fish coming back this year. From my knowledge, if you look at how many fish came back in that year, (93, 93-94) when you could fish it, it was one of the highest in recent memory.

If you look at the year before (92, 92-93), it was one of the lowest in a long time with less than 900. Last year was a horrible year for most on the Thopmson which probably to me indicates that it was 92-93's spawning brood that produced it, which was a low amount of fish as I just mentioned. Doesn't that mean the 93-94's will produce this year's spawning brood of fish which should be a higher run? I don't know, maybe I am wrong, but I was under the impression that the Thompson steelhead lived a little longer than 4 years, which is what seems to be stated in the article.

Thanks for any clarification that is directed my way.

Scott

email: Scott_Kirkpatrick@telus.net

PS - There's no way in hell a Steelhead can be a 17 pound buck average and 15 pound female average and only be 4 year fish.

(Ed. note: Certainly there are going to be fish older than four years in the Thompson. We aren't sure what the mix is, but it's got to be a fundamental truth that if the numbers on the spawning beds are dangerously low, then fishing isn't justified, irregardless of what brood year(s) they come from. We'll report again on the Thompson, later in the fall.)

Hi Mark,

Have just spent an hour looking at and reading your June web page.

It was great and should be just what some "big fish" needs. Good luck.

Don Munro

Calgary

The Editors:

You've told us everything about the Keogh except how to pronounce it. Kee-ogg, Koo, Koof, Kog, Kee-Oh, ?????

Sort of like GB Shaw's grapheme "Ghouti"

Cheers,

Eric Bigler,

Marylhurst, Oregon

(Ed. note: You got it right in the end, it's Kee-oh.)