Despite the Black Widow, He was Hooked for Life

"The old bag" suggested I fish. It's true. She said: "What are you doing Saturday?"

Lacking genius, I said the first thing that came into my head.

"Fishing."

OK, truth be told, she'd already made plans to go shopping with her buddy and this would score a point or two, wouldn't it?

My buddy Keath has the desire, but he also has one of those "estate" lawns, fertilized and watered. The only green lawn in the neighborhood and the only one that needs mowing. So, naturally, he turned me down - to mow a lawn. And, buddy Les is nursing his arm, a victim of computers and pinched nerves. The nerve.

There was nothing else to do, but, ask Ian, because Ian had asked me. He hadn't fished since he was thirteen, but he wanted to find out what this here fly-fishing was all about.

Couldn't have turned out better. A novice, with a one-day licence, two minutes of casting instruction (from me, no less) and a Daiwa Black Widow fly rod that I inflict on beginners. He caught a fish on his third or fourth cast.

The location is perfect for kids and novices, if the fish are there. Half a kilometer off the highway, Rubble Creek joins the Cheakamous and affords a kilometer of fishing that requires no waders, and for the most part allows a football field of gravel and rocks for the backcast.

Had to wonder, though, why there was now an iron gate across the access (open however) and two boulders the size of Volkswagens on the road itself.

A local filled me in. Seems that there is fault line that runs right through the area. In the event of an earthquake, the mountain to the east will fill the creek and ruin the fishing. Good government, of course, is trying to prevent unnecessary deaths, and so has blocked the road. That the only highway leading to Whistler, North America's #1 ski destination and possibly the site of a future winter Olympics, also runs under the mountain and through the fault-line will apparently be dealt with at a future meeting of bureaucrats. Matter tabled.

It was a brilliant afternoon. Ian landed three and suffered enough short-takes to keep him stream-side. I caught a dozen or more, up to 11-inches with numerous short takes. Ian left for home, equipped with a video entitled "Basic Flyfishing", a beginner book, and a desire to do it again before the snow falls.

Just to be a bugger I let him fish the Daiwa all afternoon, and at the end, let him cast my Sage. Now all he has to do is find a way to balance the sailboat, the kids' education, the house, the cars, his cheque-book and his new avocation.

"There are no steelhead".