"In an effort to address steelhead, sea-run cutthroat and Dolly Varden conservation problems, the use of bait in most Vancouver Island streams is prohibited. A small number of streams will remain open to the use of bait, either seasonally or year-round. In addition, temporary stream closures and catch and release requirements are in place for several East Coast Vancouver Island streams."

Thirty years ago, when we came with a young family to live and work in British Columbia, the Gold was rated the most productive of all Vancouver Island steelhead rivers, with an estimated annual take of just over 2,000 fish. Fishing pressures were significantly lighter then, with access to the more remote island rivers and lakes a major challenge. In those days, catch and release was simply not an issue and the occasional fly fisherman was heavily outnumbered by bottom bouncers and float fishers using bait and multi-colored lures.

Since then we have seen relentless and continuing growth in the popularity of fly fishing, its techniques and equipment, along with the growing realisation that no fish stock, no salt or fresh water species, can be expected to survive unrestrained exploitation. Single, barbless hooks have long been the rule for most fresh water fisheries in British Columbia and it’s not that many years since the ocean salmon sports fishermen were also directed by law to use barb free hooks.

The mountain-ringed community of Gold River - population around 1,770 against a peak of 2,300 according to the municipal office – has its origins in the coastal forest industry. While curtailed for a variety of political, economic and environmental reasons, the industry continues as a major employer. That said, hundreds of forest-related jobs have gone forever over the past decade leaving tourism and all aspects of outdoor recreation to gain significantly in appeal and importance. Steelhead fishing has to be a prime example, attracting devotees from all over North America and from much further afield.

Our day on the Gold started with the early-rising robins in full song well before daylight, while the rain cascaded down as it had through the night. Like all good guides, and he rates with the very best, Mark McAneeley was confident of success on a river where he spends between 30 and 50 days each year after steelhead. He expects his fly fishing clients to average one or two fish a day.

The successful guide has to be knowledgeable, experienced, enthusiastic, flexible and a good communicator. Mark is all this and more, enjoying the companionship of his guests and the opportunity to be close to the water as much now as he did in 1987. That was when he decided guiding would be his career in preference to his previous accounting-based positions.

Now his year starts working the Gold and other North Vancouver Island rivers, including the Nimpkish, the Salmon and the Eve, along with helicopter outings for big, sea-run cutthroat trout. In May, he moves on to guide for massive chinook salmon at Langara Island Lodge, on the northern tip of the Queen Charlotte Islands.

With a week home from Langara every month, he finds time to be with his wife, Kelly and seven-year-old son, Ryan through the summer. Then comes the final move, an annual nine-week stint, starting around September 4, when he guides out of the Silver Hilton Steelhead Lodge on the Babine, a major tributary of the immense Skeena system in Northern British Columbia.

As the name and location suggests, the Silber Hilton is a remote destination for fly fishermen with the financial resources to focus all their energies on taking, and releasing, great steelhead on the dry or waking fly. These are fish that can run well into double figures, steelhead that come to large flies worked across and downstream on double handed rods with floating lines and hefty tippets. A glance through Mark’s photo albums tell the story.

The rest of the year, basically December and January, is his own, time set aside for family and what he describes as "personal fishing" confirming that, for him, fishing is much more than just a job.

More time spent in his company would most certainly have enhanced my own limited casting abilities, would perhaps have unraveled the basics of the Single Spey, Double Spey and Snap-T casts that we watched him execute with such effortless precision. On the day, he was using a 15 foot, 10 weight, four piece Winston matched with an FR4 Islander reel, 10/11/12 Rio Windcutter floating line and 15 foot sink tips weighing from 200 to 400 grains, depending on flow and pool depth.

The need to get the fly down, well down, is paramount with winter-run steelhead and for a time I felt my own equipment, a four piece, 13.5 foot Sage, Hardy Marquis salmon reel with a shortened No 9 Michael Evans floating line and 160 grain sink tip was insufficient. Mark was more optimistic, acknowledged my switch casting technique was just about adequate for the occasion and went off to help Conor with his approach – instruction that quickly gave a steelhead beginner the encouragement to start moving his fly out and across with new-found confidence.

Later I asked Conor to reflect on his first-time steelheading experience.

" Casting while close to the bank was akin to tying knots with frozen fingers,” he said, “ more fumbling about than getting the line to move in the right direction. Like a well-hit golf ball, the casts that sail with ease and perfection seem effortless, as fluid as the stream running beneath them.”

With the river rising but still fishable and with Mark’s river raft giving us easy access to the pools downstream from the launching place, we settled into the rhythm of the morning. First we worked our way through what Mark called the Creek Pool and then down to the Big Bend. There the river sweeps close to the road with half a dozen steelhead easily seen on out-of-bounds redds in three or four feet of water.

In another four hours they were out of sight as the river continued its rise. By then we had had our time on the Helicopter Run, another holding pool and one that was to give me the long-awaited opportunity to hook and play my first Gold River steelhead. The big moment arrived some 20 minutes after both Conor and I had touched fish that came tentatively to our large flies, mine leech-style and purple, Conor’s one of Mark’s distinctive, orange-hued dressings he calls a Juicy Lucy.

Mark ties them on heavy 1/0 hooks, certain they are far more likely to provoke a response than any of the smaller, more traditional Atlantic salmon patterns in my box.

"Perfect for summer runs", he judged, "but useless here. You have to have a big, showy fly with lots of movement and then fish it on a level leader three or four feet in length. Anything longer and you lose the advantage of the sink tip."

The take, and it was nothing less than a violent, slashing assault, came half way down the run and well across towards an outcropping of rock. One minute I was waist-deep, contemplating the continuing rain and the indignity of the pin hole leak in the crotch of my waders, focused on my casting and the proximity of a tree-crowded riverbank. The next moment there was the steelhead jumping and jumping again as fly line and then backing spun off the reel.

This was an immense fish, not in size but in the manner it came at the fly, the way it played, cartwheeling into the air at least a dozen times, and the overall power of the fight it offered in heavy water. Such heart, such determination, such a truly noble adversary.

The hook hold, in the corner of the mouth, looked impregnable. Eventually, the fish came into clear view at our feet, a well-coloured male of between 10 and 12 lbs. Mark counted it as caught, since he had his hand on the leader on two occasions, but the camera never quite got to record catch and smiling fisherman. Instead one final plunge saw knot and fly part at the eye as the fish effected its own premature catch and release manoeuvre.

It was time to break for lunch, for hot coffee and soup at Charlie’s Family Restaurant where the always welcoming, Turkish-born Charlie Gumustas was ready to prepare a special prime rib dinner had we been staying for a second night.

The rest of the day was spent on the upper reaches of the river, clambering down the steepest of sodden slopes on our way to pools where the water was already on the high side for the fly. Then back to the tail-out behind the golf club but even there the chances of a taking fish were limited as the Gold, like an incoming tide, thrust itself ever further out and across the sand.

Throughout, the fishing was never easy for this is a powerful, surging river running over a bed of boulders of all shapes and sizes which demands cautious wading. Little wonder its steelhead are of such a superb quality. Anything less than perfection could not hope to survive let alone prosper.

Most certainly, our day had lived up to every possible expectation. The opportunity to hook and play a wild steelhead on the fly was more than enough to encourage advance planning for a return trip next year, perhaps in March, when the chances of encountering bright fish are better. As to the rain, well it was long overdue and badly needed at that. . .

Field notes:

"I reckon the best of the fishing on the Gold River comes between the middle of January and the end of April,” says Mark McAneeley.

"I like big flies that have long, flowing hackles with plenty of action in them. The fish see them as intruders and. . . come at them very strongly. In low water, I tie sparser dressings. I use a lot of marabou and rabbit strips in various colours, purple, orange, red and black, from size 1/0 to 2 and a lot smaller, down to 12s, for the summer runs on the Gold and Heber. I also include a few long strips of flashabou for increased visibility. My leaders will range in length from three to four feet in winter with a breaking strain of 15 lbs. With full floating lines I use tapered leaders up to 12 feet long with 10/12 lb. tippets

"The majority of my winter steelhead are taken on bright orange flies but it always pays to go through a pool trying two or three different colours. In high water, the fish will be lying mid-pool and down to the tail. When the water is lower look for them in the runs at the head of the pool. In winter fishing, you have to use a sink tip and it’s important to have very sharp hooks. I like Eagle Claw Lasersharps with a downturned eye. These sink well and are strong enough to hold a big fish. I also like Tiemco heavy wire hooks with upturned eyes in sizes 2 to 2/0.

"The largest Gold River steelhead I ever saw was caught earlier this year by Bill Budge, from San Francisco. It weighed approximately 25 lbs. and that’s one of the reasons I use heavier leaders for winter fish."

Mark McAneeley can be reached at 4185 Discovery Drive, Campbell River, British Columbia V9W 4X6: telephone (250) 287 9696