Oh sure, we love jet boats, drift boats, inflatable pontoon boats and belly boats. They are all tools that help fishermen get closer to the fish.
But jets boats - like jet skis - just aren’t suitable for most watersheds.
On remote rivers, where there’s nobody to disturb, or on big systems, like the Stikine and Fraser, where the boats can cross to a far shore and avoid anglers, jet boats are fine.
But on small, intimate rivers, they are an abomination.
What, we would like to know, is the government doing allowing jet boats to blast up and down watersheds like the Pitt River?
The Pitt, located just outside Vancouver, is a remarkable river that has retained its wilderness qualities. It has wild fish, pristine waters - and is fished by anglers who are willing to pay the price of getting there.
Most the people who fish the Pitt are there as guests of the Pitt River Lodge, which provides boat transportation down a long, windswept lake and then drops them off at choice runs along a rough logging road. Imagine the horror you’d feel, having made the effort and paid the price to get a little wilderness fishing - only to have a jet boat blow around the bend.
The jet boats ruin the fishing by frightening the salmon and trout in the clear pools, and they destroy the wilderness atmosphere.
When one fly fisherman complained recently, a jet boater replied: “What at we supposed to do? Walk?”
Yeah. That’s exactly it. Walk quietly - and leave your roaring machine at the boat dock.
Herein, then, an appeal to the federal and provincial governments. Get a handle on the jet boat hatch, please, it’s driving normally patient anglers nuts.
Let our Politicians know what you think you can email them here:
For the Province of British Columbia
British Columbia's Premier Gordon Campbell at
premier@gov.bc.ca
or
gordon.campbell.mla@leg.bc.ca
Honrable Joyce Murray Minister of Water, land and Air Protection at
joyce.murray.mla@leg.bc.ca
Canadian Cabinet Ministers are Fly Fishermen and are concerned about environmental issues.
Honrable David Anderson, Environment Minister at:
Anderson.D@parl.gc.ca
Honrable Paul Martin, Paul Martin is Finance Minister at:
Martin.P@parl.gc.ca
What do you think? Visit our online discussion area and post your views. 
Letters can be sent via e-mail to: letters@ariverneversleeps.com
Steelhead Skiing Anyone?
The Editors:
Just back from trip to Bulkley Valley. . . beautiful this time of year. Tricked a few steelies, invented a new sport, going to call it steelie skiing. What u do is wait for a steelhead to strike so hard it rips the rod from your hand . . .u must be standing in at least three feet of fast water,and stare as your rod is sinking out of sight with the fish still taking line. At this stage you leap for the rod butt, all the while praying the fish is going to fulfill his part of the sport. If u can manage to grab the rod, and the fish stays with u, then the fun begins as he starts to pull u into deeper water, and your waders fill up, and drag you under, u then must try to unhook the fish, (to preserve your own dignity not to mention life) and make it to shore, where if the game is being played properly, the temperature will be about 2-3 degrees Celsius, and your fishing partner will have succumbed to apoplexy brought on by uncontrolled hysterical laughter. Sounds like fun huh? (I got my rod back.) been fishing these guys for 25 years and that’s a first.
-Arne,
Victoria, B.C.
To Whom It May Concern:
I would like to thank you for the continuing quality of your webpage. I receive dozens of messages on a daily basis but none are appreciated more so than your monthly notices! Keep up the good work !
- Regards,
Jim Wilson
jwilson@royallepage.com
Dear Jim:
The gang at A River Never Sleeps.com do it for people like you that appreciate the writing and photography. We are journalists at heart and would like to find a way to keep the magazine going (i.e. generate some income). Looking for advertising or revenue streams which is not our expertise. So if you have any ideas for us drop us a line. Until then enjoy this month’s issue.
rgds
Nick Didlick
PS Thanks for the comment we really do appreciate hearing from our readers.
To: webmaster@ariverneversleeps.com
Please allow me a few words on the winner of the dry fly segment of your Logan Lake Fly Tying Contest, Bob Hager from Tumwater, Washington. Your readers might like to know that the first place award went to an exemplary representative of the fly tying and fly fishing community. Every fly tied by Bob is a work of art; even those to be used hard and used up on your favorite river or lake. But most importantly, Bob freely shares his tying techniques as well as hands full of his flies to folks who show an interest in the great sport of fly fishing. Bob has been known to quietly leave a package of his favorite pattern on the campground picnic table of fellow fly fishers who were sharing the fly fishing experience in some remote site. And finally, Bob is a splendid mentor, a fact to which I can attest from personal experience. He has nurtured my development into a fly fisher of sorts and willingly kept my fly box full of fine examples of numerous patterns. He still out-fishes me about 8-to-1.
- Bill Hopley
Olympia, Washington, USA
hopleybs@aol.com
Dear Mark Hume:
First off let me compliment you on an excellent web site. I can't wait to tie up some imitations of the winning patterns from Logan Lake. During the last week of August I was on one of my favorite rivers, the Columbia with my brother Grant and here in lies a short fishing story. The river was fishing very tough as they had opened the gate on the Keenlyside Dam (Arrow Lakes). The river had been raised a whooping two feet for the past two weeks.
The big rainbows were just not coming up so on my last night Grant and I decided to go walleye fishing. We had no sooner dropped into one of our favorite spots when Grant tagged a nice three pound walleye. He immediately suggested that I switch from a fly rod to one of the spinning rigs. I was stubbornly working an outside line for some small trout that were occasionally rising. About 10 minutes later Grant's Ugly Stick bent in half and I exclaimed, "A huge walleye?" No! he replied, not a walleye. So I said it must be a big trout then? No he replied no head shake!
And just as he was about to tell what he had, on an enormous sturgeon rose completely out of the water, thirty feet from the boat. A conservative estimate would put the fish at eight feet long and about 250 pounds. Of course he screamed, "Sturgeon!" as the fish then went immediately below our 14 foot boat which was sitting in about 35 feet of water. Thank God, we were not anchored, as Grant told me to hang onto the gunwale and he was going to see if he could get the monster to rise again. He gave his rod two twitches and the fish rose half out of the water about fifteen feet behind the boat. The head was huge and looked like the with of a kitchen table.
As the fish headed out into the five mile an hour current Grant broke him off. I then asked him what pound test he had on? With a big grin on his face he looked and smiled. "Only a six pound test line!" The Columbia never ceases to amaze me even when you are not catching fish!
- Tight Lines,
Sam Saprunoff
The Editors:
Suggested for reviews. Any book by Jerry Dennis. His last few titles are:
A Place On the Water
From a Wooden Boat
The River Home
The publisher is St. Martins Press Great author, great books.
-Rick Reedy
Rick:
Thanks for the note. If we can get the publishers to send us reveiw copies, we’ll gladly report on them for our readers.
-M.H.
{E-mail letters may be edited for clarity, taste and brevity. It is understood they express the opinions of the writers, not the editors.}
