Bd - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, October 9, 2002 SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN SKEENA. ANGLER — ROB BROWN Happy returns HEN | emerged from the brush he was Sitting on a rock almost at midstream. His legs dangled in the water. He was staring, intent on’ something, his eyes fixed on the Steep wall of gray rock across the river or some-- thing in its reflection. He was hunched as if ready to spring. I knew that I’d arrived ia the middle of an act borne of solitude and concentration. The rush of the rapid below had masked my coming. I took a step back into the woods and gently sat down to watch things unfold. 1 tooked where he was looking. There was a wrinkle on the glassy surface, then, perhaps a minute later, another. leaving their rocky lairs, and climbing through the cold, clear water to sip something small. it’s a long throw, | thought. Sixty feet, maybe more. He won't be able to cover those fish. It was a good ten minutes before the angler stood up. He rose slowly, evenly. His reel barked as he stripped line from it thythmically. It was a Hardy, the complaint of its ' paw] unmistakable. He lifted the line, cast it downstream in an angle directly below him, changed direction, made a short cast of some forty feet, hauled on the line and sent his fly out to a spot just shy of the granite. ] expected something small. Instead a great bushy fly hit the water. It drifted a short dis- tance. It twitched like a marionette when the drift, but not far. The river erupted below it. The fisherman hesitated a moment then lifted the rod. The reel sang; the song a howl, with a long accelerando and crescendo. The line poin- _ ted at the far side of the river, the fish took to the air on our side, re-entered the water and burned off as the fisherman cranked furiously to Tegain some measure of control. then plunged into the chute below. The fisher- man had to follow. He glanced away from the fish. obviously charting a course to shore through and over the subsurface boulders. All his fly line and a great length of backing were stretched out over the river You can’t make it - no time, | thought, then the whole works fell to the tiver, “Quite a performance, sir,” [ extended my hand. The angler was almost to shore. He looked up, startled. “A big fish, eh?” “You bet,” | agreed. “I caught one seven pounds, from the same rock, a couple of years ago.” Gary Wray was the first angler | met on the Stellako. His approach was simple: he fished a big Tom Thumb, tied to his bushy specifications by his good friend and fishing partner, Soji Inouye, and with it caught lots of trout, some of them magnificent. That was a long time ago, the year before Kelly, the former MLA from that riding, and the man who defiantly stood in the river and dared the logpers io drive their booms over him and Fish were feeding in the shadow of the bluff,” fisherman mended his line, then continued.to By SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN ASK ANY child what the hottest trend in toys these days is and you might be surprised — it’s a toy which puls a new spin ona very old game. Beyblades are small, plastic, rip cord- powered spinning tops designed to battle one another. “The kids are wild over them,” says 15- year-old Dustin Wassink. “I’ve even tried to get one and they are so popular that every time they get a shipment they are sold out.” can scene after a Japanese animation car- toon show bearing the same name hit the airwaves this summer. Like the Cabbage Patch craze of the early 1980s, the tays are flying off store shelves leaving some parents scrambling to get their hands on one for their children. Kim MacDougall has two sons aged 13 and 10 and she says they can’t get enough of the rolating tops. “They love it,” MacDougall says, adding they were indeed hard to come by. “We must have gone down to Zellers about 20 times and they were always out,” says MacDougall, who thinks the toys are a great source of entertainment for her boys. The tops have been clearing right off store sheives around the northwest almost as soon as they are brought in. Terrace’s Zellers outlet gets roughly 20 Tequests per day for the tops and store man- ager Roger L’Heureux estimates if word got out the toys were in stock, they’d probably sell out within an hour, “They are going to be like Cabbage Patch Kids, they’re going io be like Tickle Me Elmo or Furbies,” L'Heureux says. Stores in Prince George are also having a rough time keeping them in slock. “The kids are crazy over them,” says Charlea Mitchell, a sales associate at the FOR winter sports enthusiasts, fall Beyblades blasted onto the North Ameri- . ____ 638-7283 New spin on old game a hit © DUSTIN Wassink, 15, decided to hast a Beyblade tournament this week-end after children in his neighbourhood went gaga over the popular spinning top game. The tays are flying off store shelves around the northwest. SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN PHOTO Prince George Sears store. “We got about 16 in the last shipment and they were gone in about five hours,” she says. And the craze has gone international. The World Beyblade Championships were held in Tokyo, Japan in May 2002. Beybladers battled it out in front of a sold-out crowd of 15,000 people, says the toy’s official web site. Wassink, a Grade 9 student at Centennial Christian School, says so many children in his neighbourhood are into playing the game that he and some friends decided to host their own tournament Oct. 16. More trail time for cross country skiers. ‘Nordic Valley Ski’ Club member” Ski trails, prepping them for the “Two groups will battle at a time,” he ex- plains. “The loser stands off to one side and then the next group comes in.” Wassink, along with friends Kalen Loepp- ky, 14, and Julian Harmel, 15, will host the tournament in a field near the Mountain Vista area. So far they already have about 25 youngsters signed up ready to let ‘er rip. The trio plans to put up prizes for the event and have a concession stand. Registration for the tournament is $3, but parents can come watch for free, Wassink says. For more about the upcoming tournament, call Dustin Wassink at 635-2308. eae The lights will be wired to a The fish cartwheeled at the rim of the glide | can be a frustrating waiting-in- limbo time of year — summer sports have wrapped up and the snow just can’t fall soon enough. And for cross country skiers in the Terrace and Kitimat area, the eager anticipation of snow is even more gruelling this year. That’s because the Onion Lake ski trails are set to get half a kilo- metre of lighting on the Jackrabbit trail and that means there’s a whole Jot more time available for Skiers to hit the trails. “Now people will be able to put time in during the week,” says Mark Forgie. He says the only way to im- prove at the sport is to practice as much as possible. But with short winter days, night skiing’s been impossible until now. The ski club was given $12,500 of a grant-in-aid by the Kitimat- Stikine Regional District board recently. That’s half of the $25,000 the club was promised from the regio- nal district for a plan to install lights for night-skiing at the trail. Volunteers have done a tre- mendous amount of work at the instaliation of the lights. The first phase of the project will see poles installed along one kilometre of trail and half that distance will get lights by the time the snow falls, says club pre- sident Terry Brown, Getting the lights in place has been a long labour of love for Brown and numerous club mem- bers. He’s excited about the lighting because it means the trails will be used more and the extended hours may attract more newcomers to the sport. switch with a timer, allowing skiers to turn the lights on and off for as little or as long as required, whenever it suits them. The club has also removed 52 truckloads of stumps from trees taken out over the summer mak- ing room for wider trails and a bigger stadium area. Other alterations to the trails include a hill on the Jackrabbit trail which will pive skiers of all levels a place to practice. “We've created terrain to suit the needs of the skiers,” Brown said. Sports Scope Turkey trot RUNNERS are gearing up for the eighth annual Ki- spiox Valley Turkey Trot. The Skm and 10km road race is set for Oct. 13 at the Kispiox valley community grounds 25 km north of Hazelton on the Kispiox Valley Road. Organized by the Skeena Steamers Running Club the race has a variety of age categories for runners to take part in. A chili lunch will be provided to all runners and the entry fee also includes a free t-shirt. People who re- halted that repugnant practice, sold his Stellako Lodge to the Swiss. “Twenty years ago,” said the Swiss, whose name, surprisingly, I’ve never tearned despite the fact that we’ve been using his campground for that length of time. “It’s the anniversary this summer.” Not much had changed when we arrived this summer, thankfully. The swallows were still hunting bugs over the river's outflow at Francois Lake. The osprey were still there. The old woo- den bridge had a new deck and a new coat of paint, but otherwise it was much the same. The phone booth silting incongruously on the side of the dirt road below the campground was still there. The generous hatches — sedges, stones and mayflies ~ were still so thick at times they were reminiscent of snow flurries. After jawing with the Swiss, I set oul across the bridge. Leaning against the rail was a man in his fif- ties, He wore a baseball cap with a few bedraggled flies embedded In il. A small, serpentine earring squirmed across in his left ear Jobe. A few day’s crop of reddish stubble, covered his cheeks and chin and gathered into a grey-flecked red motistache that grew luxuriantly in the shade of a red and weathered nose. “Ya don’t need thal fancy old Hardy reel and that bamboo rod to catch these trout,” he said with a U.S. : , American drawl as he beckoned me to the rail. He fore a corner from a Graham cracker and pitched it 40 the stream below. It floated a few feet and was hun- grily swallowed by a trout that was five pounds if it was ounce. | liked this middle-aged hippy. We talked « of hatches and hatcheries, of fish and fishing. We shook hands, and I made my way downstream to Gary Wray’s Rock. ‘ gister before Oct. 11 pay $23, but after that date regi- stration is $25, Runners under 15 pay $15. Race day registration begins at 9:30 a.m. Both races and a non-competitive walking division start out at 10:30 a.m. For details call 250-842-6500. Drop-in hoops BASKETBALL fans can lace up the shoes and hit the court twice a week this winter as drop-in basketball gets under way. The Skeena Junior Secondary School gym- nasium has been boaked from 8-10 p.m. every Monday and Wednesday for drap-in play. This is co-ed basketball and anybody interested in - playing is welcome. For more information call Amanda Campbell at 638-8520. Special O registration SPECIAL Olympians new and old are invited to register for the 2002-03 season. Athletes and volunteers can register 6 - 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18 at the Skeena Mall. Registration:is $40. For more details call Jo at 635-7936 after 7 p.m. Need a helping hand? THE TERRACE youth soccer U-13 boys team is plan- ning to attend an international tournament in Minneapo- lis in July of 2003. In order to get there, the team will have to raise up- wards of $20,000. These young men are willing to do. any odd jobs for a donation. Raking leaves, digging po- tatoes, vehicle cleaning and snow shovelling are just a few of the chores the boys will do. For details call Cotleen Froese at 635-7472, m Learning curve YES, THAT is a tissue box and not a rock. Charlotte Tooms gets a les- sons in how to throw a rock properly — and that means not putting too much pressure on lt. Tooms was one of dozens of people who. crammed the Tetrace Curling Club for three days of introductory clinics Oct. 1-3, Or- ganizers were thrilled with the turn-out saying participation far exceeded expectations. All six sheets of ice were used during each of the three Curl Canada fearn.to curl evenings. SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN PHOTO