SKEENA ANGLER. | ROB BROWN Greyling whales fter the rush and the rotors and the dishes there is time sit and drink coffee and think about what needs to he dane. Whiskey jacks flock in and argue in melodious, but insistent, voices over grains of granola dropped in the morning tush, The sky is layered, gauze in front, billows behind them, and horse tails on high. Its a portrait of change, bui I can’t tell how. At the end of the day it won’t matter anyway; the rain in this refuge from northern climate doesn’t soak, it dampens and it hasn't the strength to chill. T have nine traps soaking in two creeks and a river. In the time it takes me to pull them our two teams will have sampled ten different sites, which is why the chopper is such a boon. Camping makes you appreciate appliances. With fewer switches and no taps the tempo slows. Every task in camp — even simple things like a face wash — are ponderous, It’s ten before I’m able to leave. There is more pothole than road on this part of the track. I discover that by straightening my back and pushing hard against the seat I can get some relief from the aching back I’ve cultivated after four days of rocking and rolling across the Fourth of July Creek road and this route. Com- plicating- matters is a pile of gear which is stacked up in the cab, resistant to any altempts at order. When the road roughens it acts like an unruly passenger, diving for the floor or spilling | sideways to deposit'a satéllite phone or a biel _ caseorarollofmapsonmy lap. °° > The road to the river is steeper. At the inter- section there are cabin remains, rotting like stumps. I walk through a tangle of weathered logs, a complex structure affixed to the cabin like a carport. The number of logs and their size must have taken considerable effort to erect. The sun is out now. Shafts of light stream in through the windows. Through them I see more cabins, and in the distance a gently sloping val- ley of pines and pasture i credit to the river, Why the homesteaders selected this site is ob- vious. Beams droop. The roof is holed. Yel- lowed books and glass cover the floor boards. The air inside is full of must and decay, After taking some photographs framed by glassless windows, I lock the hubs and creep down the road and park next to a cabin near the river. My traps have a few sculpins. Some mayflies hatch while I’m there. The water is clean glass. There must be something other than bullheads in this creek, I think. I climb back to the truck slip on some hip boots and find a tool I’ve done a lot of fish sampling with — my Hardy trout rod. I’m thinking about greyling as I sort through the mat of flies in my wallet. I caught my first greyling in the Dease River last year. It was shy of twelve inches, a little female, Later Webb and I caught some more. Delightful little fish with small mouths and a preference for small, floating fies. Small, floating flies...1 fas- ten on a hank of 7x nylon and thread on a Simple Sedge with a dark olive body, size 16. The river is low cnough to allow wading from bank to bank in hippers. I Bick out the sedge, and give it short rides past pockets sitting be- hind the larger stones, places to expect fast, firm rises, but there are none, I gather in my line and wade to where limestone portals, a hundred feet high at best, lead to a short canyon and a canyon pool half that distance horizontally. There is no flagging, no boot tracks in the sand, no sign of use except for a fading moose print, The air be- tween the limestone walls is spiced with pine. A tongue of current licks the sedge, rolls it, flicks it out into the pool where it disappears be- fore a flash. The rod bows; I- bow. I expected Greyling, but not a specimen like this. After a leap and a pair of anxious moments I slide a handsome male, beautifully marked along its purple sides and its magnificent dorsal. A foot long greyling is a big greyling: a fish that has grown to twenty inches in a small watering the land ai these northem latitudes is a trophy, When I hold the rod to him he was slightly more than twenty inches. After I’ve released him, | begin where I'd left off. The part of the pool deep enough to hide fish is the size of two bath tubs. In a short, ex- citing half hour I lake eight fish from it, paus- ing to record their sex and take measurements until my notebook is sopping. On average the fish are 14 inches — greyllng whales. Satisfied Pve covered the pool, I move on and find an- other a few hundred yards downstream. It too is full of feisty greyling. I’ve had enough superb angling adventures to realize this one, done in shirt sleeves with a light rod and a small fly, wrapped in sweet solitude, and set in superb surroundings, is as goed as the best. I kill a nice fish for science then drag myself away. , To be continued. © 3 GOALKEEPER Jil Rago of Forestry FC in Terrace Men's Soccer shows off some of the maves that won him the league's top goaltender award. Forestry won this game against Home Hardware 1-0. Waitlists disappoint youths Hockey players still hoping for second: sheet IT’S GOING to be a long, cold winter for 18 Terrace. youths who can’t play hock- ey this season because of a lack of ice time. Right sow, there are 12 youths in the Adams divi- sion, ages 10-11, and six Pec Wees, ages 12-13 on the wait-list, And they aren’t going anywhere fast. “We've looked at all pos- Sible options and we can’t find a place for them," says Terrace Minor Hockey pres- ident Brian Downie. “We've already expanded the teams to the point that having any more players wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the team. You have to have a minimum standard.” As it is, youths are hitting ‘ “We've looked at all possible options and we can’t find a place for them.”’ ~~Brian Downie— the ice at 5 a.m. five days a week, “Our problem got even worse this year because we. lost some ice time,’’ Downie says. “IVs not a pleasant situation.’? Downie says he hopes the plan for a second shect will once again come to the fore- front soon. He also points out that if Terrace and Thormhiil’ amalgamated it may be easier for the com- “munity to get government AFTER A super season with oily one Joss and an un- defeated playoff run, Super BM has won the 1997 Ter- race Men’s Soccer League championships. The team went into the playoffs as favourites to win itall and they did just that. After cruising through the round robin, Super BM met United Nations in the scmi finals, There, strong defensive play and a quick offense brought them to a 6- 2 victory. The other semi-final game was a nail-biter, with Home Hardware and Forestry bat- Uing it out in a tough defensive contest. Forestry scored what turned out to be the winning goal halfway through the secend half. But Home FORESTRY FC and Home Hardware battle it out ina Hardware didn’t give up and continued to press. A blocked free-kick near full time scaled Forestry’s 1-0 victory, ‘We tried. our best, but our team wasn’t really up for the game. Super BM played well. They proved they were the best team in the league.”’ — Jacques Corstanje Home Hardware next met United Nations in the con- solation finals, which they took 3-1. That left Super BM and Forestry — the league's top semi-final match of Terrace Men's Soccer. TERRACE’S YOUTH hockey players are back on the ice. But not everyone's happy. Eighteen players had to be cut because of a lack of ice time. grants for the new ice. “It makes sense that it would strengthen the merits and arguments of the proposal,” he says. ‘We would be a larger, united community, It’s a logical argument.'? , In the meantime, local youths will have to deal with long wait Hsts and get- ting up at 4a.m.. “t's really ridiculous compared to just about any- where else,’’ Downie says. ‘*We're in a box here.”’ A total of 407 youths are registered in minor hockey this year. And while Downie says the long wait- lists are disappointing, it looks like it will otherwise bea goad year, ‘We're much _sbelter prepared for the season,’” he says, ‘We've been on the ice “since Labour Day and things are going well.’* A total of six Terrace tournaments are on the Schedule this- year. The young six and seven-year- olds have one in February, the Novices in January, the Adams in March and the PeeWees in December, - There's also a Bantam house and rep tournament over the Christmas holidays, takes men’s title | _ Forestry has to settle for second two teams in regular season play — to vie for the title. Super BM dominated that game to take the championships 3-1, “We tried our best, but our leam wasn’t really up for the game,’ says Jacques Corstanje of Forestry. “Super BM played well. They proved they were the best team in ithe league.” The playoffs were not without controversy, how- ever. Greenville theoretical- ly should have been in the semi-finals. But the league received a complaint that the team had been using ineligible players. Investigation showed that two players on the Greenville team had not paid their fines for receiving red cards. And so, Greenville’s 9-2 win over Park V&M tumed into 21-0 loss. “Tt was not a fun decision, but something needed to be done,” Corstanje says. “And the team took it in stride. They saw their re- sponsibility.”’ The league finished the season with their awards banquet Sept. 20. Jil Rago of Forestry took ihe top goaltender award, while Roger Ewald of Home Hardware was top scorer, Top defensive player went to Rene Maillox of Super BM and most sportsmantike team was Park V&M. _.. Playoff MVP went to Brian Barwise of the Super BM. League organizers are al- ready locking forward to the inaoor season, which starts in a month. * Cal boys look strong THIS COULD be a great fall for our Caledonia’s boys’ soccer team. With seven starters retuming from last year and a field full of experi- enced Grade 12s, 1997 may be a banner year for the squad. “It’s looking really good,”’ says = coach Blaine Kluss, “We have a slrong group here. I’m feeling pretty good about it.’ , Kluss says most of the players has been playing all suramer long as part of the Under-17 select team in Terrace Youth Soccer, That’s given the squad plenty of. practice, And having 15 of 17 players in Grade 12 doesn’t hurt cither — not to mention the MVP from last year’s Williams Lake tournament. It’s a team with lots of depth, Kluss says, but centre full-back Dave Fleming stands ovt from the crowd. “He’s really the heart and soul of the team,” he says, “‘If he’s on his game, everyone picks it up.” Stull, the season won’t be a cakewalk, “We certainly can’t take things too lightly,’’ Kluss says. “Kitimat is usually strong and Smithers is a talented young squad,” Aiyansh rounds out the ZOE, Unfortunately Prince Rupert is not fielding a single squad this year. The ‘short season winds up in November with the. Provinciaty down south.