B4 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, February 16, 2005

638-7283

MARGARET SPEIRS

SKEENA ANGLER 7

ROB BROWN .

a Adventures with a long rod

y brand ..spanking . new .. Hardy .

‘15-foot double-handed fly rod
with’ its rubber-tipped silver butt |

piece; nicely .turned handle, and

mo, dark purple windings, was an impressive pole.

Ho I forced the Salmon #1, another Hardy product
(and the only winch I could find capable of holding
the 40 yards of 10-weight double tapered fly line
and enough 30 pound backing line for security) into -
its reel seal.

* Tran my right hand along the ridges of the blank,
unsanded, according to its “manufacturer, to retain |
as much strength as ‘possible, then proceeded to run —

~ the fine through the guides. This proved to be a:ma-
jor operation that required putting my precious and
pricey reel at risk upon the rocky shore bordering

De
- the Pasture Run. THE RIVER KINGS took on. the Houston Luckies in front of a a packed house of raucous 3 fans in 1 their first playoff game on Feb. 5. Despite

That-task.complete, | patted myself down to lo- ;
. Ne omy , taking the lead right away- and superb goaltending from Burny Carlsen, they. couldn't pull it out and lost the game 7-2.
cate the fly box containing my crudely tied facsimi- MARGARET SPEIRS PHOTO

les of fully-dressed Atlantic salmon flies Pd tied.

~ specially: for the inaugural Outing of the new rod.

. The oblique rays of the:newly-risen summer sun « ive r .¢ ne is’ u Nn lu Ck lay OT e ut
‘caught the butts, tails, tags, tips and tinscled bodies |.

‘of my ersatz Silver Hiltons, Durham Rangers, and...

CC a a a 2 a 2 or rs

Jock Scotts in-all their resplendent radiance. They 7 By MARGARET SPEIRS best periods of hockey, I ve seen “(this season). months and it show ed, especially i inthe third,” he
glittcred like mad:. . ; RIVER KINGS proved to be umucky during their After two periods, the score was a close 3-2 said. ‘ :
I stared at them, proud as the proverbial pea- first semifinal playoff game Feb. 5 and then Houston began scoring including “A Penalties played a big factor, but couldn’ tbe
cock that had provided so much material for their _ The team came out strong, scoring within the few tough goals were scored against us that I.” blamed for all their mistakes.
construction, taking longer {o select one because of first three minutes, showing good defence against don"t think should've went in.”. “We had our chances on the power play, lots
_ that, and because I had no criteria upon which to ~ Houston, and playing hard for the first two peri- ~ Hendry said it was disappointing to have the of chances. and that was the biggest thing, we
_base a selection. “ ods, only to have it fall apart in the third, leaving — lead from the start and then lose it. | just weren't clicking on the power play.” Hendry.
After a while { chose an Orange Parson, not real- them with a ‘Ie loss. - Soston rn lwo i) goals m said.
- izing then that | was dooming the poor cleric to a Dareey Allison and Dav ey Jones scored the W ould! ve made a difference had they misse A {ull house of fans cheering them-on kept the
painful déath ‘against the rocks behind me‘because. . River Kings only goals. - Hendry said. River Kings going.
other than the fact that it couldn't be cast with one “We were playing well,” coach Trevor Hendry ' By the third, the River Kings tired and their. River Kings going .
hand, I knew nothing of the casting mechanics re- said. play started falling apart “The fans were wonderlul. All year the fans
“The first two periods were probably the two “We haven't had a practice in a couple of — have been great,” he said. .

quired to aerialize that fat line and flex my lofty

pole. : . ; ee
Alter all, how hard could it be, | persuaded my- h O r Nn h | | | G rad e 8 overt Be Cred Uns .

self, to make a routine back cast. and send the fly ny Lvs a

out overhead, as I'd done a million times with lesser ' . ee

rods. The scale was larger, that’s all. Q | r| S take SeCCO a] d
But I soon discovered it was more than that.

Overhead casting with the long rod demanded dif- By MARGARET SPEIRS

ferent rhythms. I lashed the river with the tan line. THORNHILL GRADE 8 girls dribbled, shot and scored

After a few poor attempis the Parson's vestments their way to second spot ina tourney co-hosted with Skeena

were in shreds; after.a few more, 1 lost touch with on Feb. 4.

him altogether. ; J” The team’s 2-1 record wasn’t enough to overtake unde-
A ‘couple of Jock Scotts later, | was forced to feated Kitimat’s 3-0. ;

admit that my-debut was a bust. I'd been at it for the The. marquee game featured Thornhill and Mount Eliza-

_better part of an hour and I was now able to put out beth, who narrowly slipped by with a 29-26 win.

* 40, maybe 50, feet of fly line for all my,labours, but “It Was a good, close game,” said Thornhill Jr. principal
I] hadn’t made anything bearing even a pale resem- Dighton Haynes. .
blance to an elegant cast, ‘Camellia Brown and Krista Materi Were Thornhill’s top
° -Even worse my shoulders hurt and my right arm scorers In every game.

throbbed from my exertions. ; The Junior girls travelled to Hazelton and topped two of

Twas standing ankle-deep in the shallows at- their three games.

tempting to decide whether my arms:were up to They beat Smithers’ Ebenezer christian school 36-30 in

the rigours of more exploratory casting or whether double overtime with Stephanie Shuster as top scorer.

to admit defeat..go home and regroup. when | was They won their second game 48-39 and Megan Rogers

startled by the sound of a voice behind me. was Lops in hoops. ~ aor . , a i}

& s that 2 Ny rod? ne ashen : 4 . The third game went to Hazelton. _ TERRACE’S midget girls volleyball team took home gold from the Northern BC
turned to meet the speaker. He was a young Winter Games. The team had its picture taken with Premier Gordon ‘Campbell at
min with a faint mustache. wearing a t-shirt, jeans

the opening ceremonies. CONTRIBUTED PHOT
and past tes a.casting rod that looked positively OTO

“SNE iam || Sports Menu _| Local athletes net

The roar rot the “api below us had masked the

noise of his approach. He could have been watch- ™ Feb 19
ing my awkward travails for some tinie, A wave of: BC Seniors Games Zone 10 hosts its regular monthly . en e 23 S at I

embarrassment washed over me. meeting at 1:30 p.m. in the Happy Gang Centre. New

“It's not. very sporting is it?” he ventured, nol members are welcome. Call Betty at 635-3352 for into. NORTHERN BC Winter Games Athletes Figure skaters lopped the medal count
unkindly. ; @ Feb 20 returned home with a handful of hardware grabbing seven of the 10.

“They fish “em a lot in Britain,” | said indirectly. f Come out to enjoy the Terrace Skating Club’s pop showing their dedication to sport. and Terrace’s midget girls volleyball team .
thén hastily packed off wishing him good luck. : concert from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. \ willingness to work hard to achieve their “topped — their division. bringing — Back

For the next few: weeks [built up my biceps ~ dreams last week. -a gold medal after beating host. Dawson

without attaining much casting prowess, but learn- Terrace competitors snared. five gold Creek in the quarter-finals, Fort St. John in

‘ing to execute a-decent overhead cast at least. S _O rl N e ( ‘ny anc eS ~_medals.-two silvers and three bronzes from. the semi-finals and Prince George in the fi-

I'd heard that the Scots had invented a special “the four- day event 10 help the Kitimat-Sti- nal.

way of manipulating their long rods and knew it kine region We for fourth in the standings The women’s hockey team scored bronze
" was akin to roll casting. but though I could roll out) fF Q| U d e bantam S with 40 medals. and the juvenile mixed curling rink brought
more line on the Hardy than I could on my single . Bulkley-Nechako also netted 40 medals. back bronze.
shanded rods. the Way a roll-cast rolls out on the wae | SEVERAL opportunities to score presented themselves for
ter instead of above it was unappealing. There had the bantam reps in Prince Rupert Feb. 4. but they couldn't
to be more to iL. quite put the puck past the posts. . .
Months later | meta Belgian on the Skeena, who Terrace bantam reps were shut out of their first game 3-0.
told me that, though he didn’t have a two-fisted rod “We outshot them, we just ran into a pretty good goalie.”
himself. he'd fished salmon in Scotland and, had said coach John Amos, adding that the Rupert nel “minder
seen the indigenous, anglers wield them impres- also goal tends for the Under-16 team.
sively. The second game was close, but Terrace lost 4-3.
I begeed him to show me. Assuring me that he -Amos said one example could sum up the whole week-
really didn’t know how to do it properly, he said end,
he'd do his best to approximate the moves. Where- Alex Redpath raced the goalie for the puck and won, but
upon he picked up the Hardy and performed an Missed the empty net by about two inches.
awkward aerialized roll cast off his right shoulder “That's just the way it was going to be.” Amos said.
then attempted lo propel the line forward and Tas- Although the teand was missing top defence play cr Al-
soed himself in the process. exa Grant, who was in Dawson Creek for the Northern BC
I began working the Belgian’s conceptintoacred- Winter Games, Amos doesivt think her presence would've
ible form. There was more to it. ] was sure. butina Po chaneed the outcome.
time before search engines information on suchanar- “They played all right. They've just got lo start putting , Seo :
cane subjects was all but impossible to find. the puck in the net when they get the opportunity.” he said. JAMIE PENNER, far left, Ashley Thandi, Janet Lewis and Kelsey Wilcox skated in
Continued next week. “We need atucky bounce one of these days.” the Northwest BC Winter Games in Dawson Creek Feb. 3 to 6. SUBMITTED PHOTO
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