“SKEENA ANGLER ..
ROB BROWN

Steelhead Bob

he brilliant orange top of the balsa
float stood out like a traffic light
against the green foliage drooping
down to the water to the right of the
Middle Patch. It bobbed. It drifted. It
disappeared, darting down like a diving duck
after a minnow. [ lifted the rod, sending a jolt
down the line that sent a steelhead into the air
in a shower of spray. It leapt once, twice, ran to
the faster water in the tail, and leapt again.

Webb, sitting behind me, a fiyrod in one hand,
a sandwich he’d just started in the other, stood
to get a better view when another fisherman
broke through the curtain of dense shrubbery be-
hind him.

Assuming from his gear that Doug was a kin-
dred spirit, and, therefore, not partnered up with
me, the fellow began to deride the fact that I
was using a casting rod and a lure.

“Nope,” he announced in a stentorian voice,
so I might have opportunity to hear his lofty opi-
nion, “we don’t need any of these dingers on
this river.” As Webb turned crimson, he went on
about the evils of hardware as if he’d invented
the fly rod and angling ethics along with it,

As I released the acrobatic fish and returned to
shore, the man disappeared into the brush.

“I’m using a barbless hook, J released the fish.
What's his problem?” I said. Webb shrugged.
The irony of the situation was that I was using a
gooey bob and float fishing gear to find the best
lies so that Webb and I could have a better

-L..chance.to.catch them. with floating flies...

‘aE Hisewas- my: first encounter: with Steelhead
;a/B0b..The second occurred very early on a misty
Kispiox morn early in the season, when almost
nobody was fishing the river. Roger Bligh and I
had stumbled onto the fact that the run before us
was full of newly returned steelhead. We had
just crawied from our trucks, confident that we
had this particular part of the river to ourselves
when a pickup roared up. Steelhead Bob spilled
out, fully suited up, grabbed his rod out of the
box with one hand, pulled a smali rubber boat
out with the other. As Roger ] stood dumbfoun-
ded, Steelhead Bob jogged past us, flopped the
boat in the water, rowed to the other side and
flailed his way down the run. “We’ve been
scaoped,” said Roger.

Steelhead Bob, I learned, was an USAmerican
who made his living fishing a gillnetter in the
Alaskan fleet, a jab which enabled him to make
a boot full of money in a short time so that he
could devote the entire fall and part of the win-
ter pursuing steelhead. Steelhead Bob was fe-
verishly obsessed - driven by some primordial
urge to catch a lot of steelhead, one of them a
world record,

Deep in delirium brought on by steelhead
fever, Steelhead Bob had to try every river just
in case it proved to be the next steelheading
Shangri-la, In order to sample a new prospect,
no risk was too great.

Biologist Bob Hooton told me of helicoptering
into a number of far flung and supposedly unex-
plored wild rivers to see if they harboured
steelhead. Bob had the pilot set the machine
down on a sandbar on one of the remotest
streams. Soon after the props stopped spinning,
the crew heard the whine of an outboard. A jet
boat appeared. As it roared by, Hooton caught a
glimpse of its pilot. It was Steelhead Bob.

When he heard that the Douglas Channel had
spring run steelhead rivers feeding it, Steelhead
Bob towed his tin boat over a thousand miles
then set out solo on stormy seas so common to
that area in March. He broke down, and re-
turned, lucky to have his ass still attached.

Like all hardcore steelheading zealots, Steel-
head Bob, would have fished year round, given
the opportunity, When winter brought the curtain
down, Steelheading bachelor Bob made for
Mexico to dally with senoritas there. One winter
Bob was bar fishing in a small town near the
border and made a cast for a comely senorita
who, it turned out, had already been hooked,

The dalliance led to a brutal fight that turned
into a near death experience for Steelhead Bob.
His leg was broken so badly that he was still on
crutches when he arrived to fish fabled Thomp-
son steelhead the next fall. Now, the Thompson
is famous for its slimy treacherous bottom, To
fish the river and survive to tell about it, a wad-
ing staff and aluminum cleated wading over-
shoes are mandatory. Steelhead Bob didn’t use
a staff that year. He managed to pull his waders
over tis cast and wade. about on crutches.

The last time I] saw steelhead Bob he was
playing a fish at Kitwanga. He'd hooked it at
the head of the run. He was still chasing it half
a mile down river, whooping and hollering, just
in case Mike and I hadn’t noticed.

“Maybe it's a world tecord,” I suggested.
“With Steelhead Bob,” said Mike, “you can

never tell,”

Sports
scope

Cal hoop
team nabs
fourth

CALEDONIA’S girls
basketball team re-
cently picked up a
fourth place finish at a
tournament in Ketchi-
kan, Alaska.

The Jan. 10-12
tourney saw the Ter-
race team lose their
first game to Craig,
Alaska by a close
margin of 40-43.

They went on to
win against Wrangell,
Alaska 41-31 and in
the consolation final
they defeated host
team Ketchikan by a
whopping 64-33,

Gillian Gook was
selected to the All-
Tournament Team.

’ Gook, Leah Malo and

Laura Seaton were
also recognized for
their academic and
athletic excellence.

Mary Rauter

Rauter wins

top honour

for fair play

MARY Rauter came
home smiling after
the banquet that
closed the 2002 B.C.
Senior Ladies Curling
Championships here
two weeks ago.

She was given the
Lottie Hill Memorial
Award for being
voted most sparts-
manlike player by the
women in the event.

Rauter is on the
Lynn Apolezer rink
who represented the
horth zone at the pro-
vincials.

“Twas just
thrilled,” Rauter said
of the award. “It is
quite an honour.”

TERRACE STANDARD |

638-7283

THE McDougall rink is all geared up for the B. C. Interior playdowns Jan. 17-19. That's Lead Mitch Griffith,
Second John Evans, Third Duane Melanson and Skip Kevin McDougall. SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN PHOTO.

McDougall set for interior finals

By SARAH A.
ZIMMERMAN
KEVIN McDougall is feeling confi-
dent. This weekend his men's curling
rink is off to Kamioops to play in the
B.C. Interior Curling Association
(BCICA) playdowns.

“I think we’ve got as good a
chance as any other team,” said
local Skip McDougall. “I’ve played
against a few of the other zone win-
ners before and we can compete
with them no problem,”

The interior playdowns are just

one step away from ‘the provincial

men’s championship. .

McDougall joins five other zone
winners from Vernon, Kamloops,
Kimberly, Prince George and Fruit-
vale competing in a round robin for-
mat Jan. 2'7-29.-The winner from the
round robin wins a berth at the men’s
championship.

That same weekend six other
zone winners join 10 qualifiers from

the BCICA Interior Bonspiel to de-
termine the final three qualifiers to
the provincial championship.

The McDougall rink earned its
spot in Kamloops at the northwest
zone playdowns in Prince Rupert

“I've played against a
few of the other zone win-
ners before and we can
compete with them no
problem.”

agi

Jan. I. 13.

It was a hard fought battle seeing
the McDougall rink face a tough
Smithers Judzentis rink in three se-
parate and very close games.

Terrace’s first game against the
Gord Judzentis rink went to an extra
end with McDougall taking it,

Their second game against the

Smithers rink went 10 ends with Jud-
zentis winning that one. It was Mc-
Dougall’s only loss of the playdowns.

And it was Smithers who McDou-
gall and his team Third Duane Me-
Janson, Second John Evans, and
Lead Mitch Griffith, met in the final,

“It was a really clase game the
whole way,” McDougall said.
“Playing the tenth end we were all
tied up coming home with the
hammer.”

Judzentis spent the tenth end
guarding a rock on the button but
didn’t quite. cover it with his. last

_ rock leaving it:open for: McDougall
to hit and roil out for the win.

“This weekend is bound to provide
stiff competition but McDougail isn’t
letting the pressure of the event get
to him.

“We'll just go down and make
our shots, that’s just about all that
we can do until we really get into
it,” McDougall said.

X-country
skiers
glide to
success

THE Onion Lakes ski trails
were buzzing with activity
Jan. 20 as cross country
skiers from around the
northwest competed in the
Kitimat Open.

Over fifty skiers took
part in the one to 7.5 kilo-
metre races,

good turn out of young
skiers at this year’s race,

nS SS

a Talking strategy

THE TERRACE Nisga’a Spirit Riders are less than two weeks away from
the All Native Basketball Tournament in Prince Rupert Feb, 3-9, The local
women picked up a second place finish at last year's tournament and are
hoping to make it to the finals again this year. SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN PHOTO.

By all accounts the
event was success. This
coming Sunday Onion
Lakes features Men's and
Women's Day from 8:30
a.m. to 7 p.m.

There was an especially .

SITFING 6 points
out of first place,
both Team Red
and Blue looked
to narrow. the
Team White lead
for top spot in
Week 14 of the
Midget House
Hockey season.
The week's
first match-up

featured Team |,

Blue against
Team White. In
their previous
meeting, Blue

AT THE ARENA.
TYLER NOBLE

Blue got on the board shortly into the
third, At 18:45, Devon Mercer capitalized on a
White turnover in their end and made no
mistake. Team White bounced back with Ey-
jolfson picking up his second goal at 7:57.

Team White felt quite comfortable until
2:19 when Blue’s Branden Green scored to
narrow the score to 4-2, With their goaltender
out for the extra attacker, Blue pressed to get
a couple more goals in the dying minutes. But
with 1:25 to go, Ken Eyjolfson picked up the
puck in the neutral zone and drove it into the
open goal to cap of his hat trick. Eric Eide
added another for Blue with 29 seconds left,
but it wouldn’t matter as White went on to
dump Blue by a score of 5-3.

Blue returned to the ice Tuesday night to

Eyjolfson hat tricks keep White on top

back in front.

In the third, Red lied the game at 3 when
Sean Casper set up Shawn Barg for his 10th of
the season. But at 9:15 Blue went in front for
good on a goal from Kristian. Eric’ Eide and
Ryan Beaulieu added goals for Blue late in
the period, as they deafeated Team Red, 6-3.

In the Thursday night game Team Red fin-
ally picked up a win against Team White, and
won in a big way. Jon Sarsiat led the way with
a hat trick as Team Red blew away Team
White in a 10-3 decision, Ken Eyjolfson scored
the three goals for Team White. Red had
pounded on White earlier in the season, win-
ning an 11-2 game Oct. 30.

With each team picking up a win and a loss
in Week 14, league standings remain the

downed White 4-1 in what was a great defen-
sive game. White took to the ice on Monday
night looking for a victory this time around.

In the first, Ken Eyjolfson opened the scor-
ing for Team White at 10:36 to put his team
up 1-0. The score stayed there until the sec-
ond, when Ryan Nixon scored at 4:01 to give
White a 2-0 lead. Shortly after that, Dan Mat-
thews picked up his 4th goal of the season for
Team White. Through 2 periods it was all
White, with the score 3-0,

take on Team Red. Team Blue opened the
scoring at 10:33 as Brandon Green set up
Adam Legge who was on the doorstep to pick
up his first goal of the season. Al.2:41 of the
opening frame, Blue siruck again as Chris
Schlenker scared his 11th of the season.
Team Red got on the board in the second
when Hesten Sturko scored at 9:49, Red ‘tied
it up at.7:21 on a goal from Sean Mahoney.
The game only remained tied until 2:38 of the
period when Branden Green scored to pit Blue

same. Team White sits on top with 32 points,
while Red and Blue are still tied for second
place with 26 points.

To take in the fast-paced action of Midget
House Hockey go to the Terrace Arena Mon-
days and Thursdays at 9:15 p.m. and Tuesdays —
at 7:45 p.m.

Player. of the Week: Team White forward :
Ken Eyjolfson who picked up a hat trick in 2
consecutive games for a total of 6 boals in.
Week 14,