“program was

“JQ. Terrace Review — Wednesday, April 6, 1988 | |
Like it or not, the ue
sport fishing has changed ~ P.

by Rob Brown

It was 1958. British Columbia
had been celebrating its one
hundredth birthday for three
months, promenades on the lu-
nar landscape were the stuff of
science fiction novels, the air
“was a good deal cleaner than it is
now, and the ozone layer was in-
tact. Uncle Bob and Aunt Irene
had come by earlier and offered
to take the wife and kids on the
weekly shopping expedition to
Woodward’s, thereby giving
Dad the opportunity to do a
little fishing. The tattered vest,
its pockets stiff from a crust of
ancient bait and bulging with
shot, and cork, was flung in the
back seat, while the newly-
acquired fibreglass rod was
threaded through the perilous
front door to the passenger seat
where it would ride next to Dad.

As he crossed the Lion’s Gate
bridge, Dad glanced down at the
kelp beds lining the beaches
along the Stanley Park seawall,
then up. at the snow-capped
Lions set beautifully against the
clear spring skyline. As he left
the toll gate, he caught a glimpse
of the mouth of the Capilano.
He thought of the Cleveland
Dam and for a moment he felt
sad. Melancholy was quickly
- forgotten in the radiance of a

-perfect spring day. The last few
miles of the journey were on a
logging road. The rains had not
done it much good. Dad slowed
down to negotiate the potholes,
ever-mindful of the ufdercar-
riage of the Bel Air.

After parking the car, Dad
walked back a quarter mile,
glanced around to make sure
nobody else was watching, then
darted into the bush. His secret
lie was a guaranteed producer
and he did his utmost to ensure
that it would remain so, There
was no path to the river. Paths
were made by the passage of.
hundreds upon hundreds of
wader-shod feet and that always

meant fewer fish and a race to

Air Canada
award set

Organizers of the Air
Canada’s Heart of Gold Pro-
gram are looking forward to
_ receiving their first nominations
for the award early next month.
The planning for this program
started last fall with represen-
~ tatives from Air Canada and the
~eommunity newspaper associa-

‘tions; Both groups believed a
needed [to
recognize those people in our
country who give service to
-. others.

- Canadian residents 19 years of
age and over who have “*gone

_ the extra mile”’ in their service to
others or their community are
eligible to receive this award.

Your community newspaper
publisher or editor will present a
certificate to all those nominated
and media recognition of these
individuals should continue
throughout the summer. This
fall a selected number of these
— recipients will receive further
recognition at regional award
dinners to be held across
Canada.

Here is the opportunity for
you to officially say ‘“Thank
You’ to those deserving in-
dividuals in your community.
Fill out a nomination form or
simply write a letter to your local
community newspaper,

the river — by comparison, Dad

always welcomed a bushwhack

through the dense underbrush.
When he reached the bank,

Dad found the water a Dit |

clearer than he would have liked
it but at a perfect height. He
baited his hook with a piece of
carefully cured roe, flicked the
lever to put his Silex into
freespool, and began method-
ically covering the upper part of
the run. At the spot where an
almost imperceptible ripple on
the water’s surface indicated a
large subsurface boulder, a fish

took. Dad set the hook firmly -

and precisely. The fish fought
well but in the end was no match
for Dad and the new glass rod.
He slid her on the beach — a
shimmering silver steelhead of
some twelve pounds, not long
out of salt. He admired her for a
moment then killed her. ‘One
for the family,’’ he thought. He
hung her on the limb of an
outstretched alder, washed his
hands, and continued working
his way downstream.

At the very lip of the tail-out
the float disappeared again. In
almost the same instant another
fine steelhead leapt skyward
shaking spray in all directions.
There was a smack as she hit the
water. Dad’s screaming reel and
his whoops of unrestrained

delight echoed in the greening

woods behind him as the fish
sped through the riffle down-
stream, forcing him to follow
awkwardly over the uneven
rock-lined shore. Panting as
much from excitement as from
exertion, Dad finally gained
control. After a few anxious
moments he manoeuvered the
second fish ashore and dispatch-
ed her. ‘*One for poor. Bob,” he
whispered to himself, feeling
sympathy for his brother who,

‘at this very moment was prob-

ably either threading his way
through the aisles of the Food
Floor or trying to amuse the kids
while June and Irene clawed
through racks of dresses.

During his two decades of
steelheading, Dad enjoyed many
a day as fine as this, In the jatter
years of his sportfishing career
though, the fish became harder
to come by, while the competi-
tion of a growing number of
anglers became keener. But
ultimately, it was the stern
regulations imposed by those
conservation-minded fisheries
fellows that made him hang up
his rod. Dad never subscribed to
the notion of letting fish go —
catch and release, as it’s come to
be called. To him there was
something perverse about hurt-
ing a fish at the end of a line and
then letting him go free. Killing
one’s catch was an integral part
of the sport, he argued, it
satisfied a primordial urge
harkening back to the genesis of
the hunt — an angler is a type of
hunter too, after all.

‘Dad’s reasoning is still com-
pelling today. It would, be grand
to return to days when we could
kill all the fish allowed within
the framework of very liberal
limits. What a great feeling it
would be to take all our catch
home, show it to the wife and
kids, and then sit down toa
good feed of fish. Sadly, we can
no longer indulge those appetites

world

of

if we wish to continue enjoying
the many pleasures provided by |

sportfishing. .

As the human biomass has
grown so has the fishing portion
of it. Sportfishing, for example,
is one of the most rapidly grow-

ing sports in North America; if -

everyone holding a license today
killed their limit — even though
that limit has been greatly redu-

ced from that of yesterycar — it ©

is not hard to imagine the con-
siderable dent that force could

put in stocks. But we all know |

that ten percent of the angling
public hooks ninety percent of
the fish —- or do they? There are
some strong indicators to
challenge that old maxim.

When Dad was. at the peak of

his angling skills the techno- -

logical spinoffs of World War

Two were being absorbed by the §
fishing indistry. The new’

monofilament lines, fibreglass
rods and spinning reels were
warmly embraced by Dad and
his contemporaries and they
became more effective fisher-
men as a result. Today the man-
ufacturers of tackle have taken
another large stride thanks to
space program spinoffs. Now we
have graphite rods weighing a
fraction of their glass pre-
decessors, tools capable of
casting great distances, uncan-
nily sensitive to the slightest sub-
surface vibration. We have reels
with digital readouts, neoprene
waders to stand the coldest of
climes, and state-of-the-art
wading brogues, studded and

felt-soled .against slippage. -§
‘Forget those ‘old ‘dull Mustads,

for now we have laser-sharpened
irons which will stick into your
thumbnail before ever seeing 4
file, All this and more has come
to pass. If you’d told Dad thirty
years ago, when Uncle Milty and
Our Miss Brooks were vying for
top spot on newly-marketed
television sets, that fishermen
would someday be able to pur-
chase video cassettes [to be
shown on their TVs, and that
these videos would show neo-
phytes how and where
trophy steelhead with dry flies
on the Babine River, he would

have suspected you of smoking *

Mary Jane.

Where the men who fished
alongside Dad had to pay some
considerable streamside dues to
become polished performers, to-
day’s beginner can become an
effective catcher of fish in a sur-
prisingly short time. Accessibili-
ty has also made today’s fish
more vulnerable. The modern

devotee travels to the stream or _

lake via routes that didn’t exist
in Dad’s day, and when the go-
ing gets tough he shifts his
pickup into four wheel drive and
bulls his way through roads that
would have swallowed the Old
Man’s Chev.

Like it or not, high tech and a
changing world have “brought
about a situation where the
sportsman is capable of doing
severe damage

steelhead and salmon we have
these options: we may emulate

Dad and quit fishing; we may —

wipe out remnant runs left us by
the commercial fishery; or we
may embrace catch and release
for the majority of our fishing.

NN a a

Heritage Park is now open only for arranged tours. For more Intorma-

tion, call 635-4546 or 635-2508.

Jim at 635-3995.

Oddfellow Lodge Meetings are held every second and fourth Monday
each month at 8 p.m. For more information and membership contact

to catch’

to what is left of .
the runs. When it comes to °

CHURCH
DIRECTORY |

Sacred Heart Catholic Church

Mass Times: Pastor:
Saturday: 7:30 p.m. Fr. Allan F. Noonan
Sundays: 9:00 a.m. O.M.1.

11:00 a.m.
f 4830 Straume Avenue

635-2313

St. Matthew’s Anglican Episcopal Church

Sunday Services: Rector Rev.:
9am. & 11 a.m. Sheila Champion

Sunday Schoo! classes are held during the 9 a.m. service. Child care is

ovailoble during the 9 a.m. service. .
635-9019

f 4506 Lakelse Avenue

Christ Lutheran Church
Sunday School and
| Adult Class:
9:45 a.m. Sunday Worship:
11:00 a.m.

3229 Sparks Street 635-5520

Terrace Seventh-Day Adventist Church
Sabbath School: Pastor:
Saturday 9:30 a.m. Ole Unruh — 635-7313
Divine Service: Prayer Meeting:
Saturday 11:00 a.m. Wednesday 7:00 p.m.

3306 Griffiths 635-3232 |

oo Bvangelical Free Church

Sunday School: Pastors:
(for all ages) Jim Westman
9:45 am. Gordon Froese"

Sunday Services: Prayer Meeting:
8:30 a.m. / 11:00 a.m. Wed. 7:00 p.m.
6:30 p.m. _
3302 Sparks Street 635-5115
Knox United Church
Sunday Worship: Minister:
10:30 a.m. Stan Bailey
Sunday School: Youth Group:
= 10:30 a.m. 6:30 p.m. _
A 4907 Lazelle Ave. 635-6014

Terrace Pentecostal Assembly

Early Service: Pastor: Assoc. Pastor:
8:30 a.m. — John Caplin Len Froese
Sunday School: Prayer Time:
10:00 a.m. 600 p.m. —
Morning Service: Evening Service:
‘11:15 a.m. 6:30 p.m.
9511 Eby Street 635-2434

| The Alliance Church
Family Bible School: —

- Pastor:
9:45 a.m. Rick Wiebe
| Divine Worship: Fellowship Service
11:00 a.m. 6:30 p.m.

All are cordially invited
Youth Ministries * Home Bible Studies x

4923 Agar Avenue

Visitation

635-7727

The Salvation Army
Sunday Services:

9:30 a.m. Christian Education (all ages)
11:00 a.m. Holiness Meeting 7:00 p.m. Salvation Meeting
For Further Information call

635-6480

4643 Walsh Avenue

Christian Reformed Church

m Sunday Services: Pastor:
f itam. &5 p.m. Peter Sluys — 635-2621
Coffee Break, Ladies’ Bible Study

Wednesdays 9:45 a.m. & 7:45 p.m.
Back-to-God hour Sundays-9:90 p.m. on CJFW-FM radio. .

3602 Sparks 635-6173