On account of my upcoming nuptials, last weekend marked a bachelor party of sorts. Since I’m not a typical guy (by which I mean, I don’t drink or smoke at all), it was a bit of a challenge to think up a suitable venue for such a party, but it eventually came to me: Fly Fishing. I’d never been fly fishing before, at least not that I recall, so I thought it would be a great way to spend a weekend before the wedding at the end of September. My best man (whom I will call “Other Kevin”) took point on planning out the itinerary and fly fishing destinations, as he’s an experienced fly fisherman (having even contributed to a book on the subject). Two of my friends were able to come along for the trip, Jordan and Rich, and we were set for a great weekend.

We ended up getting freshwater licenses in Victoria, prior to heading up-island after work on Friday for the trip. Saturday morning, we packed up the Tahoe and headed to North Vancouver Island to Other Kevin’s top-secret fishing destination. On the way, we stopped to get some extra flies so we wouldn’t run out, and then grabbed some breakfast at white spot. After a not-so-brief stop at a Campbell River shopping centre to try and find wading gear for Jordan and Rich, we hit the road for the long trek to our secret destination. (I may be mis-remembering the chronological order of all that … guess it’s not that important, though)



Once we arrived at the secret fishing location, Other Kevin showed us the basics of fly casting and gave us some strategy hints for attracting fish. He told us that because we were fishing for spawning Chinook salmon in a river, we weren’t actually trying to make the flies look appetizing; rather, we were trying to make them look like interlopers so that the fish would attack to defend their spawning areas.

Although I had listened intently, I ended up being virtually unable to apply the teachings to my actual technique. However, being outdoors is half the fun of fishing trips, and nature was determined not to disappoint us on this trip. We saw quite a collection of fauna on the river, and I managed to get some illustrative (but not necessarily artistic) photographs. Starting with an eagle flyby that I tried to quickly snap a picture of, nature paraded creatures of all kinds. Rich even got a photo of a frog, although I don’t think he’s uploaded it anywhere yet. I had waders on, and at one point I waded in pretty deep to free up one of Jordan’s adventuresome flies – I snapped a quick pic of the water and the opposite bank of the river (it might not be all that interesting, but I like it).

As I returned to the shore from rescuing Jordan’s line, I noticed that Other Kevin was trying to get our attention – and as you can see above, I soon found out why. Rich was stalking a giant elk that turned up! He was trying to get as close as possible to it for a great photo.

Following the elk sighting, we had the first (and as it later turned out, only) landed fish of the day – Other Kevin successfully fought a long battle with a very large Chinook before getting it to the shore … whereupon we grabbed a few photos and then he released it. Catch and release – the most sporting of sport fishing endeavours.

Shortly after that, Rich (who was fishing further down-river than the rest of us) announced that he had seen a bear. He quickly hauled back to the main group, for safety reasons, and we eventually started making our way back to the truck. On the way back, we stopped and chatted with some other fishermen – it turned out that one of them was from the same area as Other Kevin, which was neat. I snapped a photo of his reel, since I thought it looked particularly colourful, and then we continued back to the truck. As we were packing up the truck, I spotted yet another bear across the river. This time, Rich was prepared with his telephoto lens on his DSLR, so he got some great shots of that one as it fished.

Once packed up, we headed back to Campbell River, ostensibly to get some food. After stopping in Gold River for snacks, we found that we weren’t very hungry by the time we got to Campbell River. The solution? To fish until the hunger hit. We pulled up to the BC Heritage building, the former home of conservationist Roderick Haig-Brown, and asked the caretaker if we could fish the river from the area in front of the house. She graciously gave us her blessings, and we proceeded to see what we could catch. We ended up not getting very many bites, but we did get to see our *third* bear of the day. After we wrapped up the fishing due to the coming darkness, the caretaker extended an invitation to us to tour the study that belong to Haig-Brown. Never ones to pass up a photo opportunity, all four of us jumped at the chance, and had a great time learning a bit of the history of the BC conservationist movement and a local fly fishing legend.

All in all, I think it was a great way to spend a bachelor party type outing – and what stag party is complete without seeing an actual stag, am I right? We capped the night off with some delicious pizza and video games, but ended up heading to bed much earlier than expected due to being quite exhausted from the long day.

My thanks go out to Other Kevin, for planning and organizing the trip, and to Jordan and Rich for coming along and helping make it as fun as it was. And, erm, my apologies to Rich (again) for accidentally slamming his fingers in the car door on that Friday night – it was dark and I didn’t realize his hand was there. He says the weather stripping softened the blow, but I still feel bad about it.