Every year a small party of piscators treat themselves to an ‘exotic’fishing week anywhere on the globe (except my idea of a trip to Lake Nasser to fish for Nile Perch was vetoed on grounds that we might get kidnapped by friends of Osama Bin Laden) Last year it was Cuba for bonefish and tarpon, before that Alaska for rainbows and sockeyes. Yes we’ve done the Kola peninsular and Iceland.
It was determined that 2008 was to be the year of the Steelhead-the magnificent migratory rainbow which goes up to 20lb.I’ve heard magnificent tales of Errol Flynn who used to make a pilgrimage every year to the Rogue River in Oregon to fish for steelheads-perhaps we should have gone there. We were to fish for steelheads during the first week of May in British Columbia, about 200 miles north of Vancouver.
So off we went to Terminal 5 where we got through the airport procedures brilliantly only to wait in the plane for 3 hours on the runway. Good old BA.
When we got to Vancouver we had the whole morning and half the afternoon to ourselves before we flew north to the top of Vancouver island to a small town called Port Hardy. So, being a tourist, I did what all tourists do and read the ‘what to do in Vancouver’ booklet I found in the Hotel room. My eyes quickly spotted the words ‘salmon hatchery’ so I got in a cab and went there-only 15 minutes north of Vancouver itself on the Capilano River.
The hatchery was in the suburbs just below a large dam on the Capilano, a lovely river about the size of the Findhorn which had good fishing down to the sea to which it flows for about 4 miles through suburban North Vancouver and the fishing for salmon, in season, excellent.
The hatchery was modern and had excellent exhibits and information about the fish that ran the river, Cohos, Chinnook and, of course, steelheads. The two best exhibits were the glass sided fish ladder which featured three weary steelheads and 600,000 coho parr in a series of tanks, one with a glass side.
There was a plaque on the wall which gave the estimated number of fish that the hatchery produced and the estimated number that would reach maturity and return to the river or get caught on the ocean. These numbers were 60,000 coho,5000 chinooks and 352 steelhead. It then hit me that we were in for a tough time.
That afternoon we flew to Port Hardy where we were met by Tyler in his helicopter. We flew eastwards to Nimmo Bay. I don’t know exactly where Nimmo Bay is since it is too small to be featured on any of the maps I saw. The lodge there is 5 star with excellent wooden chalets and a floating lodge with a bar, lounge and dining room. On the walls there were the obligatory replica monster Chinooks. The excellent Georgia and her staff. looked after us-great food and huge portions. We were the only ones there so although we got excellent service we realised that steelheads didn’t attract as many punters as salmon fishing did in September.
Fraser, Georgia’s brother and the son of the owner ran the proceedings and fitted us up to survive the rain and chilly weather, the rods from Grey thus made by Hardy and the rest equipment was excellent also.
So off we went with Tyler over the snowy peaks and forests of spruce and hemlock to search for steelheads with Perry our ghillie and creator of his own steelhead flies. They looked very much like Ali Shrimps but were purple, pink, black or yellow-his favourite colour was purple.
The country had no roads except the odd logging tracks-evidently the logs were lifted out by giant helicopters so you can only get to the rivers by much smaller helicopters.
We dropped down through the trees onto a gravel spit and disembarked to try and catch an elusive steelhead with our purple Alis. 
We only got one fish on the first day-a rainbow of about 3 lbs-an absolutely magnificent looking fish-bright colours and a streamline shape. We got a few fish the next day-rainbows between 1-3lbs.
The next day we went to another river where we landed on a gravel spit by a large, deep pool strewn with logs and uprooted trees. We fished the pool with fly and spinner-and suddenly things perked up. One of the group was into something big-alas on the spinner. It was a steelhead of about 15lbs and a beauty-it looked like a huge rainbow with a salmon’s head. We put him back and then had some fun with resident rainbows and Dolly Vardens (migratory char) on both fly and spinner. 
We went back to the same pool the next day but didn’t repeat our good fortune. We actually saw some steelheads scampering for cover as the helicopter descended onto the gravel but these must have been spooked-Perry reckoned that the fish think the helicopter is an eagle. On the subject of wild life we saw a grizzly and several black bears-these are a threat to the extent Tyler always carried a Winchester pump action 12 bore and Perry a Colt 44. We were told never to stray from the sight of the ghillies. We saw several eagles and there were wolves, coyotes and cougar in the forests as well. 
So we only caught one steelhead between the four of us-but what an experience. When we got back to Heathrow they put our luggage on the wrong carousel. Good old BAA.
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