Stories by Scott

 In early August, my son mentioned that he and two buddies were returning to the Elk River valley for their annual elk hunt. I threw out a "Hey, can I tag along and fish while you guys hunt?", half expecting that three mid to late twenties young men would not want a dumb old dad in the tent with them for a week. Turns out I was wrong! After we set up the wall tent and stove, felled a dead tree and chopped enough firewood for the week, I joined the hunters for a evening scouting trip as we glassed the slopes for game. What we saw amazed me. In the span of an hour, after glassing both sides of the valley, we saw a band of mountain goat, several deer and elk, a sow grizzly and two cubs, a solitary boar grizzly , and a black bear. I've never seen a grizzly in the wild (never mind four) nor have I seen a mountain goat (never mind a band). It was like I was watching a Nat Geo special and I was stunned at the vast diversity of wildlife in just the couple of slopes that we glasse...

 After fly fishing East Kootenays streams for the first time in August 2021, I described it as "changing my life". That might seem a little silly, but it really shifted the trajectory of my angling experience. This summer, my second trip to the region was a five day blast: two days of driving and just three days of fishing. We were fishing a small stream that was recommended to me on the q.t.. It was off the beaten path, far from paved roads and towns, but it offered just what I was after: small stream, low pressure, good numbers of fish and a chance at bigger ones.  Michel Creek could wait! Day one we got a late start. It was smoking hot as we fished a couple of kms of the lower reaches of the stream. After a year of not having dry fly fished in streams, it felt like it took the first day or two to shake out the cobwebs and find my groove. The fish were super interested in any dries we drifted. No hatch was apparent and nymphing produced some fish too. The lightbulb came on ...

I  knew this day would come, and I’ve been dreading it, but I didn’t think it would come in such a sudden and horrific way (Caution: what follows may be as tough to read as it is to write..) Finn, our 13 yr old border collie/shelti cross was a delight and was loved by our broader family. But he was my dog; he would follow me around the house, and lie down outside my home office door.  God, I loved him to bits.   We moved to South Surrey last week and he was introduced to the house this past Friday. Yesterday (Sunday) he got outside through a door that I left open while we gone.  He didn’t know the neighbourhood and must have gotten disoriented as he explored his new surroundings. We searched for hours last night and learned this morning that he had most likely been hit on the BNSF tracks below the bluff. My son and I went down and found him between the rails, mangled, but remarkably, alive, but barely. He gave a little yelp as we neared. We carried him in a blanket o...

Although I've been fishing for years, and flyfishing for the last 20, most of my flyfishing has been on a lake, one trip a year.  Fishing moving water appeals to me more than still waters, and in  the past several years I've started flyfishing streams and rivers more often. As I've done so, a fishing trip to the East Kootenay region of BC to fish streams for westslope cutthroat became a goal of mine. With a new truck in the driveway, I finally had the vehicle that I could trust to make the trip.   Aug 17, Day 1 Awoke to pouring rain, a heavy rainfall warning, and 7 degrees C.    So cold, I could see my breath and so wet, the Elk River rose 1 ft today. Not the weather I was envisioning when I was preparing for the trip! Initially, it wasn’t my intent to fish Michel Creek much. I’ve read about how busy it is and how some fish show mutilations from so much catch and release and how some of you no longer fish it, but I did want to see what all the fuss was abou...