I first started fly fishing with my father when I was 8 or 9 years old on 3 mountain lakes:  Bolean, Arthur, and Spa Lake above Falkland B.C.  I consider these lakes as our family lakes since my great uncles built a cabin on Arthur Lake prior to any roads being constructed on the mountain.  To get there was a 2 hour grueling hike up the mountain and of course all supplies (windows, doors, woodstoves) were brought up by horse back. 

It was my uncles Alf and Emil who first stocked fish in Spa lake by hauling them in a cream can on horseback from Arthur lake.  My grandfather Charles Needoba was the first to catch a fish in Spa some two years later.  The fish was claimed to be some 8 lbs., but we all know how that one goes.  Today all that is left of the cabin at Arthur lake are the decaying walls of the cabin and a plaque remembering Emil and his wife Marge.

My recollection of going fishing with my father was on the logging road constructed in the late forties or early fifties, with its many switchbacks, steep grades, shale slides, washouts, and water running in the ditches and at times across the road.  The running water was an asset, because the vehicles at that time did not have the advanced cooling systems of today and were constantly overheating on the steep grades, so one would stop and let the vehicle cool off, add water and continue on.  The shale roadbed was not so kind to tires and a flat tire was considered part and parcel of getting there.

Fishing with my father was a quiet affair.  Voices, when need be, were just above a whisper.  This left plenty of time for meditating only to be jolted back to reality when a fish took your fly.  It is this Zen act of meditating that is engrained in me when I go fishing.  I do not have to catch large numbers of fish but merely enjoy the moment.

Later in life, my work took me north to Smithers and the Bulkley Valley where I was introduced to magnificent steelhead fishing in the Morice, Bulkley, Babine, and Kispiox rivers.  It was here that I honed my fly tying.  To me there is nothing better than wading the river and casting a fly to a mighty steelhead.

Recommended Books:
Steelhead Paradise, by John Fennelly
Steelhead Flyfishing, by Trey Combs