The Written Word
for August 25, 1999.

I’m going to digress from political comment a bit today and talk about the outdoors. As urban sprawl increases utterly unabated, the closer and closer many people get to the outdoors and the creatures that live there. In my own neighbourhood of North Vancouver it is scarcely uncommon to see deer or coyotes on the road and bears come into backyards quite frequently. What has also happened is that people have seen the outdoors up close and want more of it. Amongst other things this has led to more and more people getting lost within sight of the City of Vancouver, bringing about more and more expensive search parties.

The person, like me, who has expected solitude when using the outdoors finds himself standing trying to fish as canoeists and kayakers come down stream putting down the fish. And though I’m in no position to claim exclusivity I must say that my search for solitude – which is at least 50% of fishing – is frustrated. I find myself going further and further afield – Scotland and New Zealand mostly – so I can get a little peace and quiet for a wonderful hobby, which requires that for its special meaning. Even then I don’t always succeed. The river I fish in New Zealand is free of boaters but the far more famous one nearby is not – it’s full of kayaks, float tubes and canoes all summer long and now, by reason of increased population and oppressive numbers of fly-fishermen in the Fall and Winter. (The seasons being reversed, I go to New Zealand in January. Because there aren’t as many fish in the rivers then, the local fishermen are elsewhere. For the relatively skilled, however, there is good enough fishing, lots of it on the dry fly.)

Fly-fishing is, I’m told, the fastest growing sport in North America. Much of this is thanks to the movie A River Runs Through It, a "B" film with "A+" pictures of fish taking the fly on the surface. This movie inspired millions to have a look at this sport.

The trouble is, most newcomers are not really taking up the sport in its entirety, Fly fishing is more than just a whippy rod with a line tough to throw at the end of which is a hook covered with feathers. Fly-fishing is its history, much of which has been beautifully written, its science and its ethics. Good fly-fishermen are amateur entomologists or, if they’re not quite that, they know their insects, especially ones which live much of their lives in their favourite river or lake. Good fly-fishermen, for the most part tie their own flies. Good fly-fishermen are good conservationists, practicing – at least for the most part – catch and release. Nearly all fly-fishermen fish for the surroundings, which includes, even when fishing with a buddy (mine being my wife Wendy), a piece of water of your own to fish.

Because the opportunities for quality, solitary fishing are becoming exceedingly rare, a number of things are happening. In North America, which has a culture of public fishing, private fishing is being developed. Lakes on private property are "pay" lakes and those who have private access to rivers either limit access or charge for it. We, in British Columbia, do a good job of stocking public lakes but the pressure is getting so great that lakes once virtually incapable of access are "fly-in" lodges which, with the inexorable passage of time will become drive in lakes. Moreover, that other competitor for the outdoors, the snowmobile and the ice fisherman raise hell with lakes otherwise difficult of access.

But even on British Columbia lakes it has been necessary to designate many of them "trophy" lakes with limited takes and limited tackle or simply as "fly only."

I don’t know what the answer is. I’m able to fly to fairly remote fishing a couple of times a year so for me there may not be a problem in my lifetime. But for that huge mass of budding fly-fishermen the writing is on the wall. There will be more "put and take" fisheries where a truck dumps in trout at one end of a lake or reservoir and the fisherman pulls them out at the other. Rivers close to centers of population will be jammed so tight with fishermen that fights break out for places to fish and the fishing will be done by casting around boaters streaming down the river. And private fishing for serious money will increase.

Nothing can be done, I suppose, but it is a damned shame that so many of the next generation will be denied the peace and tranquility that goes with a day on the water where the only interruptions are an osprey hitting the water behind you or the slurp of a fish feeding on a hatch of insects you are trying in vain to imitate.