In 2004 my dad brought me to the Babine River, one of the best steelhead fisheries in the world.
It was a big trip to a special place. My dad had fished Norlakes Lodge with his father (Strom) as a much younger man and he had started to return to the river every few years. The river had been important to Strom as well, as he had spent a lot of time there, even helping to build a cabin on the lower river “The Camp Water,” and there was a pool called “Strom’s Pool” on the river, named after him.
My dad had always said he’d bring me there one day and this was him making good on that promise.
It wasn’t cheap. A destination lodge like this is several thousand dollars, not to mention the gear one tends to buy for such a trip, the flights and various other expenses.
The way it worked was that each guide would take his anglers and move them around the river. You didn’t fish from the boat, but he’d pick you up and move you to a new spot, help you out for a bit, then go and move the other anglers in his group to some new bit of water.
Norlakes Lodge is located on the Babine River, which is about in the middle of British Columbia, North/South and East/West. It is in a rugged wilderness and the lodge is mostly only reachable by boat. It feels like Alaska, Grizzly Bears included.
Dad and I would fish together at times and other times we’d be some distance apart, fishing on our own.
On one such occassion when we were apart, dad was fishing with the guide at a creek mouth and he happened upon a sow grizzly with cubs. As the story was related to me the guide had a “Bear Banger,” a device that basically shoots a large blank, creating a very loud bang that is designed to scare a bear away. The first “bang” turned out to be a flare, which Ms. Griz didn’t appreciate and she ended up charging. The second “bang” was an actual bang and the bear pulled up 30-40 feet shy of my dad and ran away.
It left an impression (foreshadowing).
On the last day of the trip the guide brought my dad and I to a long run. He set my dad up toward the bottom and me at the top and put our lunch on the shore about half-way down and then he went to go move some other anglers.
This type of fishing was all “greased line” or “wet line” fishing. You cast out, quartered down and let your fly swim across the the river in the current, your fly tight to the rod, and you wait for a tug/pause/fish. You take a cast, let your drift happend and then take a step down and do the same thing. There’s a zen quality about it.
As I was making my way down the river, wading out about 20-30 feet, I heard something on the shore to turn around and see a frigging massive grizzly bear helping itself to our lunch, left by the guide on the bank. The bear was 25-35 feet from me.
Earlier in the week hunters had been on the river looking for grizzlies and had been stalking a bear that happened upon a moose. The bear ended up killing the moose and the hunters had to call off their pursuit, as you can’t shoot a bear on a kill.
It occured to me I was a lot easier to chase down than a moose.
I started making loud sounds, smacking the water, issuing the “HEY BEAR” calls and generally trying to pursueade the bear to go somewhere else than anywhere near me.
My dad, seeing this/hearing this decides to help.
“BANG” he yelled. “BANG” he yelled again.
I guess the idea of the “bear banger” and really stuck in his head and so when he wanted to encourage the bear to move along he decided to mimic the “bear banger” by just yelling “bang.” Surprisingly, it was less effective.
At the time I was a bit worried/scared of this massive griz, but in the back of my mind I did think “That’s funny and I’ll laugh about it later, if I survive this.”
It should be mentioned that the bear didn’t seem to mind me at all, or my dad. It was singularly focused on the shore lunch and proceeded to eat a fair bit of it. I kept moving down river, away from the bear. It hardly looked at me.
Later, I got to rib my dad for his yelled “bang” and we had a good chuckle over the campfire that night.
It was an amazing place I got to share with my dad, as he had shared with his dad. I got to fish Strom’s Pool (lost a couple fish and I think I landed a salmon there). I managed an 18 pound buck steelhead on a skating fly on my first day. It was an amazing trip my dad and I talked about for the next 20 years.
Thanks, dad, for sharing that with me.
