A Quickie

Hasn't been much fishing to talk about lately. Had planned to fish the Big River on the way up to Van Monday but a 7,000 foot snowlevel had other plans. I figured fishing with logs drifting by probably wasn't the best use of my time so I slept in and did work. I can feel the few remaining days on that river this season slipping away.

Weds morning I took a friend and new spey caster/future addict out on that little local river I've been exploring. River was falling from a couple days of heavy rain and the color was tolerable brown with about 1.5 feet of vis. Unfortunately by midmorning the water had turned a sort of baby poo brown so we decided some casting lessons/exploring were probably the best use of our time. Pretty disheartening to see the damage gravel mining operations have caused in the upper watershed. Were it not for all that fine sediment, the river would probably come into shape pretty quickly. As it is now, a few hours of hard rain is enough to turn the river into cafe con leche. I wonder what if anything we could do about that shit? It looks like a fucking moonscape and anyone who knows the first thing about how rivers look/work knows lots of fine sediment=bad for salmon. Apparently its not backbreakingly bad because there are still wild steelhead, coho, cutthroat, chum and maybe chinook? but its certainly not helping.

Work has been e'ffing busy this week with the start of a new term and TAing a class so I'm looking forward to things quieting down and getting out. This weekend should be a step in the right direction. I'm helping a friend move to Quadra Island at the North end of Vancouver Island so I'll be taking the opportunity to explore a river I've been itching to see for a long time.