The most important thing about targeting any anadromous fish is timing. Water conditions and run timing are far and away the most important factors to catching fish. Beyond how far you cast, or what your beautifully spun flies look like, or how well you know a river. Timing is everything. This fact is true of many things in life, and when timing is good and opportunities abound you better get after it and take advantage.
Anyone who has ever read Negley Farson’s books will quickly know what I am talking about. He was an unbelievable man who wrote, drank, and travelled tirelessly. His perfect timing rang through on wherever he was, chasing down a story or a fish. Like most great authors and fisherman, his timing was always impeccable. He caught the best species of fish on a fly all throughout the world. Along with that he witnessed some of the most dramatic moments of the early 20th century. He had some of the best known interviews with Gandhi and was there for an iconic arrest, he watched and wrote about speeches by Lenin and Stalin. He met Hitler, Roosevelt, partied with Scott Fitzgerald, and could out fish and out drink Ernest Hemingway all day long.
The spirit of people like Farson and Hemingway still lives among those that travel the word in pursuit of unique experiences. Our north coast BC rivers are certainly a key stop for people like this. What we have to to offer in BC is special. However we are a small blip in the world of fly fishing, and every time someone explores a new river, or ocean flat, or catches a fish for the first time in a new part of the world an overwhelming sense of adventure and connection to nature is felt. It is that feeling that ties all of us together, from Farson, to Haig-Brown to the kid who just picked up his first fly rod. That incredible feeling hits all of us in the same, very important way, and we all cherish it greatly.