Summer 2025 Issue

Our Summer Issue once again comes to our members with a load of content and, for me, a jolt of sadness with the passing of two of our legends from the BC fly-fishing community, Tom Murray and Pat George. Both of these fine gentlemen contributed much of their time and talent to the well-being of their clubs, and to the BCFFF during their long fly-fishing lives. We are honouring Tom in this summer issue of Fly Lines; Pat will be featured (with his family’s permission) in the fall issue. 

It is summer, and the club and direct members are revelling in the fishing opportunities of our great province. For us northern members, it is a refreshing and invigorating time. Many of us, like me, almost hibernate in the seven months of winter we put up with, then go like hell come May through October to get in our “fishing time”. Our club feature this issue is Len Piggin, President of Kamloops Fly Fishers and board member of the BCFFF, who discusses the “value of learning”, a lifelong event for any fly-fisher.

Youth learning is an important part of the BCFFF’s core mandate, and good-on the various school boards in the province that have introduced accredited outdoors fly-fishing programs to its students. There are now classes in Campbell River, Port Moody, Coquitlam, Kamloops and Prince George. The fly clubs and BCFFF members in these cities are often involved in helping the instructors in classroom and outdoor instruction, and our hope is these students will become BCFFF members in the future. 

In this issue, we recap our successful Ice-off Auction, and once again are thankful for the support of clubs, direct members, sponsors, donors, and BCFFF volunteers for their contributions of merchandise and time to make this a fruitful endeavour for the federation’s operating and conservation budgets. Hopefully, the auction will become an annual event. 

In our history article, we invite the renowned Steve Raymond, author of a dozen fly-fishing books, many magazine articles, and recipient of numerous literature awards to dispel the myths and origin of the Black O’Lindsay fly pattern. Welcome Steve!

Have you ever considered ocean rockfish a worthy target for the fly rod? Well, read on, Rory Glennie does! In our guest feature, he has put together a fascinating discourse of how, when and where to chase these “denizens of the deep”, and it could open a whole new world for your sea-worthy blokes who enjoy ocean fishing. 

For our fly-tying features over the next few years, I will begin a series of articles on “Designing Dry Flies”, beginning with streams and rivers and then leading into still waters, where I will share my thoughts and the patterns I have developed over the past sixty years of fly-fishing. We will continue to welcome other contributors to the fly-tying section of the magazine. 

When we “Pick a Fishing Brain”, Dr. Katherine Mulski, educator of the Carihi Secondary School program, comes to mind, and we think you will enjoy her thoughts, jargon and choice of equipment for chasing down the cutties and Cohos in her backyard of Campbell River. 

If the East Kootenays beckon you, I offer an old but still relevant chapter from my book “Seasons of a Fly Fisher” that pretty much covers the incredible allure of this area of BC that often gets overlooked and put into the “wishing” category of fly-fishers, but should be a must-do for your bucket list of places-to-go. 

For a good read on conservation, your BCFFF board thinks Quebec may have an answer that could easily be applied to BC’s dwindling steelhead resources. What it really comes down to is respect, and everyone doing their parts to protect them.