I’ve been feeling a little lazy the last few days, and got behind on the picture editing.  It’ll take a while to catch up, but today, on the way back from Bear watching in Hyder, Alaska, I stopped at the Bulkley River Falls at Moricetown, B.C., Canada, about 20 miles north of Smithers.  (Smithers is one of the nicest small towns I’ve come across.  I really like it there)  The Bulkley is a major river and very powerful.  Where it squeezes down into the gorge it’s absolutely wild and the roar is like steady, heavy thunder.  Gotta share this………….

On the way up here, I saw Indian fishermen going after the migrating Salmon with dip nets.  The technique seems to be to find a back eddy where the salmon can get out of the main current to rest for a bit, then plunge a big dip net into the water and swoop it thru the eddy……………..

Sometimes they work for a long, hard time between fish, but I saw quite a few Salmon caught this way on the Fraser River and the Chilcotin River, and here on the Bulkley River, it worked again.  Looks like a back-breaking job to me…………….

That’s all well and good, but the guy who really impressed ol’ Lar was the guy perched on a plank over the main falls.  The Bulkley is a big river and squeezes down into this narrow chute for several hundred feet.  It really thunders on down…….you wouldn’t want to fall in ! ! !  This guy stood there - with a safety rope around his waist - and waited…..and waited……and waited……………..

I sat there, and watched……and watched……..and watched.  Suddenly a Salmon jumped, and I thought, “Oh, man, I wanna picture of that.”  Turned out that’s what this guy was waiting for, too, but he missed that fish.  He missed the next couple, too, and so did I.  Then, a big one jumped.  This time, the Lar didn’t miss………………

And neither did this guy.  Our friend got his net positioned just right - this guy is fast……………..

And added a very nice Salmon to his collection……………….

Having been raised on the West Coast of British Columbia, I’ve always thought it was standard practice to smoke these Salmon for eating that winter, but a 1st Nations man and wife I talked to who’d caught quite a few fish on the Chilcotin last week told me that they usually dry their fish instead of smoking them.  I’m not sure yet if that’s a regional preference, personal, or what………..??  This made for an interesting break, believe me, and I was strongly, deeply impressed.                        Lar.

--  Larry Bourne Santa Fe, NM www.gogittum.com www.gogittum.com/blog

Posted: April 15th, 2009 under 08 Vacation, 08-8-23 Salmon Fishermen.
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