Small stream is Valhalla for fishermen

     Smithers, British Columbia - Morrison Creek was built by the hand of God who surely must have had the fly fishermen in mind. Nestled in a mountainous valley, the stream gurgles in its amber-colored glory. Often the creek decides to go somewhere else, creating hairpin twists and turns that gouge out eddies and pools. Log jams are additional fasteners, securing the creek's place as excellent trout-holding water.

     Getting to Morrision Creek is difficult, the stream being cut off from direct highway access. The many logging roads, which scratch the woods here lead to the same place:  A landing on Babine Lake from which the timber is sent out by barge. To fish Morrison Creek one must take a boat and then either hike a logging road or else have a vehicle parked and waiting on the other side.

     Helping fuel the stream's wilderness setting were the echoes of the passing of wildlife; tracks of moose, black bear and wolves. It is said that grizzly bears also frequent the streams whenever the salmon migrate. This the fish were doing as pods of sockeye dressed in their fire-bright union suits held in most every nook and cranny of the creek. Behind these salmon were a multitude of rainbow trout.

     "Okay, that's a nice fish," said Lloyd Hooper whose family runs the Tukii Lodge on Babine Lake.

     "Looks like we've saved the best for the last day."

     Taken from a chute that tunneled underneath a fallen tree, the trout was one of several such fish lying low in the thigh-deep water. All eagerly accepted the egg pattern fly that tumbled their way.

     Far less interested in the fly were the stream's salmon. these fish wanted no part of us, though I did want one of them. I wondered what an angry sockeye would do if it were ever caught in the creek's straight-jacket confines.

     "Eee-yikes," I shouted.

     "Salmon on."

     The sockeye was hooked in the right side of its jaw; "flossed" when I let the fly drift past and then snapped up for another cast. It wasn't my intention to hook the salmon but since it was on I was not going to complain.

     No more than 10 feet wide, the creek had little margin for error, especially since log jams both upstream and down served as warning strips. With a running start, the sockeye leapt clear of the water and then drove toward the far bush-lined bank.

     "If you can beach it I'll be able to tail it," Hooper said.

     While the odds were stacked against me the coin came up "heads."

     "Great fish; I'd say about seven pounds." Hooper said as he released the blazing red-colored and mandible hook-jawed male sockeye back into the creek.

     The salmon was just the icing on the cake. By early afternoon we had worked 1/2 mile of the creek, catching dozens of out-sized trouts. I tried to find fault with the stream, wondering if I could secure an excuse to depart from the creek's trout-rich waters. I failed and I knew that our paths almost certainly would never cross again. Of course, it is always best never to say never.