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After much discussion with my steelheading friends and peers, and after much reflection, I have decided that my Thompson season has officially ended. I will monitor the Albion counts carefully and consult with WLAP biologists, and if some late fish show up I may reconsider my position, but until such time I will no longer cast a fly into the Thompson this season.
I will be on the river late next week to visit with friends and partake of the river's many pleasures, but I will not fish. I have been asked to do some demonstration casting for an upcoming DVD and will honor that request and cast with a yarn fly or bare leader for a brief period of time, but I will not fish or be otherwise occupying space in a run.
This is a personal choice I have made. I do not expect others to make a similar choice, and I have a neutral position regarding the decisions of others. For me, imprecise as the Albion estimates are, they are our only measure of the run, and if the biologists believe that the fish are threatened then I believe I have an obligation to step out of the water.
At the same time I feel that I also have an obligation to the good folks in Spences Bridge to support them with my dollars and work with them to find a long term solution to the economic impacts of this problem. This is why I have chosen to travel to the river and simply hang out, sip a beer in the pub, enjoy some fine meals at Vicki's, buy some fuel at the PetroCan, and enjoy the company of my friends in the place that defines who I am as an angler.
I will be on the river late next week to visit with friends and partake of the river's many pleasures, but I will not fish. I have been asked to do some demonstration casting for an upcoming DVD and will honor that request and cast with a yarn fly or bare leader for a brief period of time, but I will not fish or be otherwise occupying space in a run.
This is a personal choice I have made. I do not expect others to make a similar choice, and I have a neutral position regarding the decisions of others. For me, imprecise as the Albion estimates are, they are our only measure of the run, and if the biologists believe that the fish are threatened then I believe I have an obligation to step out of the water.
At the same time I feel that I also have an obligation to the good folks in Spences Bridge to support them with my dollars and work with them to find a long term solution to the economic impacts of this problem. This is why I have chosen to travel to the river and simply hang out, sip a beer in the pub, enjoy some fine meals at Vicki's, buy some fuel at the PetroCan, and enjoy the company of my friends in the place that defines who I am as an angler.