The Lodge at Gold River
The Lodge at Gold River

10 painful lessons I learned on my first B.C. steelhead trip

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#10 You Need a Little Luck

Artotem

I think it was Winston Churchill who said, “Every angling adventure craves the sweet kiss of Lady Fortune.” Or maybe it was SpongeBob. The point is, you need luck. We didn’t have it. Yes, I missed a fly take on my first day, and a bobber dip on my last day. But on a typical trip, you’d normally have had more chances. As the unflappable Randy said more than once, we fished hard and did everything right—there just weren’t a lot of fish in the river. It was a tough week, in what had been an unusually sparse season.

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Still, the number of fish brought to hand is only one measure of an adventure. If you count good company, new and exhilarating experiences, and opportunities to test your limits in challenging conditions, this trip bested ones where I’ve caught dozens of fish. And if there’s a bright side to not catching a wild, gleaming steelhead it’s this: I’ve got a reason to go back soon.