Poaching in style

Well the weather has finally cooled off a bit which is good news as there hasn't been more than an hour or two or rain in weeks. Daytimes are now a comfortable 30 degrees and the sun warms, it doesn't burn.

Last week our American guests from San Diego arrived as promised in three helicopters to check out the local fly fishing. Naively, they landed on a sandbar in the Lardeau River, our river which has been closed for the past 30 odd years, and began casting.

Enraged - and doubtless jealous as hell with all that aeronautical wealth on display - the famously tight-lipped worthies of the Lardeau Valley set the telephone lines to the local wildlife department ablaze in their efforts to bring the southerners to justice.

Their hard work was rewarded when the conservation officer arrived and issued them with a serious fine.

Controversy and ecological considerations aside, heli-fishing has fast climbed up by my top 10 lists of the best things in life to do. To float through the mountains, pick a remote stream, land on a sandbar and start fly fishing is altogether pretty cool.

So I, of course, was happy as Larry when our guests invited me to go up with them for the day. Abandoning Kristin and my daughter Emma at the ranch with mumbled apologies, I headed off up our gorgeous valley. What a view!

Bear count: 1 grizzly just south of the ranch, though I must say I didn't see it myself. Black bear cub a couple of miles north on Highway 31.