Strong coffee and steelhead
Soon after meeting Derek Barber I realised that here was a man who pursues the important things in life with single-minded determination. These passions include being able to make a perfect espresso, or macchiato, on the banks of one of the best and most remote steelhead rivers in the world. While coffee was clearly important to Barber, the main reason we were here, an hour’s helicopter flight north of Smithers in British Columbia, Canada, was to fish for that superb migratory fish, the steelhead.
“We flew over rivers such as the Skeena, rivers rods fantasise about”
British and Irish fly-fishers have a strange addiction to anadromous fish. We all enjoy saltwater trips and the exciting freshwater fish of the southern hemisphere, such as golden dorado or tigerfish, but our trips to fish rivers for returning salmon or sea-trout are more of a compulsion than anything else. Here we have something in common with our friends on the west coast of the USA and Canada. For a long time they have bucked the North American trend for single-handed fly rods and
