Old friends and true

A dozen or so years ago, for my sins, I became involved in the BCFFF. What's that you say? Well its hardly a world renowned organization, so I probably shouldn't take it as a personal insult if you don't recognize the name... even if I was to rise through its ranks to become their first ever President. Actually all of my predecessors had been anointed with the title Chairman, but we re-wrote the constitution and by-laws during my terms in office, so I actually answered to both of these elevated titles... which may, or may not have made me twice as important.

Another happy memory (and less happy coho)!

So what is the BCFFF and what is its role in the world? Well I'm so glad you asked. As you must have suspected, it's an NGO (and before you ask... that's a Non-Governmental Organization) which in this instance is the one that favours fly fishing over all of the other hobbies and sports in he world.

And why should I have chosen this particular time to return to visit my old angling buddies, and to have this visit inspire yet another significant blog, after all I really had dropped out of the angling scene. Well, after I retired from the real world and moved to Vancouver Island, I and a few like minded individuals started a fly fishing club, "The Mid-Island Castaways", in Parksville, and this past Saturday the BCFFF honoured our small city by holding its AGM and annual banquet in our new high-rise resort, "The Beach Club". I simply could not afford to miss such an opportunity.

And my old friends? Well many of them had survived my 6 year absence without missing a beat, but they  definitely all looked older, and most of their problems were the same as those I remembered. Internally there was the on going search for new blood and more volunteers, and externally the problems with the government regulators and fish protectors had grown even worse than those I remembered, budget cuts having diverted all remaining funds to health or education. "Run-of-the-river" power projects are ruining many of our remaining hitherto pristine salmon and trout rivers, sea lice spread by the aquaculture industry are lousing up the wild salmon runs, logging has destroyed much more of our forest resource, and the list goes on in the name of progress and job creation.

It really is rather sad to think that many of our future generations will never be able to enjoy the thrill of angling, or the appreciation of nature that flows from it. These important learning tools seem to have been replaced by a myriad of new electronic, time wasting, gadgets and an unfortunately sedentary and less healthy indoor life style.

So its back to my iPhone, digital camera, and laptop computer! I feel another blog coming on.