By Hailey Gysbers
Bright eyed and bushy-tailed, the fish crew geared up for their first of two shifts up in the Swan River Watershed to take on the mighty, fierce and elusive Arctic grayling. We began the shift on a high note. The sun was shining, the bugs were bearable, and we all caught at least one grayling on our first day. Our spirits were high, and so were our rod tips whilst reeling in all those grayling.
Then came our third day of shift. Everything started off like normal. Sarah was in the trailer, cooking everyone her famous pancakes and singing her pancake song, while Jesse was taking sandwich orders for people’s lunches. The hustle and bustle of people buzzing around the trailer getting gear packed up and check-ins being checked in with was all business as usual. Our Commander-in-Chief Kate Marouelli valiantly selected sites and field partners for the day and sent us on our way. Little did we know, there would be three casualties that day: myself, Jesse, and our unsuspecting volunteer from the deep south (Calgary), Jonathan.
Jesse and I returned to camp that afternoon sharing the same war story. We were diligently doing our jobs, wading through treacherous waters, ducking under and over burnt logs, all while braving intense solar radiation, when tragedy struck! We fell into deep water! Deeper than our poor chestwaders could ever handle. We soaked our clothes, our ego, and our not-so-waterproof waterproof wader pockets which contained our not-so-waterproof phones.
Struck by hearing this tragedy of events, our valiant volunteer Jonathan raised his hands to his head to profess his disbelief, and in doing so, dropped his phone from six feet in the air, destroying it.
And there it was.Three days into shift, with three fewer phones to show for it. With our heads hung low, we turned to our Commander-in-Chief Kate Marouelli for the motivation and strength we desperately needed to finish our shift. She did the best she could, but not even Commander-in-Chief Kate Marouelli could control the horrendous weather that came the following days. The rain came and muddied up all of our prime fishing spots and we finished off the rest of the shift with nothing to show for it. No more fish caught. Skunked. “We’ll get ‘em next shift,” Commander-in-Chief Kate Marouelli would say, but the disappointed faces we returned to her were not indicative of a crew who was stoked to catch nothing but instream logs and willow branches.
Begin second shift. Commander-in-Chief Kate Marouelli rallied the troops for another seemingly fishless shift. I came in with higher spirits though, sporting a new phone and a good attitude. Jesse was on a high too, but only he is privy to the knowledge of what caused that. And as for Jonathan, no one had seen or heard from him since he left halfway through the previous shift. But the week was looking good. No rain was in the forecast until the end of the week, so our chances of catching some absolute lunkers1 were looking promising.
This shift begins the same as the last, with pancakes being made, songs being sung, and commanders doing chief things. Sarah and I were the first to leave camp, rocking a new flyrod and an attitude that even the rain couldn’t muddy. With my new phone tucked away safely in a pocket of my pants underneath my waders, I set off to fish the daunting main stem of the Swan River with co-worker/co-fisher/work-wife Sarah. We spent two grueling hours on that river, with not even a bite to show for it. But like water over a duck’s back, nothing could dampen our spirits.
Alas, tragedy struck once again! After our fishing was completed, us two happy fisherthems began our trek up the steep cliffs of the Swan River. I pulled out my phone to check for important messages from Commander-in-Chief Kate Marouelli when I noticed water dripping from all of its crevices. The phone was soaked! Water poured from the charging port, the speaker holes, the microphone – even the volume buttons spilled water! I cried in anguish as I shook the water from my new phone, disbelief strewn across my face. “Not again,” I wailed to my comrade Sarah, “how could this happen?!” Despite Sarah’s efforts, I was inconsolable and she decided it was best to let me wallow in my own self pity, as there was no one else to blame for my mistake than my own self. Another shift, another phone.
Back at camp, while I was contemplating my current financial situation, Sam and Jesse returned to camp after completing their mission with the quads to attack the grayling from the south. But Sam arrived with his head hung low. And if there is one thing you should know about Sam, is that nothing ever phases this stoic man. “What happened to you?” the fish crew asked in unison as he walked through the front door of the trailer. “I lost my phone while quadding today…it’s gone.” We all stared in disbelief. Another one down for the count. That was the fifth phone lost to the cause of our Commander-in-Chief Kate Marouelli’s project. You could almost see the deep-rooted guilt she felt dripping from her face.
But you know what they say, after you hit rock bottom, you can only go up from there. And that certainly was the case for the fish crew. After the tragic losses of our phones, the fish crew started to absolutely smash Arctic grayling. We found them at last. After days and days of getting skunked,2 we had found where they had all been hiding. Us two phoneless folks (Sam and myself) came back from our site with a record amount of grayling caught, 18 to be exact, and absolutely dripping head to toe with fish scale envelopes. And to make things more exciting, this was the day Sam caught his first (and second) ever grayling!
Sam sporting a big smile after catching his first and second graylings. Photo taken via work tablet by Hailey Gysbers.
All in all, we finished the rest of the shift with many more fish to show for it. Perhaps the disconnect from the outside world was just what was needed to get the fish crew out of their heads and to begin thinking like Arctic grayling. In other good news, Sam was able to retrace his steps from his quad day and retrieve his phone and found there was no damage to it. Myself, on the other hand, sadly had to spend another few hundred or so dollars to get another one, but I still tell people I enjoyed the short-lived detox from it. I will no longer be bringing my phone into the field.
Notes
- Absolute lunker (phrase): Any grayling over 140mm in length
- Getting skunked (phrase): catching absolutely no fish
