cautious. This all came to a head one day when he dared to fish "two fish hole" in the daylight. He had been fishing a big B.C. steelhead river the previous week and was "coming down" on the Deschutes. A few casts into the hole and he hooked a huge steelhead, the biggest he had ever seen on the Deschutes. He judged it to be over 20 lbs., and he had landed several 20+ fish in B.C. the prior week. The fish jumped and cavorted, and our fisherman heard the distant whine of an approaching jet sled. To be seen fishing the hole was one thing, there are lots of stupid steelhead fishermen in the river who don't know the first thing about a steelhead lie. If spotted he could flub a cast or two and look like a tenderfoot. But, to be spotted fighting a fish from "two fish hole" by a guide in a sled was like being caught passing atomic secrets to the KGB. There was 20 years of secrecy at stake here. The sound got louder. He fed slack, loosened the drag, and pointed his rod into the water directly at the fish. Look like he was just fishing. The monster fish continued to jump and thrash anyway. The boat was just around the corner, the fish still splashing. It was decision time..........What the people saw was another frustrated and dejected steelhead flyfisher limping tiredly out of some lousy looking water while winding in his slack line. With a few exceptions, steelhead lies to the contrary, most of this all evens out. The good and great rivers get discovered, and written about, and the trade off is that there are more voices and letters and money to save them when they are threatened, a veritable chorus singing the "wild fish praise" in front of the game commission, year long seasons and catch and release waters. None of this would have happened if we had kept it all to ourselves. But is now enough, enough? Is it time to turn off the information flow, encourage golfing and safe sex as an alternative? However troublesome the fishing pressure on your secret river is right now, the odds are that the pressure to degrade, develop, plant, dewater, graze, log, or dam that river are greater now than ever before. Are we winning or losing? In the big picture, we are still losing water, water quality, and fisheries. And if no one (else) cares, then no one (else) ever will care. One side theme I have learned in all this, though. When I described the fishing in what I believed to be the best trout river in the world, I was beset with people coming up to me saying, "I'll bet you were taking about river Y", or "I'll bet that river runs though Nowheresville, Montana, right?" It was real interesting. "well, no," I would reply, " but sounds like I should try river Y or that stream that runs through nowheresville if it's as good as the one I described." Apparently, as hard as it is to keep a secret, it is even harder to resist challenging someone whose secret you think you know. Right now I would say this
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