Oly’s Dean ｜ A Kid, a River and a Different Way of Growing Up

If I was a flower growing wild and free, all I'd want is you to be my sweet honeybee. And if I was a tree growing tall and green, all I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves. I think having a kid, it really makes me appreciate his wonder. He's curious. You know, he wants to know what eats what and why everything works. Dad said if I need to learn how to stack firewood, he said that I need to learn how to do it so that he doesn't have to do it by himself. Very tedious. Ollie is kind of a feral kid out here. He just wants to explore, he wants to get dirty, he wants to go on all the adventures. We started coming up here in the summer about 12 years ago. When Ollie was born, he just kind of came along with us. It was definitely a bit nerve-wracking bringing him up here. I mean, there's no hospital nearby. All right, we've got chum spawning all over here in the channel. We've got a grizzly bear walking across the drought bar. There's none of those safe things you take for granted normally. It's pretty wild here. I'm Jeff Hickman, I'm Ollie's dad, and I've been a steelhead fly fishing guide for 25 years. My husband and I live in Oregon for nine months out of the year, and then we come up here to the Dean where we own and operate a remote fly fishing lodge. It's a family-run business, and we are about as remote as you can get. If you go any further out into the wilderness, you start coming back into civilization around here. Say your name and how old you are. My name is Ollie Dean, and I'm nine years old. Can you describe what a normal day is like for you here? Midday, afternoon, and at night. Can we skip this question? What's your job? Skip! What if you could do anything you wanted? Skip, skip, skip! Come on. What's your favorite part about being here? The toads. If there was water here, I would have definitely let a toad die. Watch the big plant. I found two toads. We go big for them toads. Literally. What's his name? I can't think of a name. Chirpy... 40,000? I think it's really special to see Ollie exploring and having an appreciation for this place because it had a long history, you know, to get to how it is now. The Dean River is a 150-mile-long river in west-central British Columbia. It's one of the only rivers to penetrate the wall of the Coast Mountains between the Fraser's Mouth and the mouth of the Skeena. Its lower reaches are known for creating unique habitat for salmon and steelhead before flowing into the Dean Channel at Kimsquit, which is the name of the historical village site at the mouth of the Dean River. It's been a significant center for trading from the Noohawk Indigenous people living here in harmony with the land for thousands of years. At the turn of the century, right around 1900, European settlers started showing up with a real extraction mentality, looking for furs, trapping, building canneries, overfishing, and logging, basically wiping sockeye salmon off of the map. Functionally extinct here now, remaining indigenous residents of Kimsquit left and moved to the reservation in Bellacoola. Sport fish guiding has been a viable, sustainable industry here and really catch-and-release only since the 80s. The Dean River is one of the greatest fly-fishing destinations you can go in the world. I mean, this is a storied, famous river steeped in tradition. I think there's a more soulful element to steelhead. The more steelhead is to catch, the more valuable each one becomes. We just have these fish that are glowing chrome, still with saltwater pumping through their gills. You see kind of how a river's supposed to work and how fish are supposed to live naturally. There's a real energy here that I've never felt anywhere else in the world. At this age now, at nine, I find it to be a really sweet spot in parenting. Caught a toad. Smaller than the ones that we caught today. He has enough independence where you can turn him loose and trust him to be safe. You're way up here. Back here! I heard a quote that really stuck with me early on. Parenting is only hard for good parents. But I see a lot of parents that completely change their lives to conform to their kid. I've never really understood that, and that's not what I wanted to do. If Ole wants to come do what I'm doing, then he can come do what I'm doing. Two years ago, he started kind of playing around on the vise a little bit. But I just let him go to town, and he was just mowing through some pretty expensive feathers. And then this year, all of a sudden, I don't know what happened. Like, he figured it out. And he's tying these pretty awesome flies. Looks pretty good. What a nice fly. I just want to fish all these flies now. Orange and chartreuse tackle. Very creative. Moose hair. Mugbug, he calls it. Got one. You got one. Lift. Hard. Fish on. Ole's got a fish on. Ole's got a fish on, on the dry fly. That's a good fish. Woo! Come to me! This thing would have finished her if I hooked a fan. Real tired. Real tired! Put them in the water a little bit more. I'm going to pull the hook out for you. Can we just see the belly? There you go. Let's go. That was perfect, dude. I released it a little early, but that worked. Let's just take like ten minutes to take a nap. Entirely on his own, made the cast, did everything. And we got it in. He's exhausted now. He's taking a nap. What's the secret out there? I don't know. Sometimes the worst cast can catch the best fish. That sounds pretty good. Introducing Ole to my world, my passions, he has like a real curiosity, which makes that easy. It's not about the fish. It's about the whole experience. You got a frog here, folks. He doesn't care if he's catching a giant steelhead or a tiny trout or a toad. It's all the same to him. And he teaches me things all the time. He teaches me to see the world with a bit more wonder and curiosity and appreciation. If I was a flower growing wild and free All I'd want is you to be my sweet honeybee And if I was a tree growing tall and green All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves If I was a flower growing wild and free All I'd want is you to be my sweet honeybee And if I was a tree growing tall and green All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves All I want is you, will you be my bride Take me by the hand and stand by my side All I want is you, will you stay with me I'm going to tell you guys how to tie the mug bug. My first step is to crunch the barb. This is a size 2 hook. This is a grizzly hackle. In my opinion moose hair is easier for me to spin and it cuts easier. I just wrap maybe around two times. I whip there so the thread won't come undone and your fly won't get destroyed. I like to fish it on a spade rod with a dry line but you can fish it any way you want. Okay guys, that's how you tie the mug bug and molydene and see you on the rip.