An avid 91大黄鸭 angler has turned his lifelong passion into being the author of several books on his fishing experiences and knowledge.
Don Haaheim has just churned out his third book on the subject, 50 Excellent Ties For BC Waters, Tying Help and Directions to Good Locations.
For Haaheim, his writing philosophy is simple: "You gotta write what you know really well."
And for him, that is fishing, something he was first introduced to as a youngster by his father while growing up on a small dairy farm in the Fraser Valley community of Langley.
We had a small feeder stream, Little Campbell Creek, that meandered through the back end of his parents' farm, which featured cutthroat trout in April and May, and coho salmon in the early fall.
"I don't think my dad really gave a darn about fishing, but I just had a bawl," Haaheim recalled.
"We would cut a willow stick, and my dad, for a while, was a commercial fisherman, so we always had a spool of green fishing line around, so we'd cut off a piece of that and tie it to the willow stick, put a hook on it with a worm and away we went."
That start led Haaheim to pursue his love for fishing to lakes, rivers and streams across the province.
Now retired at age 88, Haaheim found his engineering career working with radio microwave installations for BC Tel took him on assignments across the province, and the opportunity to find new fishing holes.
"I did a lot of field work as well as office work, so whenever I could, I would take my fly rod along with me and try out a lot of good spots."
Haaheim said he tends to shy away from fishing the larger lakes such as Okanagan or Shuswap. "They are just too big for me," he laughs. "I like to fish in a smaller lake but with as big a fish as possible to catch."
He tends to favour fishing the small lakes around what he calls the Winfield Plateau area, east of Lake Country.
Fly tying has also become part of the fishing passion for Haaheim, the subject of both his latest book and an earlier book he has written called Fly Tying: Proven Flies for the Pacific Northwest.
He explains the attraction of fly tying to two factors. "To catch a fish on your own tied fly is really satisfying, much better than a fly you just buy at a store. And second, you can create, you can manufacture new flies, just think up something on your own.
"I happen to have about $3,000 of fly-tying materials on my garage wall, so I can do just about anything. I have probably given away a few thousand flies to other people in my life. I have never sold one. It's just not my bent to do that."
Haaheim has also written a book about trap shooting centred around his beloved Labrador Retriever Jessie, and his experience in teaching Jessie to be an able fetcher for outdoor bird hunting shoots.
"Trap shooting is something I have done for more than 30 years, but I found I did not keep the same records about that as I did about fishing," he said.
Haaheim is hoping to return to the Fraser River shortly to take advantage of the sockeye salmon sport fishing opening, which is open now until Sept. 1.
"The Fraser River sockeye run is larger than the (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) expected, so I hope to find my way down there for that opening," he said.
All of Haaheim's books are available online at www.amazon.ca.
