A Midway Check-In with Brian Niska, Head Guide, Casting Instructor, and Manager of the Skeena Spey Lodge
By Will Rice
When the steelhead grabbed my fly, I was in a bit of a daze. I’d been methodically casting a twelve-and-a-half-foot spey rod with a Skagit line and sink tip for hours. At that precise moment, I was trying to self-diagnose how my casting and line management had so badly collapsed.
The Skeena River, located in the Western Canadian province of British Columbia, is massive and can make you feel insignificant even when you are casting well. And right then and there, I wasn’t casting well. I kept blowing my anchor, my sweep wasn’t at the right speed, and my casts were not performing like they had been just a few short hours before. My fly was still making it out into the run where I could make a big mend and fish it, but my casting had clearly turned to mush.
And that is precisely when the steelhead ate my fly, started taking line, and then did all those wonderful and powerful things that bright chrome steelhead do when they are fresh in from the ocean.
Someone once told me, ‘There is a big difference between no fish and one fish.’
Well… this fish made a big difference on this trip.
After returning each day to the Skeena Spey Riverside Wilderness & Lodge – what I think of as ‘fish camp’ – two topics were continually covered during post-fishing time as I talked with other anglers. The first was the number of fish returning to the river, and the second was our ability to find them with our differing spey casting abilities and varying skill levels.
When I had a chance to sit down with Brian Niska, Manager and Head Guide of the lodge, these were the two topics I wanted to dig into.
Will Rice (WR): Let’s talk about steelhead numbers and the fishing on the Skeena River so far for the 2025 season. Are you feeling good about it, bad about it? What would you share with people who are thinking about planning a trip to your area or already have a steelhead trip booked for this coming season?
Brian Niska (BN): “We had clients out about mid-July, and this year, early on, we had some challenges with water conditions. But we did start, as we normally do, in about the third week of July, and we had pretty good fishing given the conditions right from the get-go. It was really consistent fairly early on for us, and then we had about 15 days in a row of commercial netting. Obviously, we don’t know for sure how many fish get taken in the nets, but good sources close to the net fishery tell me it’s probably somewhere in the neighborhood of a few hundred fish per day. So, you know, 15 days of that in a row definitely hurts. And that doesn’t take into account what goes missing in southeast Alaska, so there’s definitely a portion of the run that is lost to by-catch.
We had pretty good conditions for the second half of August. With good conditions and really good visibility, if the Skeena is low and dropping fast, fish are going to move slower and hang out in the runs longer, so it gives us more opportunity. So, we’ve had pretty darn consistent fishing for most of the first half of the season.
And we will fish until late October here on the Lower Skeena, so right now we’re about midway through it. There are more fish, generally speaking, moving through numbers-wise at the start of our season. What happens with the latter part of the steelhead run is the fish tend to come in in response to water conditions. What I mean by that is if you get a bump of rain so the river bumps up a little bit, that tends to bring in fresh fish, and that’s coho as well as steelhead. So certainly, when we do get some rain, I would expect to see a few more fish around. But it’s honestly been fairly consistent.
At Skeena Spey, here on the lower river, we’re trying to catch a good one – quality over quantity. We want to catch those big fish when they are silver. We want to catch them before they’ve been caught by other anglers. We believe that our flies are some of the first these fish have ever seen. We’re catching them in shallow water, which is a place that they naturally want to be.
You know, you have one guy go out and hook four fish, then someone else goes out and doesn’t hook anything. It is really classic steelheading, and it’s not always about the numbers. It’s more about the luck factor combined with skill. If you squander your chances, you don’t end up with that fish. But if you listen to your guide and you don’t lift your rod tip up when you feel that bite, typically you’re going to land half the fish you hook, so that’s helpful.”
Yes, those steelhead who manage to hang on and not come unbuttoned during the battle… they are quite helpful. And during my four days on the Skeena, I definitely experienced hooked fish that were never ultimately landed. And as Brian stated, that is the nature of steelheading.
We also talked a bit about the Tyee Test Fishery on the Skeena River as well. The Tyee Test Fishery is a long-running gillnet monitoring program established in 1955 to estimate the number of salmon and steelhead returning to the river. The fishery collects data on captured fish by species, size, and timing to inform management decisions for commercial, recreational, and Indigenous fisheries, and for conservation efforts. These numbers are often anxiously watched by steelhead anglers once they are released.
WR: What are your thoughts on the Tyee numbers this year compared to last year and compared to previous years?
BN: “I’d say overall there’s less fish than last year based on our success. Last year was kind of exceptional. We had good numbers of fish and great water conditions. So, you know, we’ll see what September brings. If you like the Tyee as a metric, it is something to watch.
But it’s also important to recognize that we’re talking about a 1,200 ft. long gillnet that’s spread across a section of river that’s well over a kilometer wide and is fished a few hours on each tide. The amount of fish caught per hour gets extrapolated into a representation of the overall numbers. There are 70-plus years of Tyee data, so Tyee is the best indicator that we have. But once again, we’re using well over 70-year-old technology, killing fish in the process, to guess at how many are coming in.
I don’t put a huge amount of stock in Tyee myself. I feel like the Tyee numbers are artificially low for this season. I think that there’s still a lot of ball to be played, if you know what I mean. Even though we’re past the peak of the run, September is an important month down here on the lower river, and a lot of the lower Skeena tributaries have later-timed runs.”
Next, I wanted to jump into more tactical advice for newer anglers who might be planning a steelhead trip and spending hours on the water with a spey rod.
WR: “OK, you mentioned early in one of our conversations that your opinion is that steelhead aren’t particularly hard fish to catch, but first you have to find them, and that can be the tough part. Obviously, part of finding them and putting a swung fly in front of their face is your ability to make a cast and consistently cover water. I know I had a couple of breakdowns during the day where my casting just went to sh!t. In my mind, I’m not fishing the water well, and I’m not making consistent presentations.
I talked about this phenomenon of the ‘mid-day spey casting meltdown’ with some of the other anglers at the lodge. We all kind of laughed about it – like ‘funny/not funny’ – and it is painful when it happens on the river. I thought it would be great if you could share some expert advice about what anglers can do before a steelhead trip, or when they are actually on the water and find themselves struggling to make good, consistent casts.
Are there things that people should think about if they are new to spey casting or just getting started? Or, put a different way, as a casting instructor, how do you help get your clients’ heads around what is happening when their casting breaks down and starts to feel ineffective?
BN: “When I teach, I tend to teach people as if I’m teaching them to teach someone else. So, I’ll present ideas so you can begin chasing the symptoms to find out what the issue is. An example would be if it appears that someone is applying too much power too early in the stroke. And this might show up as you hear a “whooooshhh” noise and a lack of overall casting performance.
It’s very natural to tell a person to slow down, but it is important to understand why they’re applying power too early. It typically would be something along the lines of: there is slack in the line system, and that slack is taking away rod load, and everyone’s natural reaction when they feel load leaving the rod is to add speed. So, how is that slack getting into the line system? Is the slack a result of a poor anchor? Is the slack a result of the rod tip dropping in the sweep? There are a lot of ways that slack can enter the cast, so the anchor is always a good starting point, right.
We talk about self-diagnosis with your casting, and if you find yourself in a funk, the first thing you should look at is your anchor. Anchors are always a good starting point for diagnosis; that’s the foundation of your house. If your anchor is in the right spot, it’s going to be easy to do start doing everything else right.
The second thing I’ll share as a tip is that sometimes people just need a break. You could be tired, it’s that simple. The wind may have changed. Maybe you’re just in a spot where the current is slower or faster, maybe you’re wading a little deeper, or a little too shallow. Sometimes it’s good to just take a break. If you’re in a boat, go back to the boat, have a cup of coffee and get a fresh start.
Typically, if it’s a wading issue and you’re standing in water that’s a little deeper, the height between our rod tip and our anchor point is diminished. I’ll say that again, if you’re standing in 2 1/2 feet of water versus 1 ½ feet of water, it’s going to be harder to make a good cast because the vertical distance between your rod tip in the firing position and your anchor is diminished with the deep wade. So, if you’re in a casting funk, but your anchor looks pretty good, but you still feel like you’re just not connecting the way you want to, take a step back towards the bank, put yourself in slightly shallower water. That can help.
And then lastly, take inventory of your position in the river and your surroundings, ask the question, ‘am I standing in a position that I’m used to standing in, or am I deeper?’ Ask yourself, ‘has the wind changed?’ Try to wrap your head around why your cast is not working by looking at your surroundings.
And this could also be an example to really pay attention to the river’s current. So, if we have a situation where you’re standing in water that’s not moving or it’s frog water, and your running line is sinking down, that could also impact the line speed because during your cast, you’re going to have to pull all of that line out of the water. This is also a good opportunity for you to learn how to manage your running line.
How are you going to manage line and do that? I think the best way is to take a lesson. I think lessons are a really, really good idea for anybody looking to go on water, whether it’s a guided trip or a fishing vacation.
Nowadays, there’s a ton of great instructors. Fly Fishers International has a wonderful spey casting instructor program where instructors are certified at a couple of different levels, and they deliver consistent instruction focused on the fundamentals that will set you up for success. Whatever area you’re in, check out your local fly shop or tackle shop, find out who’s teaching lessons, and that’s a good starting point for someone looking to go on a trip.
Why wouldn’t you invest in a little bit of practice? And even if it’s not lessons, you know, get out and practice ahead of your trip rather than showing up and trying to figure it out. And if you’re stuck, if you can’t find anybody, heck, shoot me an email, give me a phone call. I’ll do my best to help you over the phone. You can send me a video, and I’ll give you some thoughts on how to improve your cast. I won’t even charge you for it.”
And that… is an exceptional offer.
So, the season is off to a good start on the lower Skeena River, and there are still plenty more days, weeks and months to experience it for yourself.
