The rivers of British Columbia are famous for two things - huge rainbow trout and excellent dry fly fishing. Those are just two reasons why I headed to British Columbia's Cariboo Mountains to fish the Horsefly River.

The Horsefly did not disappoint. Two hours into my first day of fishing, my guide, Biggs, was yelling at me to, "Reel, Ralph, reel! Play it off your reel!"

I'd hooked into a rainbow, one much larger than I was used to catching near my home in Pennsylvania. Back home, most of the trout I caught were small and could be played to the net quickly by stripping in line. Trying to fight a twenty-inch trout that way in British Columbia, though, left me with a tangled mess of pink fly line.

Frantically I attempted to straighten out the knots around my ankles while keeping tension on the line. The fish helped me out by taking a sharp downstream run that ripped the line from my feet and through the rod guides. Somehow the line straightened itself out and I had one very feisty rainbow on my hands.

Moments later I landed the fish, unhooked it, and lifted it up for a picture. It was a rainbow trout unlike any I'd ever caught. A greenish-yellow color seemed to have been lightly painted over a dark red stripe and small black flecks. A typical rainbow from the Horsefly River where, Biggs said, trout tend to run thin and long, but fight like crazy.

Biggs smacked me on the back and shook my hand. "That's a nice fish. A heckuva fish."

As I watched it fin back into the clear swirling water of a small eddie, more trout began rising in the pool. Grinning, Biggs said, "Go get 'em."

So I did. Or, at least, I tried. Time after time I tried the same technique that fooled the one I'd just caught. I drifted the Elk Hair Caddis through the pool, and when the fly reached the tail end of its natural drift, I skittered it back upstream against the current. The skittering technique fooled the twenty-incher, but the rest of the fish in the pool wouldn't even give it a look.

I switched over to an orange Stimulator, and then a Madam X. Both flies were large and bulky, and both flies drifted through the pool untouched.

"You got any size 14 Light Cahills?" Biggs asked. "I saw a couple small white flies hatching a little bit ago."

When preparing for the trip, I filled my boxes with flies such as Stimulators, hopper patterns, and Chernobyl Ants in sizes 4 to 8. I hadn't expected the guide would recommend a size 14 Light Cahill. The best I could do was a size 12 Irresistible Wulff.

On the first cast, a fish took the Wulff with a subtle slurp. I lifted the rod tip and started reeling. "Play it off the reel!" I said, mimicking Biggs.

I'd waded out onto a sandy point so I could fish the pool with shorter casts. Now I found myself backing up toward shore as the fish tore out all the line I'd reeled in. Downstream, deep in the pool, I saw a flash of greenish-yellow.

"Biggs," I said. "This is a big fish. A real big fish, Biggs."

"He's a fighter," Biggs said.

The fish ran upstream, my line bowing behind it, and I just hoped the hook would hold.

The place where I was staying the week, Eureka Peak Lodge and Outfitters, handed out pins for exceptional fish taken from the Horsefly River. It was their way of rewarding anglers. Silver pins were given for trout between twenty and twenty-four inches, and gold pins for trout over twenty-four inches.

This fish, I knew, would garner at least a silver pin, but Biggs didn't say much. He just kept trying to get a good view of the trout and advised me on how to play it out. As soon as he realized its size, though, his eyes flashed open wide. He didn't estimate its size. Instead he started jumping up and down, pumping his arms in the air, saying, "It's a pin fish, it's a pin fish! Don't horse him! Play it easy!"

Without a doubt, Biggs was just as excited as I was. He coached me until I guided the trout into shallow water, where it flopped like the beached giant it was. Unlike typical Horsefly rainbows, this one was fat. Very fat. A seven-pound rainbow.

We took a conservative measurement - twenty-seven inches.

"There's your gold pin fish," Biggs said.

I couldn't stop smiling.

I savored the catch for a minute or so, until another trout began rising directly in front of us. If I've learned anything from years of fishing, it's that you have to take advantage of the times when they are biting.

My first cast fell short, but the next cast was perfect. A nice eighteen-inch rainbow thought so, too. This fish didn't have the greenish-yellow tint, however. Its belly was chrome white, which meant that it was a lake fish. When the sockeye salmon begin their spawning runs, rainbows follow them upriver and join the trout that remain in the rivers year round.

I caught another greenish-yellow trout before deciding to rest the pool. Catching four fish in the span of a half-hour had caused the other trout to stop feeding.

Sitting on shore with Biggs, I finally had a chance to observe my surroundings and fully take in the beauty of British Columbia. The sky was a deep blue, with patches of clouds casting shadows over rolling meadows and forested mountain tops. The mountains in the distance, higher in elevation, were still capped with snow, even in late August. It was wild, desolate country - exactly the type of country where you'd expect to find water like the Horsefly River.

Located in the Cariboo Mountains, the Horsefly River is as rich in history as it is in trophy trout. In 1859, local Indians showed gold miners the location of gold deposits near the town of Horsefly. The discovery lead to the Cariboo Gold Rush. But even before that, the Horsefly River was critical to British Colubmia's cultural heritage. It provided a north-south travel route used by First Nations prior to the arrival of Euro-Candian settlers and others who later inhabited the Cariboo region..

Today, the Horsefly River is part of British Columbia's Heritage Rivers Program and provides important spawning habitat for sockeye salmon and rainbow trout. The river originates in the Quesnel Highlands and offers over sixty miles of water that's catch and release, fly fishing only. Also, fishing must be done with barbless hooks. These restrictions have made the Horsefly into one of the premiere rivers in North America.

Perhaps most intriguing about the Horsefly is its size. In most places where I fished, upriver of the town of Horsefly, the river is only about twenty yards wide, which gives it a quality of intimacy that many of the big Western rivers lack. One day on the Horsefly and I was ready to call it my own.

"I see more trout rising," Biggs said.

Farther downstream, where the run we'd been fishing dropped off into a deep, slow-moving pool, I saw the splashes of trout taking insects from the water's surface. From our spot, though, the fish were slightly out of my casting range. The Horsefly may be a fairly small river, but it's deep enough that you can't wade just anywhere. You have to pick your spots and choose an approach.

We decided to walk up and cross a small feeder creek that fed into the pool and circle around, approaching the trout from downriver. No sooner had we gotten into position when there was a large crash across river and a bear came splashing into the pool in front of us.

"Grizzly!" I shouted.

"Where?" Biggs said, looking upriver.

"Right there!" I said, pointing to a spot twenty yards ahead of us.

The bear stood there staring us down. He didn't look afraid. He was thin and hungry. The salmon run was two weeks later than usual, and the bear was looking at us like we were hamburgers fresh off the griddle.

"Back up real slow," Biggs said.

We backed up, and as we did I realized I was between Biggs and the bear - an uncomfortable feeling, to say the least. I hastily snapped off a couple of pictures. The bear didn't seem impressed. He walked deeper into the pool. The trout stopped feeding as the bear crossed the river and pulled up on our side. As he was crawling onto shore, though, we were already marching double-quick toward the truck.

We made it to the truck and climbed inside. We rolled the windows down and waited. A few minutes later we saw the grizzly heading toward us.

"I don't think he's following us," Biggs said, "but just in case, stay in the truck." As if I had anything else in mind!

The bear crossed to the other side of the river again and we watched it disappear into the dense brush.

"Do you think it's safe to go fish that pool again?" I asked.

"Are you crazy?!" Biggs said. "The only way I'm going down there is if I have bear spray or a gun."

"Where can we get some bear spray?" I asked.

"You're nuts, Ralph." Biggs shook his head and started up the truck. "There's a guy camping up around the bend," he said. "Maybe we should let him know there's a bear in the area." Just then, a loud bang came from up around the bend - a harmless bear gun meant to scare away bears. "Never mind," Biggs said, grinning. "He already knows."

We drove downriver, stopping occasionally to fish. I hooked a few nice trout but couldn't land them. Although barbless hooks are great when you're releasing fish, they sometimes don't hold as well as regular hooks - at least, that was my excuse for letting the trout get off. But how could I complain after landing a trout worthy of a gold pin?

Later that afternoon, we met up with Biggs's brother and borrowed his bear spray. We returned to where we'd fished that morning with about an hour of daylight left. As I fished, Biggs kept watch, bear spray drawn and aimed at any noise in the brush that sounded suspicious.

Eventually even I lost my nerve. Something about being on the river near dark, at a bear's dinner time, just didn't seem wise. We headed back to the lodge and, over a hot dinner, told our tales to the other guests.

The next day we decided to float a different section of the river. Of course, it was the worst possible day to be floating the river. A stiff wind made casting tough for me, and made rowing hard for Biggs, especially along the slow, flat stretches.

"Row, Biggs, row!" I teased.

He shook his head. "You just mind your casting."

No problems there. I cast until my arms ached. I hooked several nice fish in the morning, on size 4 Chernobyl Ants, but they all shook off, mostly because I'd set the hook too soon. As soon as I saw the trout take the fly, I lifted the rod tip and didn't give the fish a chance to fully inhale it.

"You're supposed to say, 'God bless the queen,' and then lift the rod," he said. "That gives the trout time to eat the fly." But no matter how much he lectured me, I got excited every time and set the hook right away.

The fishing was rough all day. We threw everything in our fly boxes and couldn't turn a fin. We pulled over at nice pools and worked them with dry flies, nymphs, streamers, egg patterns, and anything else we could think of. When we did find a rising fish, and started casting to it, the trout would stop feeding. As soon as we stopped fishing, the trout began rising again.

"This is ridiculous," Biggs said. "Something doesn't seem right."

We discovered that "something" when we pulled over at one pool and saw fresh boot tracks in the mud. "Another boat must be fishing ahead of us," Biggs said. (We learned later that night that we were right.)

We kept fishing anyway. Actually, I kept fishing - the wind picked up so much that Biggs was too occupied by rowing to make a cast. Finally, late in the afternoon, I landed some nice rainbows and had several others on, and I was once again in love with the Horsefly. That's how fishing is, I guess. One minute you're cursing a river and the next you're praising it.

It was a tough day of fishing, but Biggs made it fun. He was one of the most entertaining guys I've ever fished with. He grew up fishing and guiding on the Horsefly River, and being around him was like attending a fishing seminar. In one day I learned more about trout fishing than I ever could have learned on my own.

Still, after a frustrating day on the river, we spent the next day tackling a few of the local lakes to regain our confidence. From my first cast to my last, I caught fish all day long, most of them between twelve and fourteen inches, on any fly I cared to use.

The day after that, I tagged along with Quille, one of the other guides in camp, and her clients to fish a more secluded lake. We caught plenty of trout around fourteen inches that day, too. Secretly, though, I yearned for another day on the Horsefly River.

Back at camp on the fourth night of my trip, Stuart, the owner of Eureka Peak Lodge, pulled me aside and said, "I bet you'd like another day on the river."

"Heck yeah!" I said.

"Biggs has other commitments," Stuart said, "but tomorrow is Quille's day off and she wants to fish the river. You can fish with her, if you don't mind."

Of course, I didn't mind at all. Quille was one of the most respected guides in camp. She was a bonafide trout bum, more excited about fishing than anyone I'd ever met. Mention rainbow trout and her eyes lit up.

At the Horsefly, Quille decided to fish upriver while I worked down. Eventually I found myself at the pool where Biggs and I ran into the grizzly bear. No grizzly bears in sight today, so I worked the pool without competition. Although, I did keep up my guard and listened for suspicious noises in the brush.

More salmon were in the river. In the span of four days, the river bottom went from clear to being covered with the flaming red of hundreds of spawning sockeye. In fact, there were so many sockeye that drifting a nymph was almost impossible - every pass through the pool would snag one of the salmon. When I could get a good drift, though, the trout were biting. I landed several nice fish there, and a couple more downriver, on dry flies and Copper John nymphs.

Out of curiosity, I tied on a pink bunny leach that Quille had given me that morning. It was a huge, gaudy-looking fly that made a small splash when it hit the water. After letting it sink to the bottom, I stripped it toward me. Two strips and I got a vicious strike. All I saw was the greenish-yellow flash of a giant rainbow trout as it took off downstream and snapped my line. Exactly how big that fish was, I'm still wondering. I doubt Stuart had a pin for fish that size.

A couple of hours later, I decided to head back upriver to check on Quille. As I walked the shore, I saw the tracks I'd made on the way down. And then I saw grizzly tracks over top of mine. It gave me pause knowing that I had no gun or bear spray. It also gave me an enhanced appreciation for my own life, and I hurried upriver as quickly and quietly as possible.

I finally caught up with Quille. She was casting to several rising trout in the pool where I'd caught the twenty-seven incher. Together we walked upriver to a swift run, and that's where I sat down and watched the master at work.

In no time I realized Quille, like Biggs, was indeed a master. In less than twenty minutes I watched her catch and release four big rainbows. It seemed like she hooked into a fish on every cast. As she released the last fish, I asked her how many she'd caught so far.

"Oh, I'm not sure," she said sheepishly. "Probably six or seven."

But I could tell by the satisfied expression on her face that she'd caught a lot more than that.

"Who taught you how to flyfish?" I asked.

"Stuart," she said. "He's the best flyfisherman I know."

"Better than you?" It was hard to believe.

"By far," she said.

Satisfied with her day, Quille reeled in and hooked the fly to her rod handle. "Ready to go?" she asked.

I hesitated, took one last survey of the river. What I saw was breathtaking - a pale evening sky unfolding over distant, snow-capped mountains and long meadows rolling down to the river's edge.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Quille said.

"It sure is," I said, and followed her back to the truck.

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For more information about Eureka Peak Lodge and Outfitters, contact Stuart Maitland at adventure@eurekapeak.com.

Or visit them online at www.eurekapeak.com.