LINKS & DOWNLOADS
"Large males 20 - 25 lb range were covering every inch of Honey Hole"
FARUK OF THE NORTH
by MICHAEL SIMON
Art of Angling Journal - Volume 2, Issue 4 (2004)
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When Faruk Ekich speaks of the Coppermine, it leaves no doubt that this man is absolutely in love with this river. Whether he is describing the golden dusting on the shoulders of a particularly brilliant Arctic char or recalling the intensity of the gaze in the eyes of a Peregrine falcon, his passion is almost palpable. He has been recording his observations of the flora and fauna of the Arctic tundra in journals for the past twelve years. Since making his
first fly-in float of the Coppermine River in 1990 with his friends Bill Mitchel and Dennis Kulhanek, he returns to it year after year. Although Ekich speaks of the Coppermine as if he were its honorary river keeper, he will tell you in sincerity that he believes the Coppermine is Manitou’s river.
Over the course of twelve years and twelve raft trips down his beloved Coppermine River, rituals have evolved, one by one. The longest standing ritual
involves the feeding of his camp “landlords,” Chip and Dale, the sik-siks (the ground squirrels of Nunavut), the bald and golden eagles, Lapland sparrows, (a pair brought their young to camp to be fed), and even the grayling of “Bosna Creek.” For the sik-siks, Ekich has packed-in dried fruit, nuts and porridge. The eagles (and the seagulls) feast on the remains of the few char Ekich and his companions keep for dinner...
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"...tellement beau qu’il portait la marque de mes sentiments pour cette espèce…"
NÉ POUR ÊTRE AIMÉ
by FARUK EKICH
Saumons illimités 82 - Volume 31, Numero 3 Autmne 2008
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Quelle belle saison de pêche au saumon que celle que nous avons connue cette année!
Le nombre de poissons dans les rivières a été particulièrement élevé, et le niveau de l’eau et les températures favorables ont rendu la pêche des plus agréable.
Pour ma part, cette saison a été spéciale pour certaines raisons qui vont au-delà de la pêche elle-même.
Durant mes 38 saisons précédentes à aller à la rencontre de Salar dans les tributaires du Saguenay, sur la
Côte-Nord, dans l’Ungava et dans les provinces maritimes, j’ai eu la chance de piquer de plus gros spécimens que celui-là, mais jamais je n’en avais vu un aussi beau – tellement beau qu’il portait la marque de mes sentiments pour cette espèce…
Je possède une maison d’été sur la rive du Saguenay, à l’Anse-Pelletier, à seulement 25 minutes des fosses de la rivière Sainte-Marguerite. Le 11 juillet dernier, je suis allé à la fosse où, deux semaines auparavant, un ami de l’Ontario et moimême
avions gracié un beau mâle de 94 cm.
Je pouvais encore apercevoir cinq saumons à cet endroit.
Le niveau de l’eau était alors trop haut pour traverser la rivière et pêcher sur le banc de gravier de la rive opposée.
Je n’avais d’autre choix que de pêcher du côté où le courant principal est plus susceptible d’aider le poisson...
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"There’s always a chance we’ll see it next year. If you let it go, there’s always a chance."
GENERATION NO KILL
by FARUK EKICH
Atlantic Salmon Journal Winter 2008 Vol 57 No 4 60th Anniversary Issue
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I want to tell you a tale that you are going to think is fiction. I agree it is fantastic enough to be fantasy, but this account is absolutely true. No matter, believe what you will, for even as fiction it makes a fine story. It’s important for me to tell it now, because I am getting old, and soon I will begin to forget the little details, like the name of the
fly, or worse, the name of the pool.
I could never forget the name of the river of course.
It is the Petit Saguenay, where for 39 years I have cast over the salmon that lie in the tail end of my favourite pool, La Poussière.
Even now, sitting in my Ottawa home, I can close my eyes and see this classic pool—the round
boulders that make wading difficult, the forest that cuddles up to the bank on the far side.
Birches, hemlock and alder form a solid wall of tone on tone green.
A line of white foam adds emphasis to the foliage...
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"Why this photo simply couldn’t be left out."
ADAM’S SALMON
by MARTIN SILVERSTONE
Atlantic Salmon Journal Winter 2008 Vol 57 No 4 60th Anniversary Issue
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I know I’m going to get in trouble, but it’s better to get this right out in the open. I have never caught a salmon. Not that I haven’t had the opportunities, having been taken under wing by some of the best salmon people on some of the top rivers over the years— Adams on the Matapedia, Campbell on the Moisie, Gilker on the Cascapedia,
Dudley on the Salmonier, LeGrand and Dubé on the Bonaventure to mention only a few.
I can drop names like Art Lee, but when it comes to fish caught, I am his absolute opposite, stuck in the bizarro world of salmon angling, the one where no one catches a fish.
It’s not as bad as it seems.
I’m more inclined to climb out on
the bank after a few casts to take pictures, or hike up or down stream to watch and talk with other anglers, or visit a river guardian sitting alone in his hut...
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"...où j’ai rencontré son patriarche, l’omble chevalier."
Les vraies perles de la rivière Coppermine
par FARUK EKICH
Saumons illimités 82 - Volume 32, Hiver 2009
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Lorsque je pense à la grande passion de ma vie – la pêche à la mouche –, je me trouve très chanceux. Chanceux non pas pour le nombre ou la taille des poissons pêchés (l’époque où ces valeurs primaient m’est lointaine), mais pour avoir vécu dans des endroits qui m’ont offert les meilleures opportunités pour assouvir ma passion, et ce, avec toutes les espèces de salmonidés.
J’ai grandi sur les rives de la Vrbas, une magnifique rivière calcaire ornant les deux millénaires d’histoire de la ville de Banja Luka (en Bosnie). Comme toutes les rivières de cette région, la Vrbas possède une vie aquatique riche où ombres communs, truites brunes et huchons abondent. C’est d’ailleurs dans cette région que la première pêche à la
mouche aurait été enregistrée, par un voyageur romain du IIIe siècle...
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"... all hell will break loose when they hear about the fishing."
THE OLD-TIMERS’ LEAGUE
by MARTIN SILVERSTONE
Atlantic Salmon Journal Winter 2009
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Only now, as I wait on the bridge over the Rivière du Petit Saguenay, with the roar of the falls thundering in my ears, and the roadway vibrating beneath my feet, do I realize the folly of it all. The plan was for me to be dropped off (en route from the Gaspé to Montreal) at a cabin overlooking this pretty water-fall, then scout out the river with good friend Faruk Ekich.
Finally, when Lawton and Belvedere arrived I would be ready to blow them away. Using Faruk’s advice (after all he is pretty much to this river what Richard Adams was to the Matapedia) my two friends would catch fish and thus, I would reward them for driving five hours to give me a ride home. I would have another great story of wide-eyed first-timers discovering the wonders
of Atlantic salmon angling, and maybe, just maybe, in the process, catch my first salmon ever...
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"...the rises we saw & heard still trouble my dreams three months later!"
BROOK TROUT OF THE SAGUENAY
by MICHAEL SIMON
The Virginia Sportsman Apr/May 2010
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I could tell my friend Faruk was a bit miffed as we raced daybreak to our beat on Quebec’s Sainte Marguerite River. Dawn had broken as we hurriedly rigged up and cast very large muddler/mouse patterns over the still-dark but rapidly brightening pool. Fifteen minutes of quietly frantic casting failed to bring up the 4- to 8-pound fontinalis we had observed here on the previous day’s reconnaissance – but the rises we saw and heard still trouble my dreams three months later!
I found myself on this beautiful near-wilderness river in Northeast Quebec thanks to an invitation from my old friend, Faruk Ekich. Ekich is a remarkable man. A lifelong angler and fly tyer, he acquired these two passions as a lad in his native Bosnia angling for brown trout and grayling. Now, after retiring as an engineer from the Husky Corporation, he spends the better part of his days pursuing the abundant Atlantic salmon, brook trout and arctic char of Canada. He not only designs and builds the state-
of-the-art Ekich Automatic Bobbin, unique handcrafted vises and other fly-tying tools, but also has a solid footing in the archaic origins of the sport; he ties graceful tiny flies, braids horsehair lines and leaders, then attaches them to a 10-foot wand of seasoned hazelwood. Ekich then proceeds to fish this totally self-produced ensemble and with great result!...
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"Arctic char: the power of Atlantic salmon & the beauty of Salvelinus fontinalis"
THE TRUE GEMS OF COPPERMINE
by FARUK EKICH
The Canadian Fly Fisher Nov/Jan 2010
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Fly fishing was practiced that same old way when I first started to fish, just after World War II. Lines braided from horse tail hair, terminating in a single hair for a tippet, limber hazelnut rods and flies hand-tied at the river’s edge, were still used to entice the ‘prince’—grayling.
Emigrating to Canada in 1966 was the most fortunate event of my life. Apart from giving me the chance to establish a good life, it gave me the opportunity to expand my fly fishing passion with
salmonids. My wife, Ghislaine, and I settled in Smithers, B.C., which was a dream place for any steelhead fisherman and the late sixties were a boom time to fish for that acrobat of the West. Later on, in 1970, we moved east and I waded chest deep in the rivers of that Atlantic salmon paradise—Quebec.
The passion for Atlantic salmon engrossed me so deeply that I counted the rest of my life in terms of my opportunities to pursue the king of rivers. However, as much as the grandeur and power of the
salmon enthralled me, I was charmed and gave my heart to the ‘princess’ of the same waters—Salvelinus fontinalis, the beautiful gem of the salmon family. And gradually, my encounters with brook trout grew into a love affair that replaced Atlantic salmon. I went looking for them in their prime habitat from James Bay to Hudson Bay to Ungava Bay. It was there that I met the patriarch of Salvelinus, Salvelinus alpinus—the Arctic char...
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"Faruk’s Dama Seal Vise is as much a work of art as it is a high-quality fly-tying tool."
FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION
by DAVID KLAUSMEYER
Fly Tyer Winter 2010
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Perhaps you haven’t heard of Faruk Ekich. He lives in Canada, and makes only infrequent forays into the United States to show off his latest fly-tying inventions. But when Faruk does show up, it’s always a treat to see what he has created.
A few years ago, Faruk introduced the Ekich Ultimate Bobbin. I immediately recognized the ingenuity and care that went into the design of this spring-loaded tool. The Ultimate Bobbin is designed to automatically maintain proper thread tension while you tie.
While the Ultimate Bobbin is a purely functional tool, Faruk’s new Dama Seal Vise is as much a work of art as it is a high-quality fly-tying tool. We’ll get to the functional parts of the vise in a moment, but for now, I want you to understand that the vise jaws are entirely handmade out of Damascus steel. We live in an age when it is claimed that many products are handmade, but in reality that often means they are assembled by hand. When Faruk says “handmade,” however, he really means it.
“I start with a raw bar of
Damascus steel, and cut out all the parts using a saw,” Faruk explained. “I then shape and smooth everything using files and finishing stones.”
Examine the photos of the jaws and swept neck, and you’ll agree that Faruk’s vise is beautiful to behold. While I thought the curved neck was for artistic effect, Faruk explained that the shape is purely functional...
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"His modus operandii was tenacity, and an early start"
WITH EYES CLOSED
by MARTIN SILVERSTONE
Atlantic Salmon Journal Summer 2011
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It was pitch black.
And the roar of the falls, which was so soothing when I was falling asleep only a few hours ago, now was deafening and scary.
Things change quickly when you’re ripped from a deep sleep in a cabin in the wilderness at 1 A.M. to find a friend bloody and bleeding from an ugly, deep gash in his elbow.
Dean was pretty calm about it, even though it was his arm. “Guys, I think I need a hand,” he called quietly from the kitchen to wake us up.
“How bad is it?” he asked and not waiting for me to look he walked into the bathroom trying to see his elbow in the mirror.
In the stark white light of the washroom I got a good look at the hole in his arm.
As a rugby player, coach and referee I know the protocol, always downplay the severity not to stress the victim, but in this case Dean could read my shocked expression.
It was bad, real bad.
Luckily Aaron was there. “Get me a towel and some tape ” the trained fireman and third
member of our party barked as he came out of the bedroom.
His urgent orders snapped me out of my stupor and I found the tape and a clean towel and helped him staunch the flow of blood.
It wasn’t pretty, duct tape isn’t meant to be, but it did the job.
What was our next move?
There was no phone service, we were a long way from any hospital and we had one man seriously wounded.
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