Bob Hooton was born in Vancouver, raised in the suburb of South Burnaby and resident of that heavily populated part of British Columbia long enough to obtain a BSc from Simon Fraser University. The magnetism of steelhead came naturally to him. A successful angling apprenticeship was served on the highly competitive streams within striking distance of Vancouver before the university degree and before a neighbour fisheries biologist arranged an introduction with a high-ranking colleague in the Provincial Government headquarters in Victoria. So began a 37-year career that included an MSc session at the University of Idaho. Most of Bob's career focused on steelhead management, first on Vancouver Island and later in the Skeena country. The most challenging and rewarding years, between 1986 and 1999, were spent in Smithers as the senior fisheries authority for the then-Ministry of Environment's Skeena Region (the spatial equivalent of Oregon plus almost half of Washington). Bob's career bracketed the good, the bad and the ugly of steelhead management in British Columbia. The Skeena Steelhead story could never be told until after the author retired in 2008.