“It’s a gate by a different name,” flyfisher Kym Hill said. “But we’re diehards.”

The CRD purchased 9,600 hectares in the Leech River watershed in 2007 and 2010 as a future water supply area for Greater Victoria. It won’t be needed for at least 25 years, but public access has been increasingly restricted since 2012 in an effort to prevent forest fires and contamination.