Road Trip

Ok, so fly fishing the small meadow stream in my last post was stellar: the trout were bigger than expected, the surroundings prettier than anyone could want, and reclining in the warm, tall grass (“resting our casting arms” as I recall) might have become the highlight of the trip.

Could our next fly fishing adventure possibly measure up to this one?

Later, we discovered we’d walked right by a bed of peculiar, high-altitude freshwater mussels that live upwards of 100 years, and that a small pack of wolves had taken up residence in the area.

Frankly, I wish I’d seen both (the wolves from a greater distance than the mussels), but both get filed under the heading of “things I didn’t know about, but wish I had when it would have mattered” (yes, I do regret too).

After we’d walked around the meadow back to our ridgeline camp site (no mosquitoes), we sat and watched the sun go down.

The Underground goes all artsy on you.

Because [name redacted] and I aren’t exactly shy about sharing opinions, we dissected the state of fly fishing, the world, the environment and even fly rods (perhaps the most contentious subject).

The discussion was as lively as the day’s fly fishing.

Then the day ended, we went to sleep, and dawn broke, and on a whim, we headed back to the creek we fished a couple days before, reasoning the waters would have fallen, and – yes – the fishing would be even better (apparently I do greed well too).

We expected a triumphant return to the site of our earlier small stream adventure, and on one count, we were rewarded.

Sadly, that count didn’t include as many big trout.

We did catch plenty of Westslope Cutthroats, but the stream had fallen farther than expected, and while the trout weren’t really along the banks, they weren’t all that aggressive in the seams either.

A rare image of the Underground (courtesy [name redacted])

[Name redacted] suggested it had something to do with the trout repositioning themselves in the falling water, taking a day off to fight it out for the better lies, but I cared little.

The fly fishing was still damned good, and the only event marring the adventure was [name redacted]‘s plunge into the river after a rock shifted under him, banging both his knee and his reel.

As he fell, I could tell it was going to hurt a lot, but I’d also just hooked a small trout, which meant I had a difficult decision to make: do I help my friend so he lives another day (live, damnit live!), or do I land the trout?

Given that my heart is pure – so I have the strength of ten men – I managed to do both.

The Gimp Laughs Last

Of course, the lord giveth, and the lord taketh away, and in the “giveth” column, [name redacted] chose to sit on the bank and let his knee recover a bit, and promptly caught 12 trout from one seam (two of which went 12” or so) without so much as moving his ass an inch.

A Nettrout – my favorite.

If you’re like me, you can’t abide showoffs on the river (except when it’s me), so I fished my way upriver. Today’s rod of choice was an 8′ 5wt Diamondglass rod that’s very sweet to cast (though it grows a little less so when it becomes windy).

It was built for me by good friend (Rich Margiotta), a fact which adds considerably to the rod’s already-considerable charms.

I was more than nine days into the Montana Road Trip, and I think my hyper-web-accelerated internal time clock was finally adjusting to the more human pace the outdoors tends to impose on you if given half a chance.

The casts were falling pretty much where I wanted, the fish were eating the dry (not quite as often as I wanted, but that’s almost always the case), and the whole event had acquired a bit of a dreamlike quality.

That’s me. That’s beautiful. (courtesy [name redacted])

It’s in those rare moments of fly fishing grace that you realize that this sport is actually pretty damned cool, and while many define the sport by what’s happening on the waters that see a couple dozen drift boats every day, that might be more a commercial perspective than a sporting one.

I sat on that for a bit, and [name redacted] walked up and asked to borrow the camera.

The Image Maven

I’d taken damn few pictures so far, and was frankly relieved when I didn’t have to worry about stocking the thing with images.

Of course, that’s how we ended up with rare photographs of me in my own fly fishing blog, including a Gripping Series of Photographs So Graphic, That Small Children and the Weak of Heart May Want to Look Away.

Well. Sorta.

[Name redacted] did a nice job of shooting me while I cast at an inside seam (see “That’s Me” photo above), but he showed his Peckinpah-esque cinematic chops when he recorded me hooking and losing the Big Cutthroat Trout of the Day:

A 14″-15″ cutthroat eats, and I set. Hey, this is eas… uh oh…

The skid mark moment when the trout heads downstream and starts kicking my ass.

It’s all knee-deep riffles below; brilliantly, I try to steer the trout into a seam…

Which doesn’t work. He gets off, while I gaze longingly (with an empty net)

OK, maybe it wasn’t exactly Drama In Real Life stuff. Maybe it wasn’t even that exciting from a fishing perspective, but I’ll bet someone could add a soundtrack (Don’t Get Fooled Again by The Who) and give it a little vibration, eh?

Beginning of the End

I’ve got one more wrap-up post planned for the Underground’s Montana Fly Fishing Road Trip, including a few odds-and-ends photos that didn’t fit anywhere else.

Though I’ve written several long posts on the trip, it’s humbling to realize that so much went unsaid and un-photographed.

Then again, we are not video recorders with legs, and if you could experience the fullness of a fly fishing trip on the Internet, then you wouldn’t need all those expensive fly rods or waders.

More to come from Montana. See you on the river, Tom Chandler.

Bonus Graphic: a “Wordle” word cloud graphic of the report.