Creekwalker
Summer in Montana is dry. Being in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, Montana is basically quite rocky. I do not negate the beauty of the Aspen, fir and all the beautiful hues of green that grace the banks of the abundant rivers and streams. More than one of my fishing trips have begun by sliding down a rocky bank, dropping my gear and skinning my knees! You know you have really found a hidden treasure when you have to sit for 20 minutes picking gravel the size of cracked pepper out of the angry, red scratches on your knees. The palms of my hands would sting all day. But alas, it was definitely worth the battle scars!
The Bitterroot Valley has become the destination point for many avid fly fishermen. This famous, blue ribbon river was literally my backyard! When the state began an advertising campaign touting Montana as “The Last Best Place”, I almost became physically ill. I knew what would eventually happen. It hurt my heart to think my “first best place” was about to be ravished. Hungry men… coming from who knows where to step into suspender-style waders, and step into my streams, step into my world. I felt threatened. My way of life was about to change as surely as it had for my mother-in-law. She was a logger, sawed logs by hand and helped her husband haul them down all the switchbacks on a old, rickety 1947 Chevy 3 ton. I would crawl over some big log as I made my way to “the” spot and would wonder if this might be one they had left behind. She is actually the one who wet my excitement to go to Twin Lakes. Anyone who ventures to go there in 2009 has to navigate road that cannot be technically called a road. In Margaret’s day, they rode horse-back over the very trail that Lewis and Clark no doubt blazed for them. I will save my thoughts about Lost Horse for another day however. No… today I will tell you about the Bitterroot River, with its cold water in the high places, right down to the warmer water as it dumps into the Clark Fork at Missoula.
East Fk. Bitterroot R. by Creekwalker
Personally I prefer the high places. The colder water seems to yield trout that are fighters, their flesh firm and their spirit everything a Rainbow or Brown is known for. The Cutthroat are especially plentiful and almost beg to be tantalized with a fly. They don’t care what it looks like most times. Once, when I ran out of worms (yes, bobber, worms, the whole bit), I tied a piece of moss around a hook with a piece of cellophane from my candy wrapper to make wings. I used the string I unraveled from the hem of my denim cutoffs. Fools they are. It got soggy and the cellophane stuck to itself, but I got him. Months later I would find a small metal box in the garage in a box with some old junk (or so I thought). Upon opening it I discovered 3 or 4 flies and black looking worms. It was a treasure I did not yet understand I had in my hands. I would later learn that the Eagle Claw bamboo pole (the one with the number inked on the base), and the Wheatly Simmaloy flybox, were not the “junk” I thought they were! That reel in the leather box was also something (that today, still makes me queasy to think I almost gave it away). The reel had the stamp of H.L Leonard on it. My husband (who before brain surgery had been a fisherman) had gotten them from Margaret’s’ second husband (the first had been killed in a logging accident). . His old waders still hang on a nail, and that wicker creel (its leather handle replaced by a piece of hay bale twine) hangs right atop it. I still have them, and they are still in the garage with my other “junk”. New garage, same old stuff..
Creekwalker
06-21-09.
