August

I stayed there two days, mostly because of the rain and nastiness, munching on a steady diet of granola bars, brook trout, and dark beer. I amused myself with fishing, with tying flies, taking pictures, and reading Tom Holt’s guides on fishing Montana. And I settled on a plan- a quasi-remote, difficult to access river in southwest Montana which held one of the last vestiges of the state’s native grayling.

I took off towards Dillon and stopped in at the first fly shop I saw, unspectacular. And the clerk seemed incredulous at my plan, as though I had my work cut out for me. I’m one of those folks who are inspired by the doubters, so this made me all the more inclined to succeed.

I bought my tippet and some fly-tying materials, then went by a produce stand and picked up some stuff from a very bored guy in his late teens. And I was off.

Sixty miles down a gravel road in backcountry Montana, in a four door Saturn, is a bit of a harrowing experience. That the entire landscape is vacant of anything except a few cows and abandoned homesteads is altogether lonely.

I finally got where I wanted to be. The river was small, no wider than ten feet in many places. The riffles were thin, only a few inches of water covered the fine gravel so densely packed you’d think it was pavement. Those thin riffles, though, they dumped into surprisingly deep pools and slots, which invariably held my quarry. Every spot of land was covered in dense willows, and at any moment you’d expect a big pissed off moose, or bear.

I tied on a caddis dry and took two casts, revelling in the silence and the loneliness, knowing I was the only person on the stream for miles around, that I was completely and utterly alone. Then a black 4x4 barreled down the gravel road and parked about fifty yards downstream. Four sports piled out and rigged up. They looked like real tools, to boot. I got out and crossed over to the next bend of the meadow pool, and began heading upstream.

The first grayling I hooked was big. At least it seemed big. It seemed around fourteen inches. I was nymphing, and all I saw was a bolt, a flash of silver and olive. I set the hook, and felt the resistance, saw another flash, and then emptiness. I was alone again. She left me.

I switched back to the caddis. Fish were feeding along the high cutbank across the stream. So close to the bank, they seemed to be materializing directly out of the soil. I drifted through, the fly was taken, and I waited a moment before setting the hook. This time it held, and I brought to hand a dainty seven-inch grayling.

I caught three or four more, the biggest around ten inches. Missed another three or four. I never did wind up seeing the other sports, but I had my fun. I kept on down the road, looking for a decent camping spot.

I found one, at the edge of a smallish lake, maybe fifteen acres or so, and loaded with freshly-stocked rainbows. It was a smorgasbord- as soon as I got out of my car I noticed an otter dipping between the rings of rising fish, foundering himself on the dumb little stockers. Two terns were circling and diving overhead- pretty birds which I hadn’t really seen before, and after hearing the noise they make, never care to see again. A heron in a backwater spearing innocent little trout. It was nature, it was life- shit dies.

I decided to forgo the tent and instead just sleep in the car, it’d give me an edge to get up early in the morning and head towards West Yellowstone, where there were fly shops and showers and people. I was starting to miss people, and being all alone on a vast landscape, literally miles from anyone, from anything, can get profoundly lonely.

I strung up my rod with a small little dry fly, hoping to make some new friends. I took a couple casts, caught a brace of rainbows about seven inches long, before the damned dark 4x4 came barreling down the gravel road again. Its lights hit me, it swung over into the grassy area where I had parked my car, and stopped up alongside it.

His lights were on longer than I thought they should be. But eventually he stepped out, a skinny dark-haired man in camouflage cargo shorts. He ambled down with a fly rod to the lake and began fishing about eighty yards to my right. He lit a cigarette.

He caught three or four in the time it took me to catch two. Then I caught another, and he caught two. Then I caught one, then he caught two more. Then I caught two or three in an instant, and he caught one or two more.

“Zee feesh are all smaull.” He had said, loud enough I could hear them, though it didn’t seem he was talking to anyone but himself. I noted the accent.

“Yeah,” I responded. “I haven’t caught anything bigger than seven or eight inches.”

“When I came two yers ago, I caught many beeg feesh.” He said. “I suppose it wars just stocked.”

I nodded, and we both continued to catch fish. It went on like that until it was too dark to see my fly, and all I could see of him was a faint gray outline amongst the water, and a bright red ember. We hadn’t talked for forty minutes or more, and I packed it in and went back to the car. When I got to the bank, he said “Zid you szee zee otuh?”

“Pardon?”

“Zee otuh, zid you szee it?”

“The what?”

“Zee otuh.”

I paused, thinking, trying to decipher what the fuck he was talking about.

“Oh! The OTTER,” I exclaimed. “Yes, yes, I did see the otter, it was chasing fish around as I hooked them.”

“Mine too, it was funny.” That’s all we said, me and my strange French friend.