After our initial fishing failure, I would like to say that things improved during the week we were in Montana. It didn’t. We fished lakes, streams going into lakes, and even a stocked local pond with no luck. We bought bait, got advice from the bait shop owners, and talked with anyone who looked like they might know something of fishing in Montana, no luck.
I know that part of our problem when we moved up north to Kalispell and Whitefish was the lack of lake access. Every lake depending on its size was surrounded by homes that varied from rough log cabins to estates that put Buckingham Palace to shame. This made finding a spot on the shore without trespassing was a big problem. Montana occasionally would let us low-lifes who did not have seven or eight figure salaries know where we were allowed to fish by putting out an occasional sign with a fish and hook. These signs would then bring us to a boat ramp where one could fish on either side of it for a few yards. Only way to get to where the fish were was by boat. This idea probably helped the local boat sellers and renters but did little to improve the luck of we who were of moderate means.
We finally gave up listening to the locals on where, how and what to fish with. Their advice invariably led to the purchase yet another lure or bait type which failed to get us even one lousy nibble. The only time we caught any fish at all was a site Wes and I had found on our own on the Flathead River by following one of those fish and hook signs. What we caught were a bunch of eight inch white fish, all of which we threw back, as according to Wes they were not edible unless you were on one of those human versus nature reality shows where maggots were on the menu. In actuality we never technically caught these fish either as the only time they bit was when the pole was perfectly stationary and propped up on a forked stick. Within a minute of being put on the stick, the end of the pole would start to bob. Pick up the pole, they stopped biting. Hold the pole as steady as possible while not breathing, still no bites. Put it back on the forked stick and boom, the bite was back on. The ones we caught that afternoon had all stupidly hooked themselves and we just reeled them in. Even that was not enjoyable as white fish don’t seem to have any fight in them and they had all swallowed the hook so deep that needle nose pliers could reach the shank. After about two hours of this we drove back to our hotel, tired, dejected, with worm slime and fish blood on our hands.
On about our third day in northern Montana we were told where to go by yet another local, but before reaching that spot we followed yet another fish and hook sign. This time the lake was too small to have its access owned by anybody of importance. From the boat ramp we spotted a likely shore site on the opposite side of the lake and what looked like a nearby road. After a bit of four wheeling we manage to get what we thought was pretty near the site, got out of the truck and were instantly swarmed by humming bird sized mosquitoes. Undeterred, or more likely desperate to go home with at least one nice fish between us, we sprinted toward the lake in the hopes that the deadly swarm was confined to the trees where we had parked. Lucky for us that the rocks we had seen from the opposite shore were mosquito free, as I am not sure we could have made the return run to the truck without allowing some time for our bodies to renew a few of our lost red blood cells. We fished from the rock for about three hours without a bite. During that time we saw a guy launch a small boat from the boat ramp, and oar around the lake for about an hour dragging a fly behind him. Eventually he seemed to catch a fish as he took out his net and dipped it into the water. However he was just retrieving a can of Bud that he had dropped. I am really sorry to say that fishing from those rocks was the highlight of our Montana fishing experience. Perhaps we were too early in the year. Perhaps if we had a boat, or had hired a real fishing guide, we could have done better. More likely is that large portions of the people of Montana are liars out to sucker a few bucks out of the stupid tourists. That marketing strategy worked on us big time.
Beside the large proportion of liars in the state it has another more subtle problem. At two of the resorts we stopped at for Wes to do his chef thing, there were landscaping crews of college age girls busy pulling weeds and planting flower. Even though I enjoyed the view, where were the little brown people? I have asked this question of several of my buddies when I made it back to Oregon, and the only answer that did not involve blatant racism was that Hispanics being from a warm climes did not like the winters that far north. Although this answer was also racist it might have some merit, but then where were the Black people? Surely they have adapted to all American climes after being here for four hundred years, which by the way is about three hundred years longer than my family has been here. One day during the trip, Wes left me at the hotel for most of the day as he traveled to various accounts with a food service company representative that could actually sell the pasta to the clients. Given that they had several hours in the car together and Wes knew her to be a true Montana conservative, he had the opportunity to explore several liberal vs. conservative topics, the gist of which he related to me later that same day. Her point was that the lack of ethnics in Montana was not a sign of racism as evidenced by her own interactions with people of color. She knew a couple of “Mexicans” that ran a local restaurant and they were good people. She also had talked to the black maid at our hotel in the hopes that she would moonlight and clean her house as “those people are so good at that”. My mouth fell open at that one. I immediately Googled: Kalispell, MT., Racism. What I found was truly enlightening. A person of color had asked a question on a forum about what he could expect if he took a job offer in that fair city. There were six responses. The synopsis was that it would be OK, sure he might get stared at because Montana has few ethnics, he might even get asked where he was from, but as long as he did not do something “stupid” he would be treated fairly. My question is what is the definition of stupid in Montana? Would wearing a Hindu dot, or a Jewish skull cap, or a hat on sideways constitute stupid. I wanted to add a comment to the forum about Montana’s being too ignorant to even understand that they were racists and not to even consider moving there unless the whole state was given mandatory diversity training. But then I would be stereotyping, so I let it go.
The highlight of our trip to Montana was Glacier National Park. We pulled into the park entrance before noon and paid for a ten day pass, which was the least expensive option even though we were planning on leaving the park before sunset. Went to the visitors center and had to wait for twenty minutes for some hippy back packer types and their kid to stop asking stupid questions about bears in the back country and the precautions they should take to avoid being on the ursine menu. Finally they left and we got to ask important questions: Where to fish and what to use for bait? We had to fish in the park as our out of state licenses had expired and there were no license requirements in the park. We were told that it was too early for Lake McDonald, the main lake in the park, but that we had some limited access to the Flathead River if we drove out of the park following an unpaved Montana road, then pulled back into the park at an entrance located at Pole Bridge, MT. There was a nice hole right at the park entrance, although the park guy said he had not personally fished it in years. He also said that the river was running high and that he thought we probably were going to be skunked. He went on to say that the road was an eleven mile dusty wash board through an area which had been heavily burned during a recent forest fire. But if we insisted on going we should stop at the Pole Bridge store as they make pastries that are to die for. Turned out the old man was spot on. The road and fishing sucked but the cookies and Danish were great even though we got there long after they were baked. At least there was one honest man in Montana, but then he had no profit motive, unless he as part owner of the Pole Bridge Bakery.
After checking to make sure the river was not fishable, we decided to drive the six miles up an even worse road to Bowman Lake even though we were not sure that the road was open all the way to the lake. We started into the lake on the single lane road which got rougher and steeper as we climbed out of the burned area. On one particularly rutted and steep section Wes shifted into 4 wheel drive. Soon after we met a family in a Suburban coming down. We rolled down the window and asked if the road was open to the lake and if the road got worse than this. The driver answered in the affirmative to both, but also went on to say that though the road was rough we would have no trouble as some grandmother had driven up to the lake in a full sized Cadillac. A couple of miles further on Wes and I began to comment about yet another Montana liar as there was no way a non-four wheel drive was making it up this jeep trail. The words were no sooner out of our mouths when round the corner comes a Cadillac sedan driven by a woman in her 70’s. We pulled over as far to the side as we could to let her pass. I was thinking of rolling down the window and spouting a pithy comment about how GM had missed an advertising bonanza by not being there to document her ascent, except the look on her face said that this was one lady who did not take kindly to idle chatter. She could have willed the car up that road on pure hatred alone.
We finally made it to the lake a few minutes later. Absolutely stunning, as the lake mirrored the snow streaked mountains that surrounded us on three sides. The lake had a campground and even a boat ramp. How anybody could trailer a boat up to that lake was beyond me, with the possible exception of the lady in the Cadillac. Wes and I parked in the day use area, grabbed our poles and headed down the lake trail in the direction of where he felt an outlet stream had to be located. Within a few minutes we were on a rustic bridge over the stream where there were fish rising just as it exited the lake. Wes stood on the bridge with his fly pole casting gracefully out to where the fish were. That kind of fly casting was beyond my ability so I took the bait rod and headed up the trail a bit where it looked as if I could get beyond the shallows into a deeper part of the lake. We fished for about an hour, again without a bite. Found out later that the fish in the lake are few and small but the scenery was well worth the drive. Might even consider camping there some day, but our travel trailer would not make it up the road and even if it did, Judy would probably not sleep due the presence of grizzly bears, as evidenced by the multitude of warning signs that the National Park people had put up on the trail and at the campground. Nice to know that there are still places in the lower 48 where man is not totally in control. Maybe that is why the lady in the Cadillac was so hateful.
But back to my observation of the lack of shore access to what are supposed to be great fishing lakes. Of the six major lakes in northern Montana that we visited, shore access was limited to the few public boat ramps. The rest of the shore line was private, often with mega-mansions that appeared to be in the seven to eight figure ranges. We found out from a couple of Wes’s contacts in the area almost all of these were second, third or fourth homes that might be occupied a couple of weeks a year. I can only imagine the kind of money it requires to support multiple homes like that. I have had lots of conversations with some of my conservative friends over this precise issue. How much money is enough? Their response is that people with that kind of wealth earned it or inherited it from a relative that earned it and that was the American way and dream. Their argument goes on to say that if you put limits on the wealthy class you also put limits on opportunity and America falls into socialism with aimless youth and a degraded general population that scorns working for a living like the French. Besides as the rich pay most of the taxes already why should they pay even more?
I suppose that they have their points. But when does wealth become greed? I submit that having several mega mansions all over the world, making eight and nine figure salaries by shipping your companies’ jobs overseas, and hiding your corporations’ assets from the IRS by having your corporate “headquarters” in a Bahamian post office box, is not only greed it is un-American. I think that even that God of conservatism, Ronald Reagan, would be appalled. Giving tax breaks to the wealthy was supposed to result in increased investment in American business, creating jobs, with a rising tide lifting all boats. Instead what happened is that a large portion of this new wealth went into attempts to create more wealth by investing rather than earning. Since the Reagan and Bush tax cuts we have had the savings and loan disaster, the internet business bubble, the housing bust, and a banking crisis that has put us on the brink of another great depression. Meanwhile the regular working man is losing his job, his health insurance, if he had any, and can’t find a decent place to fish from the shore of a lake in northern Montana.
On our last full day in Montana, Wes and I drove along the eastern shore of Swan Lake looking for a place to pull out with a view so that we could have a smoke before his next appointment. We drove for 35 minutes finding no viewpoints. Although there were plenty of wide spots in the road above the lake which were jealously marked with private drive –no trespassing signs. Seems like the wealthy might be a little nervous about regular guys being able to look down on their estates. They may just be right.