It’s nine in the morning, June, 2009. My son Wes and I are in a Toyota Tundra with a full tank of gas. We are both wearing sunglasses, and we are most definitely not on a mission from God. Wes and I are going on a fishing trip to Montana, without RVs, wives, kids, dogs, cats, and any of our novice fishing friends. We are going to have a great time, catching monster trout on light tackle, sleeping in comfy hotel rooms, eating the finest of rib eyes in fancy restaurants, and getting wasted in skanky strip bars.
Actually, the primary purpose for this road trip is for Wes to visit the more remote spots in his territory. Wes is no longer an executive chef; he now sells Joseph’s Gourmet Pasta. They make fancy ravioli, tortellini, and miscellaneous other expensive and delectable pasta goodies. All made fresh in that large eastern metropolitan city noted for its large ethnic Italian population, Boston, MA. Wes also informs me that he is not a salesman, but a field representative. What exactly he does is still a little unclear, but I think the gist of it is, he is a food pimp. He gives out free sample boxes of pasta to places that specialize in Italian food, or have it on the menu, or sometimes have a special that includes Italian food, or are possibly thinking of expanding their menus to include something that ends in “ini”. Wes talks to the chef, explains why a dollar a piece lobster ravioli would be a good change from his all-you-can-eat Tuesday night spaghetti special, hands him his free frozen sample, then leaves. Sometimes, if they seem interested, he gives them enough to have a trial special or even helps them prepare the special. For all of this free food and labor, the chef pays Wes nothing. Wes is not even allowed to take their money if offered. So how does Wes make more money doing this than when he was an executive chef? I have no fucking clue. But then I have no fucking clue how our current economy has made a lot of people filthy rich by buying and selling stock in companies that buy and sell stocks, while companies that actually a make product in the U.S., a real thing that you can touch and utilize, go bankrupt.
Regardless of why they pay my son for giving food away, he seems to have a good time doing it and as a consequence he knows at least a half dozen people on a first name basis in every one stoplight town in the Pacific Northwest, Idaho, Western Montana and parts of Alaska. Another perk of the “job” is that he only has a few hours each day that he can do his thing, as Chefs tend to get a bit annoyed if bothered by vendors during the lunch and dinner rushes. This leaves the rest of his day for planning, teleconference calls with the bosses back in MA, and in the case of this trip, fishing. So when Wes begged me to take a week off and go to Montana fishing, with my only expenses to be an out of state fishing license, food, and booze, I reluctantly approached Judy for permission.
“Precious darling”, I say in my special romantic voice which Judy is a such a sucker for, “Wes has to go on another road trip to some God forsaken place in the middle of nowhere, alone, with only his fly rod for company. Would be okay for me to go along with him, won’t cost much, and you owe me, bitch, as for the past four years I have driven the RV up to Puyallup, WA., to camp for four days in the fairgrounds while you and your two sisters spend all day in the sewing expo and I sit in the trailer watching Judge Judy as that is the only fucking channel that comes in clear!”
Three weeks later Wes and I are on the road to Missoula with pasta kept frozen on dry ice, fly rods, waders, bait rods, and the name of a gentleman’s club which features a one armed stripper. About 12 hours later we are at a motel as Wes kept the speed down below 90 for most of the trip as Judy pleaded with him to bring me back alive or more specifically, “able to be gainfully employed”.
The next day we are up at six, eating our hotel’s complimentary breakfast of cold cereal and weak coffee. We have employed the services of a local fishing guide (actually one of Wes’s first name chef friends) and are soon to meet him at a fishing and bait store near the mouth of the legendary Rocky Creek where the salmon fly hatch is on!
The salmon fly, Pteronarcys californica, is a giant stonefly of the Pternoarcyidae family of aquatic insects. This nasty looking flying bug with wings as long as its two inch body, “hatches” from an equally nasty looking aquatic larvae that lives in fast flowing fresh water streams, where it eats the partially digested leftovers (detritus) of other aquatic insects. After as much as four years in the water the maturing nymphs crawl out of the water and quickly shed their exoskeletons ready to mate with other equally nasty looking flies of the opposite sex, and then drop their eggs back into the water to start their disgusting life cycle all over again. All of this would just be a footnote of interest only to bug scientists and exterminators except for their one redeeming characteristic; trout devour them like a fat guy does doughnuts at the grand opening of a Krispy Kreme. According to Wes, fly fishing during the salmon fly hatch is not fishing, it’s taking. When he fished the Snake while living in Idaho he claimed he could stumble blind drunk into the middle of the river slapping his fly pole on the water as he went and have one on by the time he had gone six feet.
We met Wes’s chef buddy, Jeff, at the bait shop, bought our licenses and some fake salmon flies to fill out Wes’s already ample collection in that genre of fishing paraphernalia. He even added a new variant called “cat vomit” which was made locally. Sort of looked like a cat hairball. For a second I wondered if the trout in Montana were so big that they have developed a taste for cats. Then dismissed the thought as cats don’t like to swim, making them unlikely fish food. However, at one time in evolutionary history things may have been different. Ever notice how a cat will tap the surface of the water in the dish before taking a drink? Perhaps this a genetic trait developed over the millennia to check the water for giant trout before risking a drink. If cats have this evolutionary memory, most likely the trout do too, thus, making them suckers for cat fur.
The old man who owned the store also told us that as the creek was running a bit high, that the best bet was to fish the holes close to shore, letting the fly drift down into them then flicking the fly a few yards directly upstream, repeating the process if necessary. As we got back in the pickup, my expectations were high. We had local bait, local advice, and Jeff who knew where to go. As we headed up the road next to the creek, my heart was in my throat with fishy expectations.
We drove past a couple of holes that Jeff knew about, but they were already occupied by a fly fisher or six. The next hole was the same, as was the next, and next, and the next and the next for the next 26 miles. We finally found a vacant one, quickly parked the pickup and gave dirty looks to the pickups which had been following us trying to find a vacant hole. That way they knew that this hole was ours and that we were willing to fight to the death to defend it. To add to the image, each of us had a beer in our hands and was smoking, a sure sign to those driving up the road that we were tough, independent, and unafraid to die even though there was an Oregon license plate on Wes’s Toyota pickup. As it had been an hour long and dusty ride to this spot, we had a couple more beers followed by a little public urination before walking down to the creek. I opted not to wear waders as the stream looked a little too swift especially after half a six pack. My waddling gait over the even ground to the creek bank confirmed in my mind the decision to go non-wader. Unlike most drunks, I have the ability to behave safely while drunk. Like the time that I went to feed the campfire and fell into the wood pile twice while trying to pick up a few chunks to put on the fire. Although at that time I was obviously at two or three times beyond the legal limit to walk, I had the good sense to throw the firewood from a safe distance rather than trying to lay it on the fire. Although the rounds fell a bit short, nobody was seriously injured and Hannah, my border collie, Australian shepherd mix, took to sleeping under the trailer during campfire time.
After a bit of stumbling, I finally made it to the creek and began flicking my fly in a roll cast upstream of a likely hole. This casting technique I had just learned from Wes and had mastered almost instantly. I move stealthily down stream from hole to hole, letting the fly drift down, then just before the end of the line was reached, roll casted it back all the while breathing slowly and shallowly in an attempt to conceal my fisherman’s breath. For the next three and a half hours I repeated the process at various holes we found there and at several sites we drove to father up the creek. I never go a hit. Jeff caught a dink which he promptly threw back. Wes claims to have momentarily hooked a monster but Wes is notorious for his fishing lies. That whole afternoon I never saw any one of the hundreds perhaps thousands of other fly fishermen catch a thing. Such was my introduction to fishing in Montana.
To be Continued