Three Rivers

The idea for this trip was first talked about just before Christmas last year. Plans and itineraries changed as often as the weather did while winter passed through spring into summer. By the first of July we had set the date for me and Matt to meet up with Rich somewhere in Montana. His plan was to drive out there with his drift boat a week in advance of his wife and daughters travelling out for vacation. Once the girls were headed home, Matt and I would arrive, fish for a few days and then drive back east with him. In the midst of the airlines being FUBAR in early July, Matt and I opted to jump on Amtrak and catch a different view of America. 

Photo: Matt Smythe

On a rainy Monday night in August, just shy of midnight we boarded the train in Rochester, NY bound for Essex, MT. The train ride is a story in and of itself that I'll file away for some other time. Thirty-two hours later the train stopped in Essex, the conductor ushered us out on to a small concrete platform alongside a dirt road, wished us well and then the train was gone. We threw our gear in the back of Rich's truck and got to the campsite just as darkness fell. 

The next morning, we headed into Columbia Falls with plans to fish the North Fork of the Flathead River. We stopped at Lary's Fly and Supply to get what current information we could and pick up some local flies. As I poked around the fly bins, I heard the term "hoot owl" a couple of times in the conversation Rich and Matt were having with the girl working the counter. When we got back in the truck, and as I was obtaining my Montana fishing license on my phone, I asked what I thought was an obvious question.

"Where's this Hoot Owl River?"

There was some laughter and then an explanation that it referred to restricted fishing between two in the afternoon and midnight on water with low flow and high-water temperature. Luckily where we were headed was not "under hoot owl." I finished entering my information, hit submit and laughed to myself remembering a line from Driving on the Rim by Thomas McGuane while I waited for my license to appear.

"Giving freaks a pass is the oldest tradition in Montana."

It was written in a different context but seemed fitting as we headed out of town. 

The Flathead and the scenery surrounding it took my breath away as we waded upriver. I've felt small out on the ocean and in the mountains here in the northeast, but this was different. It might have been the romanticism of finally being there reconciled with the images I had in my mind from what I've read about Montana. Or it might have been because it really is a big damn sky stretched out over mountain peaks, valleys and flat expanses that words and photographs really cannot fully capture. 

Photo: MR

Rich and Matt both began fishing with dry flies. Being the neophyte of the group, I stripped out line and started bombing small streamers across the river as I would for stripers here at home. Eventually I worked my way up to Rich as he started catching small cutthroat. Across the river, Matt began doing the same. I stood off Rich's shoulder and watched as he explained the process. A few fish later he rigged my rod with a dry fly and gave me pointers as I struggled with this new form of wizardry. He told me to keep at it and wandered downstream a bit. I watched him as he stood frozen staring at a small piece of water on the far bank wondering what he was seeing that I was not. And then he started casting. Short perfect casts, mending line and working the fly with a, for lack of a better description, delicate touch. He's a big dude, one of the physically strongest people I know. Watching him fish dry flies can only be described as a beautiful contradiction in constant motion.

Photo: MR

We kept moving upriver as the day went on. I kept practicing. Before leaving home, I had made peace with the fact that I most likely would not catch anything on this trip. I saw it as a learning experience, something to build on. At the end of the afternoon my Intro to Trout Fishing class was upgraded as Matt handed me his rod, gave me some instruction and stood with me as I pulled the fly out of the mouth of a dozen cutties. And then something clicked. I set the hook and brought one to hand. Matt sat back with his pipe as he and Rich continued to coach me up and I caught a few more. I'll never forget that first cuttie, on that river, in front of those mountains and under that sky. 

Photo: Rich Strolis

That evening at camp we discussed where to go next. While I looked through the photo's I had taken during the day, Matt fired up the handheld computer and he and Rich looked at options based on what they had learned at Lary's. By morning coffee, it was decided to head south to the Blackfoot River. Along the way Matt found a place to camp at the junction of the north fork and the main stem of the Blackfoot. We got there mid-afternoon, quickly set up camp, rigged rods and set off up the main stem into a box canyon. 

The boys alternated setting me up on pools, pockets and riffles. Eventually we spread out, Rich fishing above, Matt in the middle and me below. I took a break to get the camera out and watched Matt. Being on this river held great significance for him because of his lineage. We had talked about it on the train. Several years ago, he had written a poem titled "Give Me Trails."  I thought of his words as I watched him move up the canyon and a few lines of the poem came to life before me:

"Give me trails.

I run solo but I am not alone.

It's in my blood. My Blackfoot ancestry. I feel them running with me and the hair on my neck and forearms stands on end. I hear them in the wind off the lake and in the song of leafed branches overhead."

Photo: MR

A few moments later an osprey flew overhead clutching a trout. I'm not saying there was some cosmic meaning to that event, but I will say there was a palpable energy in the air. We all felt it and mentioned it at the same time later that day.

Photo: MR

We continued fishing up through the canyon. I found great joy in one tailout as I pulled the fly out of the mouth of two rainbows. I had studied the water, got myself into position and pieced together what I had learned so far to at least get the fly to a fish. Success in failure.

I caught up to Rich about the time we heard thunder in the near distance. The forecast had been for rain, a thunderstorm was a surprise. We decided it was time to get out of the river about the same time Matt came from upriver and said, "We oughta get out of the river." We worked our way back down through the box canyon looking for a way up and out. We had seen the canyon driving in so the road to camp had to be close. Matt took point and I brought up the rear trying to keep up without falling in. At the low end of the canyon Matt found a draw leading toward the road. I moved slow, deliberate and winded up it. We're all beat up and broken in places, I've just been around longer and earned a few more beatings. I fear it's starting to show. They waited for me at the top and I saw a momentary look of concern as Rich grabbed on to help me up the last step. Brothers, that's what we've become, not from a bond of blood but one of shared respect and allegiance. And they laugh at my jokes.

We found the road and got back to camp just as the wind picked up, the rain started and lightning followed. We pulled out the chairs, sat under a canopy of trees and watched the storm over cold beverages. This was the one time, at least for a few hours, during the trip that we weren't moving. 

The next morning Matt got on the board early with a bull trout. This was what we had come for. A guide floating by offered us his net and I was able to net it for Matt. His first bull but more meaningful that it came from the Blackfoot. A moment both of us will remember.  

Photo: MR

We moved up the north fork to catch up with Rich and along the way Matt gave me a lesson in swinging streamers. Cast, mend, raise the rod. Cast, mend, raise the rod. We fished our way past a sandstone cliff. In my mind I could see Butch and Sundance (the Newman-Redford version) crouched on the top looking down saying, "Who are those guys?" Cast, mend, raise the rod. Around the next bend I made a cast in front of a brush pile, mended the line and got bit hard as I raised the rod. Again, success in failure. We continued on for a while but after discussing the low water we decided to return to camp, pack up and head for Wyoming.

Our last day of fishing was on the Wind River. This was the highlight of the trip for me for the reason that it afforded the opportunity to use everything that Rich and Matt had taught me on my own. We parked the truck in a campground and walked the bank. Right off the bat there were rainbows holding in front of rocks and boulders. Matt worked one with a dry fly for a half hour while Rich and I did the same downstream. Matt eventually caught his, I was pleased with myself for getting mine to move on my fly several times. We waded our way upriver and I switched to swinging one of my own flies, one named after Matt that has caught just about everything in saltwater and freshwater. I really wanted one fish on the fly from the Wind. But only on The Poet. I fished below Rich while Matt went way upstream. Eventually I raised a rainbow on it, saw the fish take the fly, felt it on the line as it turned into the current and then as quickly as it happened it was gone.  That was it for me. I hadn't brought it to hand, but it was enough. 

Photo: MR

I made up my rod, stepped out of the river and walked up to Rich. He looked at me and said, "I'm done too, let's go have a beer and wait for Matt." We walked back to the truck, broke down the rods, changed into dry gear and were sitting down at a picnic table when Matt caught up to us. We sat and talked about the trip as we looked down the Wind. Since I wasn't driving, I opted for a second beer and walked back to the truck as Matt packed his pipe. On my return I looked at them both staring at the river in silence and was reminded of a passage Norman Maclean wrote in A River Runs Through It:

"It was here, while waiting for my brother, that I started this story, although, of course, at the time I did not know that stories of life are often more like rivers than books. But I knew a story had begun, perhaps long ago near the sound of water."

Taking my seat at the table I realized this story didn't start in a series of text messages or at a train station in Rochester. It didn't start on the Flathead, the Blackfoot or the Wind. It started long ago in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts, the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York and the western foothills of Maine.

Photo: random English lady

Three lives.

Three brothers.

Three rivers.

Littles Pond, MA

16 September 2022