Slightly More Montanan Than You

By Sutton R. Stokes, 10-23-09

Now that I’m the father of what a popular local bumper sticker calls a “Native Montanan,” I’m under even more pressure to learn some basic Montana skills, if only so that I don’t embarrass the poor guy in front of his friends later on.

I’m doing all right so far. Two years into my Montana residency, I’ve already achieved journeyman status at standing next to my grill with a can of Pabst in my hand, floating down the Blackfoot on an inner tube, and reacting to every new City Council resolution by exclaiming “this is Big Brother government at its worst!” But those skills will only carry me so far. To approach true Montananness, what I really need to do is get better at killing things in the woods.

My first efforts at hunting, last fall, were a bit of a bust, not least because I don’t own a rifle. This fall probably won’t be any better, because I won’t have room in the budget for one anytime soon.

Fly-fishing equipment seems much more economical, but I always assumed that picking up this sport was pretty much impossible for anyone who couldn’t afford thousands of dollars worth of lessons—and even then would require at least the same level of practice and devotion that goes into becoming a ninja or Jedi. Just look at how those boys whirl their lines out over the water like spun faerie gold in A River Runs Through It: how have they learned to transcend the physical laws that weigh down the rest of us mere mortals—and our fishing lines— like clods of dirt?

Then, in late August, I had the chance to tag along on a day’s fishing trip with some experienced rod-and-reel hands. After swearing me to secrecy, they drove me to an undisclosed trailhead at the bottom of a narrow canyon in the Lima Peaks. A half hour’s hike later, woodland gave way to a meadow bisected by a creek that wound around and doubled back on itself like a piece of dropped spaghetti. We shed our packs and the member of our party who works as a fishing guide took a few minutes to explain my borrowed equipment and demonstrate the basic casting motions. Then, everyone waited and watched while the newbie wet his line.

Feeling mainly clumsy and foolish, I managed a cast into the stream.

My hook had barely touched the surface of the water when there was a fish flopping around on it. For the first time in my life, I’d caught a fish.

“A ten-inch cutthroat,” said the guide. “Not bad for your first time.”

We split up then and wandered off to different sections of the stream, spending the next couple of hours fishing and exploring individually. The fish were essentially volunteering for the hook. With no experience and the aforementioned two minutes’ training, I averaged about three catches an hour, including a brook trout that jumped out of the water in pursuit of my hook just as—dissatisfied with where my cast had landed—I was yanking it back out for a do-over.

I was completely absorbed as I wandered the meadow, navigating the steep, crumbling banks and studying bends and log jams for likely fish hiding spots. Though I didn’t cover very much ground, I experienced the ground I did cover at a much deeper level than I would have if I had just been hiking through. As I’ve written elsewhere about the hunts I’ve tagged along on, the sensation took me back to the way I experienced the outdoors as a kid, an all-in feast not just for the senses but also for the imagination and spirit. When my companions later asked if I thought I would keep fishing, my answer was an enthusiastic “yes.” Insert groaner pun about “being hooked” here.

Of course, it helped that I was catching all those fish. About a month later, Amy bought me my own rod for a birthday present, and last Sunday I finally tried it out on Rattlesnake Creek, up near the swimming hole behind PEAS Farm. After spending about 20 minutes trying to tie on my own fly, I picked along the banks of the creek for over an hour without seeing a single fish, and my only catch was a rotten stick that I managed to snag during a horrendous fouling of my line that also involved two overhead tree branches and a rock on the opposite shore.

To add insult to injury, the stick wasn’t even big enough to keep.

Fruitless Fishless as that day was, it felt good to have tried. And when—on my walk back to my car—a man biking along the trail with his girlfriend asked me what was biting, I was surprised to be mistaken for someone who might actually know a thing or two about fishing, a local, even.

I quickly set him straight, admitting that I hadn’t seen a damn thing and wouldn’t really have known what to do if I had, but I couldn’t help noticing that even my disavowals sounded kind of local, echoing as they did the humble reserve that one often encounters around these parts.

Montana must be getting its hooks into me, too, because I have to admit that it felt good to make this stranger wonder, if only for a fleeting moment, whether I might be more Montanan than him.

Want more Notebook? Read the rest here. I’m also on Twitter and Facebook, and I write a blog.