Unplanned but welcome
I could feel it on my arm. Dry, warm, and mixed with the aroma of moisture baking from the grass. Driving past the Tobacco Root mountains with nothing but the site of lush farmland and cragged peaked backdrops, it was a changing of the seasons.
It won't last. The snowmelt was plentiful, but six weeks from now the high desert will reclaim its place in the valleys of southwest Montana. The crisp cloudless blue sky I'm viewing now will be overtaken by a haze from blazes throughout the densely forested mountains of this region.
The mocha colored turmoil that blasts it's way through most free-flowing valleys now will recede to gin clear or azure, and, like clockwork, I will migrate back to those waters and present a faux meal; possibly a mixture of rabbit fur and chest feathers from a bird, all wrapped around a metal hook.
In the weeks prior, the cool clear bottom-release flow below a reservoir allows for the derelict to attain his fix. These bodies of water require the presentation to be much more delicate, not forced, as if a polite request to stop and chat for a moment. I've had many such chats on nearby waters of similar style recently. Large, brutish guests that were very difficult to convince, but they still came.
This weekend, however, only one trout was in the mood. Even he, after initially agreeing, decided to shoot his body three or four feet from the water, going back on or regretting his initial decision. He was successful, and I was to remain unsuccessful for the trip.
There are those in the area that have a more convincing argument for the fish, and made the acquaintance of a few while visiting. The subculture below Clark Canyon Reservoir along the Beaverhead River is an isolated microclimate, "locals" are either from nearby Dillon or from the slide in camper in the back of their truck. They'll spend three months living out of the back in this exact place.
"I think I started comin' here in 2000, fished about 97 days right here last year. Can't beat it, but I still haven't got that thirty-incher, yet. I think I'd be happy with twenty-seven this year."
He kept the stories and the cold beers flowing Friday night, and I listened, as the orange sky over the Beaverhead range to the west morphed into jet black infused with nearly a matching quantity of white speckles. I peered into the back of his counterpart's trailer and saw, amongst a mess of items I would dare not ask about, a small single mattress, a fly-tying desk, and a wall of fly-tying materials.
I watched as he showed our Croatian neighbor in the campsite, Josef, a pattern that was simply tightly dubbed hares fur in two colors, the upper delineating a thorax. There were a few patterns floating around the campground, all tied by those utilizing them, that we're the only patterns with which I witnessed success.
The following day I set out with Shawn, a friend of the slide-in camper locals, to fish the bend above the bridge in the evening. With no success after two hours, I began to watch him catch and land a handful of almost-two-footers. He had skipped the Missouri and driven down from Helena, as he does eight or so times a summer, roughly 4 days a trip, to fish this small stretch of water.
It was during this time, and with a hazed memory of the knowledge of the truck camping companions the evening prior, that I came to terms with the idea that I am ignorant still to many techniques and information regarding my favorite pastime. That my laziness as a student of others' experiences over the last year has resulted in a regression.
I am comforted by the notion that it is better to come to this realization at 27 than 57, when I'll inevitably be sitting next to a river in a slide-in camper, handing out beers and knowledge.
It won't last. The snowmelt was plentiful, but six weeks from now the high desert will reclaim its place in the valleys of southwest Montana. The crisp cloudless blue sky I'm viewing now will be overtaken by a haze from blazes throughout the densely forested mountains of this region.
The mocha colored turmoil that blasts it's way through most free-flowing valleys now will recede to gin clear or azure, and, like clockwork, I will migrate back to those waters and present a faux meal; possibly a mixture of rabbit fur and chest feathers from a bird, all wrapped around a metal hook.
In the weeks prior, the cool clear bottom-release flow below a reservoir allows for the derelict to attain his fix. These bodies of water require the presentation to be much more delicate, not forced, as if a polite request to stop and chat for a moment. I've had many such chats on nearby waters of similar style recently. Large, brutish guests that were very difficult to convince, but they still came.
This weekend, however, only one trout was in the mood. Even he, after initially agreeing, decided to shoot his body three or four feet from the water, going back on or regretting his initial decision. He was successful, and I was to remain unsuccessful for the trip.
There are those in the area that have a more convincing argument for the fish, and made the acquaintance of a few while visiting. The subculture below Clark Canyon Reservoir along the Beaverhead River is an isolated microclimate, "locals" are either from nearby Dillon or from the slide in camper in the back of their truck. They'll spend three months living out of the back in this exact place.
"I think I started comin' here in 2000, fished about 97 days right here last year. Can't beat it, but I still haven't got that thirty-incher, yet. I think I'd be happy with twenty-seven this year."
He kept the stories and the cold beers flowing Friday night, and I listened, as the orange sky over the Beaverhead range to the west morphed into jet black infused with nearly a matching quantity of white speckles. I peered into the back of his counterpart's trailer and saw, amongst a mess of items I would dare not ask about, a small single mattress, a fly-tying desk, and a wall of fly-tying materials.
I watched as he showed our Croatian neighbor in the campsite, Josef, a pattern that was simply tightly dubbed hares fur in two colors, the upper delineating a thorax. There were a few patterns floating around the campground, all tied by those utilizing them, that we're the only patterns with which I witnessed success.
The following day I set out with Shawn, a friend of the slide-in camper locals, to fish the bend above the bridge in the evening. With no success after two hours, I began to watch him catch and land a handful of almost-two-footers. He had skipped the Missouri and driven down from Helena, as he does eight or so times a summer, roughly 4 days a trip, to fish this small stretch of water.
It was during this time, and with a hazed memory of the knowledge of the truck camping companions the evening prior, that I came to terms with the idea that I am ignorant still to many techniques and information regarding my favorite pastime. That my laziness as a student of others' experiences over the last year has resulted in a regression.
I am comforted by the notion that it is better to come to this realization at 27 than 57, when I'll inevitably be sitting next to a river in a slide-in camper, handing out beers and knowledge.
Comments