I wrote and posted this to that other forum (...) a few years ago, but decided today to pull it and post it here. Couple of reasons why, with the most notable being I realized that I am now the only one in the story who is still alive; revisiting this memory makes me smile.
Chapter 1: A Montana Morning
The other day I had to change a flat tire in the midst of a heavy rainstorm. I was hunched over the spare, cursing the fates - changing a tire in cold slushy rain is not my idea of a good time - when I suddenly laughed. Not sure if it was triggered by the tire, the rain or both, but for whatever reason I found myself thinking back to a summer day many years ago - a summer day in Montana.
Yesterday evening I resolved to settle down with a whiskey and try to capture that Montana memory. Here goes:
It began on a July morning in the mid to late 1980s, which would have put me at about +-10 years old. I probably didn't appreciate it at the time, but 10 was a great age: already passionate about fishing, still blissfully unaware of work (my first job, a paper route, was still a few years away), and old enough to spend summers on the river. Yep - as was the case every summer, I was camped with my Uncle R* and Uncle D* on our family fishing property in MT.
* = Brief note on Uncles R&D: while I won't go into depth on my uncles as I unspool this particular memory, suffice to say they feature prominently in many of my Montana memories, and they can be found in the pantheon of trout bums. Moving along.....
The morning had progressed like countless others during my childhood; waking to frost and the smell of the sage in the meadow, stumbling over from Uncle R's trailer to Uncle D's old VW camper for a breakfast of peanut butter on toast (toasted over a small cooking fire Uncle D had going to brew his coffee), and getting an early start on pestering my uncles on where we were going fishing that day.
With our property right on the river and lots of frontage, we would typically fish our home water at some point during the day, but we also usually mixed in another fishing spot daily as well. Some days it was small water for brookies (brook trout formed one of our key food groups, with potatoes, butter and onions making up the others and breakfast typically featuring the aforementioned PB+ toast). Other days we would hit big water looking for big browns, and on yet other days it was medium sized creeks for a grab bag of wild trout.
But every once in a while, a yen for stillwater would overtake my uncles, and on this
particular morning, my Uncle R strolled over to our campfire and announced we were going to explore a high mountain lake.
Uncle R had been to the lake previously, but it had been some years. He had some notes scribbled in his copy of Konizeski's classic book on MT fishing spots Montanans' Fishing Guide (two volumes - one for east of the divide, one for west). For whatever reason, Uncle R was determined that we should revisit X Lake to see how it was fishing. He noted that during his last visit, the lake had fished well for good-sized trout and that it wouldn't require wading tubes. He had me at "trout."
After we wrapped up breakfast and puttered around the property for a bit, we loaded up our gear and headed out. I could already picture a heavy cutthroat or rainbow hammering my go-to lake fare of woolly bugger with split shot....
A note on our rig: For many many years, our MT fishing rig was a 1976 Ford F-150 4X4 - the trout machine. Dark green, with primer here and there, a camper shell with carpeted bed and a family of mice living somewhere within, the rig was the stuff of legend. Oh sure - top speed was maybe 65 with a tailwind and it got about 6 miles per gallon, but with a quad barrel Holly carb, Rancho suspension and 4 on the floor it was nigh on unstoppable. Some years later I would learn to drive in it, appreciating the ridiculous amount of torque, forgiving clutch and gearing so low you could start it in second gear.
Uncle R said the lake was up a road not too far out of Melrose. According to him, the road was county maintained gravel (oiled down during the summer to lessen the dust) for some miles with a couple of small ranches, then broke off onto a forest service road that was pretty rough, followed by a jeep track of sorts that wound its way up to the lake. With the prospect of no hiking required and not a cloud in the sky, I remember all three of us opting for cowboy boots and going against our standard operating procedure by eschewing rain gear. Those choices would turn out to be meaningful.
To be continued.....
Chapter 1: A Montana Morning
The other day I had to change a flat tire in the midst of a heavy rainstorm. I was hunched over the spare, cursing the fates - changing a tire in cold slushy rain is not my idea of a good time - when I suddenly laughed. Not sure if it was triggered by the tire, the rain or both, but for whatever reason I found myself thinking back to a summer day many years ago - a summer day in Montana.
Yesterday evening I resolved to settle down with a whiskey and try to capture that Montana memory. Here goes:
It began on a July morning in the mid to late 1980s, which would have put me at about +-10 years old. I probably didn't appreciate it at the time, but 10 was a great age: already passionate about fishing, still blissfully unaware of work (my first job, a paper route, was still a few years away), and old enough to spend summers on the river. Yep - as was the case every summer, I was camped with my Uncle R* and Uncle D* on our family fishing property in MT.
* = Brief note on Uncles R&D: while I won't go into depth on my uncles as I unspool this particular memory, suffice to say they feature prominently in many of my Montana memories, and they can be found in the pantheon of trout bums. Moving along.....
The morning had progressed like countless others during my childhood; waking to frost and the smell of the sage in the meadow, stumbling over from Uncle R's trailer to Uncle D's old VW camper for a breakfast of peanut butter on toast (toasted over a small cooking fire Uncle D had going to brew his coffee), and getting an early start on pestering my uncles on where we were going fishing that day.
With our property right on the river and lots of frontage, we would typically fish our home water at some point during the day, but we also usually mixed in another fishing spot daily as well. Some days it was small water for brookies (brook trout formed one of our key food groups, with potatoes, butter and onions making up the others and breakfast typically featuring the aforementioned PB+ toast). Other days we would hit big water looking for big browns, and on yet other days it was medium sized creeks for a grab bag of wild trout.
But every once in a while, a yen for stillwater would overtake my uncles, and on this
particular morning, my Uncle R strolled over to our campfire and announced we were going to explore a high mountain lake.
Uncle R had been to the lake previously, but it had been some years. He had some notes scribbled in his copy of Konizeski's classic book on MT fishing spots Montanans' Fishing Guide (two volumes - one for east of the divide, one for west). For whatever reason, Uncle R was determined that we should revisit X Lake to see how it was fishing. He noted that during his last visit, the lake had fished well for good-sized trout and that it wouldn't require wading tubes. He had me at "trout."
After we wrapped up breakfast and puttered around the property for a bit, we loaded up our gear and headed out. I could already picture a heavy cutthroat or rainbow hammering my go-to lake fare of woolly bugger with split shot....
A note on our rig: For many many years, our MT fishing rig was a 1976 Ford F-150 4X4 - the trout machine. Dark green, with primer here and there, a camper shell with carpeted bed and a family of mice living somewhere within, the rig was the stuff of legend. Oh sure - top speed was maybe 65 with a tailwind and it got about 6 miles per gallon, but with a quad barrel Holly carb, Rancho suspension and 4 on the floor it was nigh on unstoppable. Some years later I would learn to drive in it, appreciating the ridiculous amount of torque, forgiving clutch and gearing so low you could start it in second gear.
Uncle R said the lake was up a road not too far out of Melrose. According to him, the road was county maintained gravel (oiled down during the summer to lessen the dust) for some miles with a couple of small ranches, then broke off onto a forest service road that was pretty rough, followed by a jeep track of sorts that wound its way up to the lake. With the prospect of no hiking required and not a cloud in the sky, I remember all three of us opting for cowboy boots and going against our standard operating procedure by eschewing rain gear. Those choices would turn out to be meaningful.
To be continued.....
