It’s mid-July, hotter than hell, and the AC in the truck is out. My two sons and I are cruising a Montana highway with the windows down and the music up. Kyle came here in 2018 for college and Blake moved in with him at the start of summer. It’s been awfully quiet in the house without them and even more so since our German shorthair of nearly 14-years crossed the rainbow bridge last week.
A heavy blueish-grey haze has hung over me for the last month, much like the valley we now travel through. Missing the boys. Knowing a small tin of ashes that used to be my faithful dog is waiting for me back home. Feeling my age and the eerie emptiness of a quiet house.
“Remember when time was cheap?” Gene Hill wrote. “The songs we sang about it told us that we had time on our hands, that time stood still, that tomorrow would be time enough. And now we find it was not.”
I’m fighting a lump in my throat and tears that threaten to leak out at any moment. I’m fighting to be present. To not spend this inheritance of time frivolously. I need the balm of adventure to heal some of the fresh wounds; the breeze of moments in mountains with loved ones to clear out some of the haze. We have six days, and I’m determined to make them count.
Today we’ll head to the Tobacco Roots and backpack into a remote alpine lake. Cutties, hammocks, food from a camp stove and bourbon from a flask. Just what the doctor ordered. We’ll stay overnight, take our time packing out, then hit the road again, chasing blue lines that haven’t been as affected by the heat. Going wherever the path leads.
The hike in isn’t bad. After a small creek crossing, it’s maybe four miles, mostly uphill. The boys lead the way and, despite the caboose slowing the train a little, we make it to the lake in about two hours. There are a few other fisherman – day hikers. So we ditch the packs, pitch the tent, grab snacks, stretch the hammocks, and take our time stringing the rods. A few tales from their last outing here has my excitement building. I take a deep breath of pine and lake, look over at my kids, and smile for what feels like the first time in a while. Eventually the other hikers melt away and we have the place to ourselves. The basin quiets and as evening sets in, the water begins to glass out. After putting a few fish in the net, we eat our fill of freeze-dried beef stroganoff and instant mashed potatoes, empty the flasks, and share a pipe as nightfall sets in.
And that’s when story time begins. The boys fill me in on some of their summer adventures and I share a few anecdotes from my youth that I have held close to the vest until they are “age appropriate”—doling them out judiciously over time, like rations on a lifeboat, in a way dads tend to do. We relive memories of the dog, family trips, previous hikes and hunts, and more than a few fishing debacles. Before I can even realize it, we are all laughing. A bit of the haze hanging over me begins to lift. Eventually we make it into the tent before passing out for the night.
Head starts, late endings
Suddenly it’s morning. It’s already pretty bright. A quick check of the watch. Seven-thirty. I’m up and exploring the lake before Thing-One and Thing-Two can beat me to it. I need every advantage the situation affords. I manage to trick a couple small ones before I see the boys rustling along the shore, rods in hand. My head start doesn’t last long and I hear about it. Smart-asses. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I can tell you for certain that a caboose rolls much faster downhill than up, especially when the promise of real food and a cold beer lies at the end of the tracks. After we get down from the lake and smash a late lunch, we point the compass northwest. We have a general notion of where we want to go, but my buddy Dan from Whiskey Leatherworks has other, better ideas. A quick stop at his shop proves fortuitous, and when we roll into our campsite well after dinner time, anxious to fish, we’re working promising tail-outs and deep cut banks before the dust from the two-track has even settled, grateful to have accepted his local intel.
I’m hucking streamers with Blake and observe a nice fish in a sneaky pocket beneath a tree, tight against a boulder. I hit the spot and hook up. The brown trout is giving me a good fight in the fast water and goes airborne before coming unbuttoned. Dammit! Another shot into the spot and I’m hooked up again! This fish feels more substantial; it’s holding in the heavy current, challenging me to move him. I lean into the six-weight to muscle him out, but the streamer again comes unpinned. Double dammit! I fumble to light a cigarette to calm my frazzled nerves, but Kyle is shouting at us from upriver. He’s into a good fish and needs help with the net. We flail upstream as quickly as possible in the quick current and over the polished rock bed and Blake manages to make the scoop. I can’t believe how good the fishing is. Kyle and I each land a few more trout before we all reluctantly leave the river, set up camp, and start dinner. Elk brats with beer and baked beans. A delicious but toxic combination, particularly when small tents are involved.
Smartly, Kyle elects to sleep in the truck bed. He journals the day’s activities while Blake and I play cards by lantern. As we do, caddis fight to draw closer to the flame. It’s been a therapeutic 24 hours that has moved me into the realm of not knowing or caring what day or what time it is. Into the realm of living in the moment. Of being present. For the adventure. For the boys. For myself.
Scrapes, sunburns and stings
I wake up the next morning to stirring outside the tent and find Kyle brewing coffee in the old percolator and cooking breakfast on the camp stove. The smell of eggs and sausage mingle with the fresh mountain air. The delicious harmony draws me back to every camping memory of my last 47 years. It’s a perfect moment. I close my eyes and soak it in.
For the next couple days we explore the miles of river in our backyard. Busting through brush, climbing hills, driving the gravel track along the river to find the next “hot spot.” Riffles and slicks, braided sections, boulder fields, and deep pools. It looks like angling nirvana, and the fishing matches the expectations. We land cutties, browns, bows, brookies and even a couple of surprise bulls, all carefully released back into the swift current. It’s all magical: the setting, the fishing, the wildlife, the sounds and smells. More than anything, the time together in the outdoors.
At one point, we find ourselves at a wide bend that creates a sharp drop-off and a deep whirlpool. Blake makes a cast and is into a nice brown. Then another. And another. And Kyle too. I’m working the same spot but can’t manage to even get a follow as the boys land fish after fish and make it look easy. All I can do is laugh, net fish, take pictures, and endure the verbal taunting I’ve earned. The sun is going down and the mosquitos are ravenous. We’re reluctant to leave such great fishing, especially knowing it’s our last night of the trip, but eventually the bugs, and Dan’s warning of bears, chase us off the water and back to the truck.
It’s a long drive back to camp. I look down at my legs, shredded from bushwhacking. I see the bug bites that cover my hands and arms. I feel the sunburn stinging my neck, the dull ache in my knees and the kink in my back from sleeping on the ground.
And I know it’s just the balm I needed. My body is battered, but my heart is healing.
“Suddenly times to come have become times past, and we must hoard it and spend it cautiously as the tag ends of a small inheritance,” Gene Hill wrote.
I’m grateful for the inheritance.
You can find this article by Allen Crater in the Fall 2021 issue of Fly Fusion.
