Another Lousy Day in Paradise and Dances with Trout by John Gierach

Author:John Gierach
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2010-05-11T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

2

Quitting Early

The deal was this: Most of the river was private through this stretch, or, I should say, the surrounding land was private, since Montana’s enlightened Stream Access Law allows you to walk and fish on any river as long as you stay below the high-water line.

Still, some of this water would have involved a really long, hard hike from the nearest public access except that one landowner allows fishermen to park and get in on his land for a fee of three dollars. You have to know where the turnoff is, but once you get down to the river there’s a large, hand-painted sign that explains the procedure in detail, complete with some interesting spelling errors.

You get an envelope from an old, tin tackle box on a stump, stick three dollars in it, write your license number on the outside and put it in the slot on a large, handmade strongbox that’s too big and heavy to steal.

There’s no one around, it’s an honor system, but before you even think of not doing it, you come to the part of the instructions saying that nonpayers will be banned. Actually it says, “NONE PAYERS WILL BE BAND,” which somehow makes the point with even more authority.

There were some other fishermen rigging up there, and one of them came over and asked me if it was true what he’d heard about the old man who owned the place: that he’d drive down from the hills in the evening, check the envelopes against the license plates and go after cheaters with a shotgun.

“You bet,” I said, although I’d never met the old man or even heard the story before. Everywhere you go in the Rocky Mountain West you’ll hear tales of crazy old landowners with guns. More of them are true than you might suspect.

• • •

My partner and I had floated a different stretch of the same river with a guide that morning. We’d caught lots of trout and then had a great, leisurely meal at a little roadhouse nearby where it was okay to wear waders inside but, “please, no cleats.” Before our guide headed back to town, he told us about the strongbox, the three dollars and all; said we should fish there as long as we were this close and asked me not to write about where it was. So I haven’t. Okay, Tom?

He said, “You want to fish river-left this evening and river-right if you go back there in the morning.” River-left is to your left as you look downstream, which is how Mackenzie boat guides view the world. It would also be the shady bank at that time of day.

You had your choice of sides because there was a rickety old one-lane wooden bridge down there. The river was way too wide, deep and fast to wade across.

Lunch was long and slow, as I said, but we were still at the bridge with our three dollars paid by early afternoon. Our guide had blasted back to town in what seemed like a big hurry.

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