TR-The Inland Northwest Part I

Flew into Spokane late on the 12th with three fly rods as carry on luggage.
Grabbed a motel room for the night and hit the road Sunday morning headed
east towards MT trying to avoid causing a wreck because I was looking at
the Idaho scenery instead of the road. Got off the interstate at St. Regis,
found one of the two flyshops and got a two day Montana license. The
original plan was to head towards Yellowstone and collect $10K from a
Carolina divorce attorney, but I only had two days for a 900 mile round trip
until my meeting and my wife was with me so we headed towards Glacier
National Park instead.

As was previously posted elsewhere, the St. Regis shops were hurting because
of the Clark Fork situation. The road toward Glacier follows the Fork for
several miles and it was strange seeing all that water and no fishermen. We
enjoyed the scenery and stopped enough in route for the wife to do her
things. I knew my fishing the first two days would be for short periods and
on as an opportunity presented itself basis. We finally arrived in the area
late afternoon and the wife was convinced driving the Going to the Sun Road
was best left for Monday morning. So we headed out of the park north of the
West Glacier entrance towards the North Fork Road. So named because it
parallels the North Fork of the Flathead River. Opportunity was presenting
itself.

The Flathead looked interesting to me seeing it up close for the first time.
The area we stopped at had some pocket water and what looked to be a pretty
deep run along the bank but looked shallow in the middle. I say looked
because I discovered i had left my prescription polaroids at the park
welcome center. I strung up a four weight, decided to wade wet because it
was a warm day and headed towards the river while the wife went back to see
if my glasses were still there. I did not see any obvious hatch activity nor
any rising fish. My mentor always told me when he faced this situation out
west in the Summer he would tie on a Cinnamon colored ant for a searching
pattern so that is what I did. I got in the water in a riffled stretch just
downstream from that long run and started casting along the bank. In what
was to become a pleasant "pattern" for this trip, I got a strike on the
first drift but because I was looking around my surroundings and not at my
drift I missed the strike. Not to worry a few steps upstream and casts later
I was releasing a smallish (8") westslope cutt. The first one I had ever
seen outside of Arkansas and West Virginia stocking programs. I probably
waded up stream about 30', getting some strikes and landing a few in the
same general size range then saw a rather large dimple on the edge of run
about 60' up from me. The rod I was using is a soft action model that the
maker says a Competent Caster could use comfortably up to 50' or so. Which
meant that I needed to get to about 35', especially since it was across a
couple of different current seams and the drift would be very short from the
angle I had. The fish rose again and I saw it was bigger than the others I
had been playing so I had to go for it.

I looked at the water and it seemed shallow enough, the water in that river
was crystal clear (as it was everywhere i fished) and I thought I could see
it well enough without the sunglasses, so I headed further upstream to get
into position. My first hint that I had misjudged it was when the cold water
hit the legs of my shorts and then you-know-where. My personal preference is
to not to get above my waist when wearing waders because in what was at that
time the first 47 years and 360 days of my life I have never been able to
learn to swim. But it was still below the waist and looked to be leveling
off so I stepped again and found myself suddenly up to my armpits standing,
if you want to use that term, on my toes. And when you're that deep, even a
slow current becomes an issue. I managed to get my wading staff undone and
out and got back out the same way I came in but in the setting sun and the
brisk wind I was not feeling really comfortable and for once in my life I
walked away quickly from a rising fish without having to stop because of a
regulation. I was shivering by the time I got out to the bank and my wife
wasn;t back yet so I went to the road and waited, like a soaked puppy.
Finally she drove up with my glasses and showed typical wifely concern by
laughing her ass off. Then it hit her that by my living she could not
collect on the life insurance policies and had to continue being dependent
upon my wages which led her to suggest I go fishing some more. I grabbed
some clothes out of the duffel and changed roadside. Then I looked at my
watch, this whole thing had played out in less than 45 minutes, and the damn
fish was still rising . My wife decided she wanted dinner and having to
wait on search and rescue to find me downstream would make her late for
dinner so we left.

Monday saw us taking a liesurely morning tourist jaunt through the park and
it's really unique and cool scenery. We stayed pretty much to the guide book
and enjoyed the drive through the park on the Going to the Sun Road coming
out at St. Mary's Mt. We took the road south to East Glacier, stopping once
for 30 minutes at a river which came out of the park and ran along MT hwy
49(?). I had left the four weight strung and saw a little beaver impoundment
and tossed the little ant into the far bank, and 10" brown immediately took
it. It was to be the only fish to take the ant in that short time but none
the less.....two rivers in MT I did not know and successful catching in both
places. After lunch in East Glacier we headed back to Idaho. I gave thoughts
to taking hwy 2 across MT and into northern ID but decided against it since
I had made dinner reservations in Coeur D' Alene and I knew how long that
route would take if we didn't make all the stops. And I knew if I took that
route, I would have to time to stop again.

Sure enough we got back to St. Regis 31/2 hours before our dinner time in
Idaho and it was about 100 miles to the meeting place on a 75mph interstate
hwy. Not only is St. Regis the name of a small MT town at exit 33 on I-90,
its also the name of a river which flows along much of I-90 between St.
Regis and the Idaho border. Opportunity.

This time armed with sunglasses, and a narrower river I found a shady place
to park and grabbed the still wet vest and fly rod. The St. Regis is
narrower than the the Flathead in the areas I looked at but it had many of
the same characteristics too. Lots of pocket water, easier to wade, and in
many cases could be fished from the bank. Standing on the bank looking for a
place to get in, I noticed a decent sized rock about 20' out and what
appeared to be a pretty good run behind it. So I cast that little ant just
upstream of the slick created by the boulder and let it drift into the seam.
Keeping with the trend, I had a strike on the first cast. I had been told
this was cutt water but after a decent tussle, I landed and released a 14"
brown.

Learning my lessons from the Flathead fiasco, I carefully waded up stream
aways and caught several more fish, all browns. I had not seen any hatch
activity yet nor had I seen any of those monster western fish I had heard so
much about but I was not in Indiana and I was in a trout stream. Had seen a
few cutts, survived a bit of stupidity and fish lust, so I packed it in and
headed for Coeur D' Alene.