Fly Fishing on the Yaak

I don’t fly fish. It’s a beautiful sport, but I’ve never felt coordinated enough to cast only the weight of the fishing line and land a tiny, feathered fly on top of the water. Fly fishing is cool to watch, but I would probably hook nothing but my own head.

 

My honeymoon was spent in a friend’s rustic cabin on the south fork of the Yaak River in Northwestern Montana. To get to the cabin, you stop at an unmarked spot on the road and hike a half mile down a narrow trail. The cabin was way back in grizzly country with plenty of evidence to show they were around (berry scat.) The one room cabin was outfitted with an old wood cooking stove, a table and a full size bed. We settled in, and went hiking to look for fishing spots for the next day.

We headed back out in the morning while the dew was still on the ground. My husband went upstream with his fly box, waders and pole, determined to bring back some trout. Past the beaver dam, he continued to a lovely pond we had spied the day before. He began fly fishing and spent the rest of the morning there.

I got bored after a while, so I hiked back downstream enjoying the shallow, clear, gravel bottomed river. The day was beautifully sunny, the air rich with fragrant flowers. Passing the big tackle box, I got a bit envious. I had left my spinning rod at home knowing this was a fly fishing trip. What could I use to do a bit of fishing? Searching through the tackle box, I pulled out a bit of line, two steel leaders, a swivel and a hook. A downed tree branch for my makeshift gear, and I had a fishing pole.

Now for some bait. I found a fat, juicy grasshopper and put him on the hook. I sat down on a bend in the river where it undercut the bank. In plunked the grasshopper. The branch bent sharply and I flipped a fourteen inch rainbow trout on the bank. It had been lying in the undercut just waiting for the current to bring it a nice meal.

Later that morning, my husband came down the trail, proudly carrying a stringer of four small rainbow trout. He said, “I caught dinner, honey!” I showed him my big, bad trout and said, “No, I caught dinner, you caught breakfast!”