“There is a sharp bank there leading down to the river, with big gravel bars at the bottom.”
“Yeah, I know the place,” said Rod. “You park on the left side of the road.”
“That’s right,” said Chuck. “It’s a good spot. People don’t want to go down that bank, but it’s not bad if you’re careful. If you hike on in, then cross the river and fish the pools around the bend, you’ll do well.”
“Sounds good,” I said looking a Rod. This was good information.
I wandered over and looked over Chuck’s tie flying table. It was a mess, of fun stuff — a fly tying vice, spools of different colored thread, feathers, hides, dubbing, hooks, a can of lacquer, a pair of glasses. It was an artist’s studio.
Rod and Chuck were talking flies. “Black ants, number 14 will work, and Brindleshoots,,” said Chuck.
We bought some.
On the way out we patted the dog. In the parking lot there was a rabbit, hunched down under a pickup truck.
“Maybe he is trying to stay warm,” said Rod. It was a good interpretation, but who knew — a rabbit warming himself on a cooling engine? Odd, or maybe not.
It’s hard to tell exactly why creatures do what they do.
As we left Chuck added one bit of advice. “I’d skip the school boy pools at the bottom of the bank,” he said.
We did.
We hiked on in, to what Chuck called the “feeding trough.”
There, along some deep water banks, big Montana clouds overhead, big pine trees leaking their sweet fragrance, we both hooked some nice cutthroat trout.
There is an odd kind of art to living. It comes down to not doing the first things that comes to mind, finding warmth any place that you can, tying flies when you could just buy them, hiking down steep banks, taking advice where you can find it, not settling for the easiest thing, skipping the school boy pools, and fishing the feeding troughs, wherever you can.
Thrive! 