Carol Northcut | Wednesday, 28 September 2022
“It’s not a Scrabble word,” Steve insisted. I laughed and argued that “Doink” is a word. “It’s the sound the first nymph makes when it enters the water in a tuck cast.” I lost that argument.
We’ve spent the last few days exploring NW Montana, fishing, hiking, camping and playing Scrabble at night. It started with a drive to the Kootenai River near Libby. Libby is the site of a notable toxic mining contamination. Vermiculite was mined and very fragile asbestos was in the surrounding rock. Many residents died and others still suffer from mesothelioma. The town became an EPA Superfund site, and the asbestos was almost entirely cleaned up by 2015.
We found a spot to fish. Steve immediately caught a small rainbow. I got skunked, but then, we only fished for 15 minutes because the water was too big and we were overwhelmed because everything looked the same to us: We had no idea where to fish this huge river nor how to fish it. Since it wasn’t our destination anyway, we headed toward the river that was. According to an 18 year-old guide book, the river was “remote”and got “little pressure.” Not knowing the area, I had the bright idea of taking the road on the east side of the river because the crap map showed two campgrounds along it. About five miles in, the pavement ended, but the dirt road was good, so we kept going. Half an hour further, the road roughened, narrowed, and the dense dark forest flanked it. We’d not seen a single other vehicle on or off the road, it was overcast, and we were losing light. It was so eerie I imagined a Squatch would jump out infront of us at any moment. A mile or so further, the road narrowed more. We feared that one false move would mean ending up in the still, dark lake it skirted. Finally, we arrived at the campground. It was a walk-in campground and was deserted. Feeling like we were stars in a Halloween horror movie, we decided to push ahead to the next campground shown on the map. There wasn’t one. Either the crap map was wrong, or it had been reclaimed to the forest.
We kept going on the now sketchy road until we came upon a bridge that didn’t have a weight-limit posted. Would it hold Steve’s four-ton, 42-foot truck/trailer? With trepidation we crossed and shortly were back on pavement. Hallelujah! We found the highway we should have taken in the first place, and then a campground we could barely get the rig into, played more Scrabble, and slept. The morning saw us fishing a beautiful river, but the fishing Sucked (capital “S” and bolded). Either the summer heat decimated the fishery or fishing one-half mile from the campground was still too close, or both. We couldn’t figure out how to best get down into the deep canyon where the fishing likely would be better, so we left and pushed on to the next experience.
We found a beautiful campground on a larger lake where we were the only campers. We walked the shoreline, checking it out. An older man with a grizzly beard who looked like Paul Arden might in 20 years trolled by in an old aluminum fishing boat. I yelled “How’d it go?” He yelled back “Three pike.” I yelled “Juveniles?” He held his hands apart about 36 inches and then spread them a little bit more. It reminded me of the old saying “All fishermen are liars,” but I believe he caught something, maybe even what he said he did. At dusk, we fished a while. I was throwing a size 4 conehead black bunny-strip of some sort, and Steve was throwing a size 14 Woolley Bugger variation. A 6” fish followed my 3” streamer all the way back in. The aggressive little fish was really interested but didn’t take. He did take Steve’s and was a feisty fighter. It turned out to be a young bull trout. Bull trout are protected, must not be targeted, and must be released immediately if caught by accident.
The next day was the activity of Steve’s choice. He chose a 3-1/2 mile hike to a small mountain lake with 1,800 feet vertical gain. The first 1.3 miles was easy hiking on a smooth trail with little elevation change … until we crossed the creek. After that, things got really rocky, steep and Squatchy. We carried bear spray in hand the next two miles of hard hiking. But we saw some amazing trees in the damp cedar/hemlock forest, the trunks of some exceeding five feet in diameter. The lake was crystal clear and the fish lazily fed on the surface. Stupid me had worn trail running shoes and an 18-pound pack and I literally drug myself back to camp at the end of the day. It was slow and exhausting because I had to be cautious stepping down all the rocks with my aged skier’s knees.
Surprisingly, I could move the next day, thanks to a little Vitamin I (ibuprofen), and we drove to the next river we wanted to check out. It was raining but wasn’t too cold, and fishing was good. We stayed the night and it continued to rain. Surprisingly, the river was still clear in the morning, so we fished some more. While standing in the middle of the river, I noticed a pickup driving very slowly on the road. Through the trees I could see aman wearing a bright orange jacket standing in the bed. When nearly parallel with me, I heard and felt BOOM! The m-f was hunting from the back of the truck! Not only is it illegal, but it’s not rifle season. Pissed me off and scared the piss out of me at the same time.
Tired of cold feet, we broke down our gear, got in the truck with the heater blasting, and drove home.
