McCrystal, the Creek, and a crack head gone mad
Living in a region that sees four distinct seasons has its advantages, but it also has some pitfalls, one being that most of us spend the five quality weather months speeding up, not slowing down, trying to cram a year’s worth of outdoor projects into that narrow, comfortable window.
Even in May, when the sun finally brings warmth to the Rockies and grass brings color to the ground I get overcome by anxiety, feeling like I guzzled a half-dozen cups of Sumatra, not really attentive to one thought, not able to concentrate on a single project. I find myself mumbling such things as, “I better get the house painted, and the grass planted, and that fence built soon because winter is just around the corner.” That sensation accelerates when fall arrives and there’s wood to be cut and stacked, leaves to be raked, brown trout to be tempted, deer and elk to be found, and a fence yet to be built.
Freezing hands and nice trout. The winter mix.
Typically in October, when the first heavy snowfall hits the mountains and temperatures drop into the 20s or even the teens, I get depressed for a week. When not cursing those gray, drizzly days and that snow creeping down from the peaks I concoct elaborate schemes to spend winter in the Florida Keys. And then something miraculous happens: I purse my lips, shake my head, and throw in the towel, finally admitting that another summer has passed and that I’ve failed to take advantage of the weather. In doing so, a veil of anxiety lifts from my shoulders and drifts into a void. All of a sudden I start reading books again; I take an afternoon to watch football; I write fresh letters to old friends; I take Sunday mornings to sleep in with the family; I take 10 minutes to pet the Labrador; I write essays and poetry I’ll never sell; I take time to think and breathe; and I head to the river to fish.
In the early-1990s, when I was living in Ketchum, Idaho winter meant fishing almost every day, anytime the temperature rose to 25 degrees or above. Gas was cheap, at times under a buck a gallon, and there were lots of great streams in and around Ketchum, including the Big Wood, the Big Lost, the Little Wood and, a little farther out, the South Fork Boise.
Where is everyone. It's so beautiful out here.
In addition there was Silver Creek, which would have been off-limits in the early-1990s except for a glitch in the states’ winter fishing regulations. The creek, along with several of those aforementioned rivers, offered winter whitefish seasons. While angling for those native whities, we caught some giant trout. Silver Creek, we discovered, was out of this world and some of us fished it a few times a week. On the good days we ran our nymphs and streamers through a familiar run and picked up a half-dozen 20-plus inchers in an hour or two, a mix of rainbows and German browns, and we did so in solitude.
The truth is, I always felt guilty while fishing Silver Creek because it would have been a miracle if anyone had landed a whitefish. That wasn’t a point I was proud of and that wasn’t something I cared to admit if the warden arrived. It’s one thing to consider that whitefish alibi while driving to the stream, it’s entirely another to see someone walking through the brush wearing reflective glasses on a gray day, with a frown on their face and a badge pinned to their chest. And I would have given up on Silver Creek during the taboo season if, on a particularly fortuitous day, a whitefish of state-record proportions hadn’t swallowed a size-2 egg-sucking leech, proving to all, at least in my mind, that our actions were legal and fair. Just in case, I snapped a photo of that fish, with recognizable outbuildings in the background, to be used as evidence in court.
No pain no gain, sucker.
If there’s a way to gauge maturity through angling, my lack of discipline at Silver Creek and the subsequent refusal of more recent temptations tell me I’m growing up. For instance, not long ago I joined a friend and fished a productive Montana tailwater stream where I hoped to land some big browns, fish of an appropriate size to fill an assigned photo essay. We caught a few good fish, but nothing approaching trophy class and the assignment seemed destined for the trash. Relating the experience that evening, my fishing partner’s father said, “If you guys want to catch some big fish, try below the dam. It’s illegal, so you have to watch for the cops, but there are brown trout big enough to eat you. If you do get caught, just tell the judge ‘I couldn’t help myself.’” If given that advice when living in Idaho, I’d have fished Silver Creek with dynamite—just to see what lurked under those cut banks—and I’d still be doing time in Kuna.
Fortunately, you don’t have to cheat to find good winter fishing options as a friend, T.R., and I learned in the 1990s when we started fishing Idaho’s South Fork Boise River, a tailwater stream that flows out of Anderson Ranch Reservoir, about an hour and a half west of Ketchum and an equal distance east of Boise. It’s loaded with wild rainbow trout and many of those fish ranged between 14 and 18 inches.
While fishing the South Fork on the coldest winter days T.R. and I would cast for a couple hours and then retreat to the truck to blast the heat, sip coffee, and warm our bones before heading out for another three-hour round.
We were in our twenties and during those thawing sessions we discussed where our careening lives might land. At that time T.R. was closing in on marriage and just beginning to settle down. That proposition was 10 years out for me and, given my situation, it seemed much farther away, like maybe in my next life. Truth is I was nearly broke and I was renting an apartment with a woman who ran around with a deranged dude named Phil. Phil drove taxi and did hard drugs, crack, I think, and one time he burst into the apartment when I was packing my belongings, ridding myself of those degenerates. I hadn’t told them I was leaving and he thought I would stiff them for the rent and phone, etc.
Phil, who was very high, looked at my gear and said, “What are you doing?” I told Phil I’d decided to move out. He said, “You’re not going anywhere.” That’s when T.R. wandered in without knocking, planting himself directly into the fray.
T.R. is built fine-boned and thin. If a sparrow landed on his right shoulder, he’d tilt that way. When you view him from the side he’s invisible. His presence represented absolutely no help if Phil had picked up the kitchen knife he was threatening to pick up. So T.R. did the natural thing: he said, “I’m going. I’ll talk to you later,” and headed out the door.
Earlier that day I had a premonition. I’d called T.R. and said, “If you come over and things aren’t right, get the police.” Five minutes after T.R. slinked out that door, the police came knocking. “Come in,” I yelled, as Phil’s face dissolved into further madness.
After discussing that story on the banks of the Boise one winter day, T.R. said, “Thomas, you’re going to lower the life expectancy rate in Idaho if you don’t get married soon.” I answered, “Why would anyone get married? No time to fish.” He knew I was blowing smoke.
It would be several years before I’d settle down, but that day spent casting on the South Fork, and the subsequent drive home through 12 inches of fresh snow, with menacing plows bearing down on us, offered a message of fleeting existence and impending death. It was a message I wouldn’t have heard if, say, T.R. and I had been fishing the summer hatches on a stream like the Madison or Platte or Bighorn where you might share the water with 50 driftboats and double that number of anglers. Winter fishing is about taking big trout behind the solitude of a snowstorm and stopping at the bar on the way home to eat a steak sandwich and sip a beer while the football game plays overhead. It’s all about slowing down and taking time to reorganize your life.
It’s not like any of us couldn’t sit on the bank of a river during summer, under an incessant sun, in a field full of lush green grass and cream lily’s, and patch the holes in our lives, but most often we’re concerned about getting home for a scheduled barbeque or worrying about which project we should finish next. You don’t consider those diversions on a still, gray, snowy day, during the deathly quiet of afternoon with two inches of the white stuff stacked on your shoulders and a few big trout, all yours, rising in front.