Anyone who’s ever spent a season working in a national park will relate to Fong’s heartfelt recollections. And for anyone considering it, this story helps illustrate how hard it can sometimes be to re-enter the real world. From the second issue of The Drake, Fong reminds us that fiction often speaks the greater truth.
CLYDE HAS A FLAT. I can see it from the boat ramp of Montana’s Bitterroot River. The front of the old Merc is sloping toward the passenger side, and while I’m happy to discover that there’s a spare in the trunk, I’m unhappy to discover that the jack is missing its handle. I’m unhappy again…
I thought I was just sharing a lark—fine: I was bragging—when I posted a Facebook update a month after moving from Missoula, Montana, to Oberlin, Ohio: “Just caught a dozen bluegill on a fly rod in a light rain standing on the shore of Oberlin Reservoir. I think I’d forgot how much fun fishing could…
In Montana there are two kinds of winter days-those that are warm enough for fishing and those that aren’t. Here, cold is a relative term. A week of high-sky, 40-degree weather in early November can send the Baetis hatch into submission and seem downright arctic after a month of Indian Summer. Yet a windless February…
It only took a few minutes kneeling and staring into the ripples before I spotted a fish. A cutthroat, maybe 10 inches long, darted from behind a rock into the undercut bank. Walking this spread earlier in the afternoon, ranch broker Greg Fay told me that since he began restoring this creek along Montana’s Ruby…
See them coming, swimming toward you like ducks across the sky at dawn. It’s hard for a Northern Rockies trout chaser to fathom: no hatch to match, no current seam to aim for, just you and a couple dozen bonefish headed your direction. Throw it too late and you’ll spook ’em. Too early and your…