The River Mistress
… by Alan Pilkington
I have a friend, Jack Mauer, a river guide and owner of Wapiti Waters, a guiding service on the Bitterroot River in Montana, who recently said he thought Rock Creek, a river adjacent to the Bitterroot, was my ‘River Mistress’. Jack is getting on, not quite my age but close, and he’s seen enough rivers, anglers, fish, liars, characters, shapeshifters, fakes and genuine articles to qualify as a competent judge. It did not take much reflection to agree with him. It is now the only river I fish, even though it is five hundred miles and a long day’s drive from my home in Seattle. I love it. I spend as much time with it as I can, usually three weeks each summer, sometimes in autumn, and last year, even a week in early winter with ice at water’s edge
Renting a comfortable log cabin beside it, I enjoy the company of friends, my daughter, my dog, wildlife – including deer, moose, and bighorn sheep, time to write, and most important of all when I need it, solitude. And I also enjoy some of the finest fly fishing for trout imaginable (when they are on), in a truly beautiful, wild environment. But I am not just there for its trout, although they were what drew me there in the first place, six years ago with my brother John. I am there for my soul.
Had I not left Australia over forty years ago, the Big River in Victoria, which many of you are familiar with, would have the title now bestowed on Rock Creek. The Big River certainly qualifies as my brother John’s ‘River Mistress’, and rightly so. But a relationship with a mistress twelve thousand miles away is hard to sustain, except perhaps in memory.
Rock Creek is not a creek; it is a river. In its lower reaches larger rocks and boulders are common towards where it enters the Clark Fork River, but it never seems to me so rocky as to warrant its moniker. The section I fish, five miles or so of water thirty miles above the Clark Fork junction, is a pretty typical mid-sized Montana mountain trout stream, not unlike the Blackfoot, of ‘A River Runs Through It’ fame, another revered river only fifty miles or so to the west, or the Bitterroot, also quite nearby in Montana’s southwest.
These comparatively smaller rivers have the possibility of intimacy with an angler who looks for it. One can get to know them in a way it is difficult with bigger, and more famous Montana waters like The Big Hole, The Madison, The Clark Fork, The Yellowstone or the upper Missouri, all of which I have fished and enjoyed. But their size, usually the need for a boat to reach good water, and their popularity, sent me to a more appealing, smaller water. I like to be at streamside and to be able to enjoy the whole scene, not just racing along in a raft looking for a likely spot to cast to a holding fish, with the real decisions being made by the guide, not the angler. For me that is no way to fully appreciate a stream and what it has to offer.
Rock Creek is fertile and carries a good population of wild west slope cutthroat trout, a fish native to the river, and rainbow, brown and occasional brook trout. A few bull trout still exist there. These are also a salmonoid of the char family, like the brookie, and are native to the river, a left-over from its glacial origins. Like the native cutthroat, the bull trout is completely protected. I have caught and released only a couple of small ones over the years, but knowing they exist is a reminder of the wild water one is fishing.
I believe the river’s fecundity comes partly from limestone formations that run through this part of southwestern Montana, and which intersect and line the river with rugged cliffs here and there. Visually, the river has little in common with the chalk streams of England and France, but the outcome is the same, a habitat with alkaline water conducive to rich insect life. The river is famous for its complex and regular hatches of mayfly, stonefly and caddis from late winter to late autumn, and some hatches like the ‘salmonfly’ (a giant stonefly) draw anglers from around the world.
As I have gotten older and less able to wade as aggressively as I once could, I find myself on easier-to-walk to and fish stretches of water, and Rock Creek has several of these that are not heavily fished and are accessible within reach of the cabin. You could call this a limiting result of my aging, but I prefer to look on the bright side. I spend more time enjoying simply being at the water’s edge watching a small garter snake, an emerged stonefly’s shuck, a kingfisher, a bald eagle, a brightly coloured rock, an uncommon mayfly, a moose calf with its mother. Or just watching the water, studying the insects over it, or waiting for a fish to rise. And as an octogenarian, it’s safer.
I am thankfully at that stage in my fishing career when I no longer need fish porn shots to demonstrate my fly fishing prowess, such as it is, although there was a time I was as guilty as most. I am quite happy in the knowledge that with sixty-five years with a fly rod in hand I probably know less than ten per cent there is to learn. Every new outing teaches a new lesson if I am receptive to it, and my satisfaction comes not from the size of the fish I catch, or even from catching at all. I get sustenance from being by the water and becoming part of the rhythm of the river. Not everyone feels this way, chasing bigger and bigger fish, then spreading the news widely. I understand that, but after a long life with rivers and trout and salmon I seem to have evolved differently.
Regarding fish porn, my plea is to be careful with the fish one photographs. Handle them gently, with wet hands and keep part of the fish in the water and in or over a net if possible. Don’t lift them high out of the water and squeeze their bellies, as is so often seen in the pictures we publish. Touch them as little as you can; as although they may be strong, they are easily damaged, and a tough fight may have weakened them. Restore their breathing by working water through their gills, preferably in a net, before releasing them.
One of the gifts my River Mistress has given me has been her welcome to a new young angler. During the Covid shutdown I tutored a neighbor’s son, Van Hilgendorf, then thirteen and at high school, on how to fly cast, first on the Cul de sac by my home and later, on grass at a local park. His grandparents then lived in Bozeman, Montana, and on his many road trips to visit them he had seen fly fishermen along the way on storied rivers and yearned to be one of them one day.
When he was casting proficiently we decided it was time for me to teach him to fly fish, and we journeyed to Montana, starting out on some easy and fishy water on Rock Creek, five years ago. Van was a quick learner, had good eye/hand coordination, and he understood the physics of casting a fly line and adapted his learning to casting on moving water. But just as important, to me at least, is that he liked and respected the outdoors and being in it. He is now at university studying engineering, and for his vacation job he works in our local fly shop. He identifies himself as a fly fisher.
I spent a week with Van at the Rock Creek cabin recently and witnessed a fine casting performance on the river – hauls, double hauls, in-air, upstream and downstream mends, roll casts, tight loops, and so on. They were done naturally and instinctively when required by the water, the currents, the wind and the fish – all the things I had to figure out for myself over many years as a novice fly fisherman! It was a metamorphosis from when we started five years before – a confluence of confidence, skill, careful observation, willingness to learn and patience, mixed with the humility that trout quickly teach us. He caught some of Rock Creek’s treasures – cutthroat, rainbow and brown trout – all carefully released, a few being photographed in his net touching the water.
Of the things in my life I am proud of, teaching this young man to fly fish with skill and finesse and with respect for the trout, is high on the list. My River Mistress was generous with her favors, welcoming him to the brotherhood. I couldn’t be happier!