Probably Should have Taken the Trail

It was a long day. They rode most of it, climbing through bottoms heavily timbered by fir and spruce with patches of aspen yellow in the draws and along the creek. At first, they followed a marked USG Forest Service trail, the blazes browned with time. Ora lead the packhorse and Mike rode behind. Near … Continue reading Probably Should have Taken the Trail →

Fishing and the Names of Mountains

Deek Komplec and Danny Fars were hunting cutthroat trout in the lake they had known as Congress Lake since they were boys. They weren’t skinny, fleet-footed boys chasing the biggest fish anymore. Neither of them were paunchy in their age, but bones rumbled and creaked when they moved, and when they stood from a chair … Continue reading Fishing and the Names of Mountains →

A Fish

Underwater liver, hider behind rotted sog logs mover that moves in a quiver from dark water to darker, I lure you with plastic pollywog from water. Avid hand distorts in reach to retrieve you, refracted numbed else thing underwater, touches slick shiver never knew before. You bring so much (not to mind, for mind cannot … Continue reading A Fish →

She is that Gullible or the Story of a River

The Last Lost River rises from waning glaciers, snowmelt, and springs in the Deception Mountains of Montana and drops precipitously and swiftly, with an anger and fury that only the most avid fishermen dare challenge, into the valley that shares its name. There it slowly changes character becoming first a rugged swift stream. Then, just … Continue reading She is that Gullible or the Story of a River →

How Loud Does a Thirty-Two Finned Fish Whistle Blow?

How and why and when Jonas Ammitian caught the biggest rainbow trout in the world is in part because of the man he met in a bar in West Bench, Montana, but mostly because of the kerfuffle being made of his life at the time. Jonas was not even a fisherman. He was a plain, salt … Continue reading How Loud Does a Thirty-Two Finned Fish Whistle Blow? →