Over the past few weeks I’ve had the pleasure of doing a bit of traveling – some fishy, some fun, some not so fun.
Last Thursday was the final leg of that sojourn, driving from Bozeman back out to near Olympia on the Sound. Leaving Montana is always melancholy inducing; a cup of strong locally-owned Montana coffee helped as did a quick detour a few blocks north of I90 to get a last look at ‘the East’ before starting the 10+ hour run west.
Heading west out of Bozeman on I90 you hardly have time to get everything settled before you start crossing some nifty water – the Gallatin, Jefferson and Madison roll by in short order. If you look hard enough you can see Lewis and Clark tramping around Three Forks just north of the highway sorting out which tributary of the mighty Missouri came from what direction.
There are a host of cricks, creeks, streams and rivers that run alongside or pass under the roadway as you roll on Westward. (Too many to recall from memory and the list I keep intending to scribe didn’t get done this trip either.)
Some could be easily stepped over. Others beg for a raft or drifter dancing down their riffles. The Columbia, swollen by Wanapum dam, looks nothing shy of other-worldly in the Washington high desert country.
By nature of their seasonality some of these waters might be fishless, though I’d rather assume each and every one holds a naive resident fish or two. Rolling along at interstates speeds plus five or six or ten, there’s usually only a second or two to spy the best holding water and plot a cast. Now and then hasty observation is rewarded with a flash of rising fish.
A fisher could fish for a lifetime and never cover all the water you can see from the road between Bozeman and Seattle. (Never mind that you’d have to beg, borrow, lie and possibly steal access to get on some of it.) And never mind that the best stuff is out in the yonder country away from the road.
There’s always one more river to fish.
