Bull Trout in the Blackfoot

I spent a large part of my youth fishing: the Blackfoot River, Nevada Creek, Brown's Lake, the small creeks near Helmville, plus the pond behind our house.

We fished for a large variety: natives, browns, rainbows, brooks, and bull trout, depending on which water we were on. A small creek about three miles from us produced buckets of small natives, so hungry even the smaller kids could catch them. The fish that we hooked lightly were put in water and hauled to our pond to be planted. I'm sure some of their descendants are still there.

The Blackfoot was exciting, but hard for a child to fish. The only time of year the little ones could catch anything other than a squaw fish was during the salmon fly hatch. Catching the salmon flies was often as exciting for the little ones as actual the fishing was to the older kids and adults. So we made use of their enthusiasm and they kept us supplied with bait all day.

When I got eight or nine years old, our father took me down to the Blackfoot to fish for bull trout at an irrigation/diversion dam that spanned the two-hundred feet width of the river and backed the water up to a six or eight-foot level behind it. Below the dam were rapids and the bull trout, none of which could get past the barrier. The dam has since been removed.

We always went in the evening, during late summer or early fall, throwing big colorful, treble-hook lures into the rapids below, while sitting on the logs of the dam itself. It was dangerous, even for an adult. Perching on greasy logs, with deep cold water behind and enough leakage in the old structure that the flow between the logs could trap a clothed fisherman in the deep water. The front offered rocks about eight feet below. A fall would break some ribs, and then the current would take over. That didn't matter in those fearless days.

I received a huge disappointment one evening while on the river. As kids, our equipment was far from the best, often a heavy, extendable steel rod that weighed more than a good fish, a broken reel, and line with the texture of a worn sheet.

But one evening when we arrived at the dam, our father surprised me with a genuine fiberglass fly pole, plus I got a reel and line. I can still see it.

As we were rigging up my shiny equipment, the door on the old Jeep station wagon caught the breeze and shut itself on the tip of the new fly rod. A kid of ten or eleven cannot appreciate any bitter irony when it concerns a new fiberglass fly pole. I was sick, but I kept my old junk and went fishing, anyway. Later in life our father got a new rod, and I adopted his old one.

It was exciting to hook a big bull in the swift shallows, then gingerly scoot the hundred feet or so from the middle of the river to the shore without falling onto rocks or into deep water – all the while keeping the fish on the hook. A little danger made the fish seem larger.

The river assumed its own aura as the sun went down. As the calm water behind the logs grew dark, it got deep and ominous to a child. The rapids below the dam got swifter and almost luminous against the rocks. The river took on different sounds in the heavy night air.

The quiet shadow figures of the night hawks and bats eating bugs right off the water, plus an occasional hooting owl added to the ambiance of the scene. It seemed like the river world was more at ease in the darkness, even with us there.

As it got chillier and darker, we fished our way to the bank, taking the bull fish we had caught. They were legal back then.

I never got a new fly rod. Of course there were great plans to get a new tip on the broken pole, but like most things with me, I didn't get it done.

Expensive equipment and other accouterments weren't a priority in those days. We were pragmatic in our hobbies and pastimes and used whatever worked. While I was in Brazil I saw a fellow fashion a hook out of a pop-top from a beer can. He caught one fish. Maybe he needed an ORVIS top.

The American middle-class appears to be more concerned with the "extras," or after-market gimmicks that the manufacturers push than the activity itself. More than showing off the logos of prestigious brands of sporting goods to impress others, a lot of this practice might be owed to an alienated generation, seeking to belong to a group of something. Anything.

I don't fish anymore, but I would like to experience night falling on the Blackfoot just once again; maybe I could catch and keep an illegal bull trout. I don't have a fiberglass rod, or I would.