The Last Easy Days

With hunting season around the corner, the author soaks up one of the few good days left to fish in Montana

A pink cheek, actually closer to red, betrays the trout as a cutthroat. He rises sideways in the run so the color catches the late-October sun with every swallow, blushing the rain-tinted water. I can’t see what is spilling down the bubble line, but this is fall in Montana, so that means a Caddis leading a Blue-Winged Olive on a 5x leash is the cocktail to cast. 

This is no blanket hatch. The trout is not gulping a dozen bugs with every bite. Still, the fish is rising so deliberately that I’m forced to recognize what the trout has known since the light hit the river this morning: we are in the last easy days.

My first cast falls woefully short. But another rise eases my nerves that the blunder might’ve spooked the fish. The next cast is on line, yet when I see the trout appear below my fly, the slack water between the line and tippet drags away the Blue-Winged Olive imitation. Again, this doesn’t spook the fish, who falls back to his line, seemingly only disinterested in a fly with so much energy. 

He sips the third float. There is no flash of a cheek to warn me as the trout rises straight up. Instead, I hear an almost inaudible pop and see a slight ring form on the water. I lift and am connected. 

Breathing in my palm, he’s 15 inches and tall from the short summer full of hoppers and stoneflies. The air temperature has climbed into the 60s, but the water is in the low 50s, and I can feel how the river is now holding onto the cooler nights. 

I unhook him, and the trout’s spotted tail fins back into the run. Then he hangs on the edge of my vision until finally, he slips far enough to disappear.

I started the day throwing streamers. The influence of years of magazine articles and social media posts about fishing the end of the season—#meateater, #chuckingmeat, #8wt. I cast a fast-action 9-foot, 5wt with enough backbone for the small Sparkle Minnows I like to throw. The undulations of the burnt brown, yellow flash, and marabou moved a few fish earlier in the day, including one 14-inch brown I brought to hand. Yet as the sun continued to rise and caddis, blue-winged olives, and small stoneflies began to appear, I thought to myself, how do I want to fish? Which is a different question than what should I fish with?

The deep, undercut banks of this creek hold plenty of 18+-inch trout. A few of whom I met back in July with a handshake from a Purple Haze. I knew that if I continued with the Sparkle Minnow, there would likely be a moment when the shovel head of a creek beast appeared from the dark and sent my line slicing downstream. How many casts, though? How many hours? 

And then I saw the cutthroat rise up in the bubble line. 

September was just here a little over a week ago when there are no surprising rises, and I guess mentioning a fish feeding on top in October doesn’t draw suspicious looks from anyone. But it had recently gotten so cold that I almost couldn’t believe it. It frosted hard last night, I thought.

Landing the cutthroat suspended my disbelief. This late in the year, there isn't much time left for rising fish and casting dries. What fool would pass on a gift like this? I forgot about my box of streamers and checked to make sure I had enough Caddis and Olives to last the day.      

The way the creek bends back on itself, I fish 3 miles for every one as the raven flies. Each new stretch ends with a bank pool slowing a riffle. The alders have turned, and the crowns of the cottonwoods are golden, while larch higher on the mountain burn in veins that look like creeks of their own flowing down the slopes.

In the nervous water, I cast, tempting a brown trout to rise and charge downstream to take the passing fly. The big hen jumps three times, splintering the reflection of the fall colors with every landing. She finally surrenders after a strong run upstream and lilts back to me with the current.

I try to quickly work the hook loose and send her back into the run.

Yet, I catch myself.

Keeping the trout facing upstream, I watch the water pass over the laced ends of her gills, and I run my hands over the breadth of the belly. The adipose fin is strangely red for a hen as the rest of her colors are pale compared to the males this time of year.

I begin to relax my grip from the wrist of the tail but again reconsider. I don’t know how many more fish I’ll hold this year. I don’t want to rush this away.

Grouse season has opened, deer and elk a couple weeks away then comes the freeze when ducks clog the creeks, and beyond that is the new year. A streamer-swung rainbow from an ice-rimmed river is a gift, but no one in October longs for February.

Finally, I release the trout, who swims upstream and pauses in the shallows to recalibrate, then heads for the pool. The wind kicks up, and the aspens and willows lose another wave of leaves that go still from flickering when they hit the river and glide past me. I wade up through them toward another run, then wait for the blanket to lift and the water to clear. 

There are three more hours of light, and I can see another fish.