Fishing Alone – An Oxymoron

Guest Blogger: Mike Cline, Bozeman, MT
I must admit that I am a loner when it comes to fishing. It’s not because I don’t like to fish with other people, but taking the effort to organize and coordinate two or three schedules just gets in the way of being on the water. I’d estimate that 9 out of 10 times I am on the water I’ve made the trip alone. I think the real reason I get to fish alone is that I almost always try to get on the river before dawn. That can mean some pretty early alarms, especially in mid-summer when the destination is 120 miles from center. Most of the guys and gals that I do end up fishing with don’t know how to get out of bed before 8AM. I tell them they can sleep in the car, but that rarely moves the needle. So, many more times than not, I am on the river at dawn, alone, hunting trout. This is where the Oxymoron comes in.

You can never be alone on a Southwest Montana or Yellowstone River at dawn. Where ever I go, nature – the birds, mammals and fish – are there. In some places they are almost omnipresent. Their absence would be noticed. I fish a stretch of the Big Hole River outside of Twin Bridges at least a half dozen times every season. Less than a mile upriver from the put in there’s always a watchful Bald Eagle high up in a Cottonwood snag. At times the Balds are accompanied by a pair of Golden Eagles. They watch as I slowly fish past their home rarely leaving the snag.
Muskrats and beaver are common sights along the rivers. At dawn, the beavers get seriously annoyed with my presence and nervously circle and slap their tails as I pass their homes. One morning on the Yellowstone in a shallow side channel I came upon two very small beaver kits munching on some leaves on a gravel beach. They were too young to be scared of me as I approached. Momma beaver thought otherwise and aggressively showed up to escort her kits across the river. Otters are also a common sight as they travel up and down the rivers in search of food.
Sandhill Cranes are noisy birds commonly seen along our rivers. In the tall grasses at the river’s edge their chattering gives them away with only their bobbing heads visible against the tall grass. Every June when I finally make it back to the East Gallatin as runoff subsides, large chains of  Bobolinks  and  Waxwings  can be seen along the willowed banks as they make their brief stops on their way north. In the Fall as I paddle across Ennis Lake at dawn into Valley Garden, massive flocks of cranes and geese cross in front of me in the dawn sky.

Of course in Yellowstone, fishing alone is just not possible. Wildlife in Yellowstone is everywhere, sometimes to the point of annoyance and in fact danger. On rivers away from roads, encounters with wildlife are common. Bison, elk, pronghorn are routine sights. Bison are the most annoying because they just go where ever they please, oblivious to your presence. If they want to cross the river where you are fishing, they will and you have to find a way to get out of their way.
I’ve had a few encounters that really shook me at the time. This June on the Firehole I was in Goose Lake Meadows doing my thing as the sun was just clearing the lodgepole pines behind me. The river was high and because of that I was lucky that I was on the east side of the river at the time. On the bench overlooking the river in front of me, I noticed movement. It was a very large boar grizzly slowly working his way south along the edge of the bench. He had not seen me yet but was less than 100 yards away. I made my present known with my arms and the woefully inadequate tiny bell on my back pack. He finally saw me, stood tall and sniffed and ran back over the top of the bench out of sight. As I was catching my breath and releasing my death grip on the bear spray, he reappeared and seemed determined to move south along the side of the bench. My day’s fishing in Goose Lake Meadows was over. I nervously backed away from the river and headed back to the car about one mile away. Needless to say, the bear, a beautiful sight in its own right, kinda freaked me out for the remainder of the day.

In early July, I found myself at the mouth of the Gardner River in Yellowstone at dawn. Pronghorns, deer and elk are common sights along the river. I had just started fishing with large stonefly nymphs in the large pool that forms at the mouth when the Yellowstone River is in runoff. Across the river a cow elk and here calf walked down to the river and started to cross at the head of the pool. The cow had no problem crossing but the calf did and was swept down into the Yellowstone. The calf managed to make it back to shore and attempted to cross again encouraged by the bellowing of the cow. This time was successful. Unfortunately, I was now dead center where the cow and calf wanted to go. The cow was not shy and headed right for me. I had just hooked a fish and had to crouch behind a scrubby Juniper to avoid the elk. They passed within a few feet without incident, but my fly line was now seriously tangled in the juniper branches and the whitefish I had just caught was flopping on the sandy bank.

Although this next incident didn’t occur at dawn, it always reminds me how wild Yellowstone really is. I had walked into the upper Lamar from the Soda Butte Creek trailhead. It’s about 1.8 miles to where the Lamar flows into the valley out of its upper canyon water. It was late August, wet wading time and hopper season. As I walked in, I saw a small family of Pronghorns, a buck, doe and two fawns. They were grazing along the bench that shadows the south side of the trail. The fishing was good with a few nice Yellowstone Cutthroats landed on hoppers and Mormon crickets. My return to the car was a direct route off the trail across the sagebrush flat. It was hot, dry and sunny. About halfway back, I noticed the Pronghorn family off to the south resting in a shady ravine, but the buck seemed very nervous. Within a minute or so, I saw why. I noticed movement to my left and saw a wolf trotting at good gate directly towards me. It was less than 10 feet away before it noticed (or cared about) my presence. It veered around me and I was able to get off a few photos before it got out of range. It was intent on the Pronghorns who were now moving back into the ravine with the buck nervously protecting the rear. Beautiful animal, but ten feet was too close.
I may drive to the river alone. I may gear up and launch the kayak with no one about. I may catch dozens of fish, many of them bragging size, without anyone to watch or shake my hand. But here in Southwest Montana, I never fish alone.