"The real world goes like this: The Neversummer Mountains like a jumble of broken glass." That's the first line from James Galvin's novel, The Meadow. It's been plastered to my mind over the course of the last month or so. Today's my first day off the river from guiding in over a month. My suburban is dirty. Could use a vacuum job. Late morning iced coffee. No sunscreen, for now at least. My lunch plates and cutting board sit clean in the kitchen. Tomorrow's lunch is marinating in the fridge. No morning rush to load gear and a fifty pound cooler into the back of my car. No lunch prep last night. Just what is it like to guide 32 or more consecutive days? Every day is different. Every person I have fished with this year, thank goodness, has been a pleasure to be with! I have encountered one incredibly rude person on the Lost River. I have fished with 5 year olds and an 80 year old and just about everything imbetween. My only criteria is that the client(s) wants to be on the river. Not too hard to meet that. My office is the river and my job goes far beyond putting people on fish. We eat when we are hungry. Try and fish when the fishing is best and talk about whatever happens to come to our minds. I have helped 2 people change a flat over the last week on Trail Creek road. On one of those occassions, I helped Don, the cowboy living and working from cow camp in the Copper Basin. He needed a tool I happened to have. While he may have been grateful I happened to stop by, I was grateful to have had the opportunity to talk with him for a half an hour or so. The social part of guiding is my favorite part and that includes articulating to someone how to get his or her size 14 royal stimulator from the fly-catch to the mouth of a feeding trout. It includes talking about bugs and wildflowers and contentious issues like wolves, water and overgrazing. So..., I feel lucky to have the opportunity to be on the water as often as I am and to observe what many can only imagine.
Golden Stonefly Shucks:
Sego Lily: