Montana

My son, Zeus, spent a summer working in Montana at Glacier National Park. In September I picked him up and the two of us drove to Milltown, a community that has unwillingly become a suburb of Missoula.

That’s where we met up with Paul Stanton who owns and runs Duckboy Cards which publishes humorous black and white postcards and calendars and books. An example of his product is a picture of a man in a bathing suit on downhill skis holding ski poles and starting to ski down a major waterfall. The caption reads, “Waterfall-Skiing In Montana...No Sport for Sissies”.

On the way to the fishing spot, Paul pointed out where he took this photograph using his nephew as the model. They had to tie ropes to his waist to keep him from actually skiing down the falls.

I asked where the name, Duckboy came from. Paul said he and a friend were bicycling along a Montana river, when they went past a flooded corral full of ducks. They speculated on how the west would have been if ranchers opted to raise ducks instead of cattle. Paul wrote a Duckboy song, spoofing cowboy songs, with lyrics like “Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be Duckboys” and “Duck riders in the sky.” It got a fair amount of air time on Montana Public Radio stations and Paul became somewhat of a local celebrity.

The western portion of Montana has recently had a large number of out-of-state people move in. Most of these people have come from California where one could sell a house and make enough profit to retire in Montana. The road from Missoula to Hamilton has 20 or 30 companies that construct log homes for these newcomers. It has gotten so you can’t see the forest through the log homes. I’m pretty emotional and things like this make me laugh first, then I cry and then I try not to think about it.

I left my vehicle in Hamilton at Paul’s mother’s house and we took Paul’s 70’s Buick up the typical windy mountain gravel road to a dirt parking lot big enough for just a couple of cars. We walked a couple of miles up a forested trail though an area being considered as a US Wilderness Area. The people of Montana were divided into two groups; those in favor and those against. The group that didn’t want the US Wilderness Area contended the trail was used by a large number of off road vehicles (ORVs) and it would be off limits to them if it were a wilderness area.

We checked out the trail and couldn’t find any evidence of ORV use and since Paul is in favor of the wilderness area, he video taped parts of the trail to prove it isn’t used by ORVs.

The crystal clear 6 or 7 acre lake is located on a plateau near the top of the mountain with the peak reflected off the lake’s surface. Real nice!

We rigged our spinning rods with sinking bobbers and artificial flies. It seemed as though the grayling had been waiting for us to get there, because we started catching them right away. They are a fine looking fish with a full spectrum of colors. Though I must admit the dorsal fin is way too large and looks kind of silly. The weather was great. We each caught more than our share of fish. We took lots of pictures. We ate salami and cheese and crackers. Zeus went exploring around the lake. I couldn’t believe it, here I was, catching grayling and I didn’t even have to go to Canada or Alaska to do it. Everything was perfect. Even the trail back to the car was easier than it had been on the way up to the lake.

When we got to the car, we found someone had tried to steal it. They broke the window on the passenger side and got in, but they couldn’t figure out how to unlock the steering wheel. There was glass all over the seat and it was a mess.

They apparently got mad and smashed a big rock into the roof and they were gone when we arrived.

The price we pay for a fishing trip.