It’s 4:30 on a chilly morning in mid-February. The first floorboard in my bedroom is the loudest, and I carefully step over it, knowing that each creak and groan threatens to wake my dad and stepmom. At my mom’s house, I don’t have to worry...
My mother was all of 5 feet tall, 120 pounds, and tough as a bag of hammers. Helen Francis Berigan was her maiden name; she had brilliant red hair, fair skin, and was as Irish as Paddy’s pig and proud of it. She married my...
I came to the river to write: not a fishing story exaggerating about a trout the size of a fat dachshund, but to capture the very soul of the river. But I couldn’t. It was strange to acknowledge that realization, considering that I grew up around...
One of the perks of being a fisheries biologist is that I occasionally stumble upon a hidden treasure. In this case, it was a narrow mountain stream that held small native trout — angling nirvana for me, particularly because I have a 10-year-old daughter, and...
“Was that a fish?” I ask with a confused look on my face. “Yes, Jeff. That was a fish,” the guide responds, shaking his head. “Are you sure?” I ask. “Yes,” he replies confidently. “I didn’t see it.” “I did.” He sees them all. He knows what to look for, what...
The elk checked into my yard one snowy winter evening as if they were entitled to one-night accommodations with all the benefits. At dawn, I discovered three snow-blanketed cows under my ponderosas, their ears idly monitoring the early morning quiet. As light filtered beneath the...
A thick column of black smoke rose downriver, cooling into a thin layer across the horizon and contrasting starkly against the late October Montana sky; a good metaphor for the splitting headache that was hammering in my otherwise clear head. The smoke distracted me for...
I live in an inland rainforest in the northwest corner of Montana, the wild Yaak Valley where — it’s true — in June, one is often bloodstained with the smear of mosquitoes that hover and swarm in sheets and waves. For so many of us...
There exists a word for the way the air smells after a rainstorm, or at least that’s what a friend told me. An amusing piece of data, perhaps, but I have to wonder whether anyone would mention the word while stepping into a spruce thicket...
On the night before my son Jaren’s 18th birthday, I went online to buy him a fishing license. But I wondered if I would regret it. How annoyed would I be if he only used it once? Or more honestly, how disappointed? Worst case, I’d be...