01 Feb From The Editor: Riversong

The allure of the river captured me at a young age. Fortunate to have grown up near the banks of a year-round stream, I keenly explored its wonders and secrets, seldom, if ever, disappointed. In middle and high school, in a complete embrace of the teenage years, I’d strum ballads on my mother’s old guitar, gracing the rocky riffles and leisurely swirls with chords that buzzed from novice finger placement. On those very banks, where pasture grass grew tall to the east and cottonwoods smudged the skyline to the west, I learned almost everything I know about fishing. Admittedly, I tossed in many more earthworms than beaded or feathered flies, but that stream is where my father spoke to me about the water — reading its ways, learning its truths.

Our creek was its own presence. Winter ice would ebb its waters to a gentle flow that, come mid-spring, would swell to a raging torrent, claiming trees and sod as its prisoners before depositing them on the shore downstream. Logjams were common, creating and restructuring pockets in the streambed, carving out new terrain for the fish. Some years, spring brought flooding, sometimes submerging our garden and pastures and, on occasion, impacting a home. By the heat of summer, though, with irrigation in full force, the creek dwindled to a drizzly trickle, and fish would pile up in the deepest holes only to be picked off by raccoons.

We watched as the stream deepened its bend, drawing nearer to the fenceline with each spring swell. Meanwhile, a rocky beach just below became sandy, silty, and eventually held black dirt that sprouted blades of grass, each vying for its moment in the sunlight that danced through the cottonwood’s shadows.

Eventually, I graduated to bigger waters. I fondly remember the day my father gave me my first pair of waders and handed me one of his fly rods. Outfitted in those chest-high waders, I flicked a fly (whose hook we’d removed) back and forth across an oceanic expanse of freshly mowed grass, searching for a rhythm. We tried our luck on the Madison and Gallatin, but always returned to our home waters to recast the bigger river’s lessons, to test what we had learned.

For a time, I became enraptured by the Gallatin, wildly curious by its bouldered runs. Then, mountain streams sent their calling, and I found myself releasing fish from flies caught in waters high above the alpine.

I no longer fish my natal stream, and the closest water to my adult home slows to a warm trickle before completely drying up by July. Still, the river calls. The water — any water — running wild across the land sings its own gentle tune, choral notes that hint at what’s below. All you have to do is listen.