Written and photographed by John Coleman
My introduction to A River Runs Through It was in the movie theater. I was 8 years old and my mom took me to see it. I was the youngest of four, so to go to the movies with my mom and not my other brothers was a big deal. Afterwards, it would happen a handful of other times. It became our little tradition. But A River Runs Through It was where it all began.
I enjoyed fishing at the time, but it would be many years later that I’d catch my first trout
on a fly rod. Instead, 8-year-old me was enamored by Redford’s cinematic Montana
landscapes, the hypnotizing narration, and Brad Pitt’s effortless charm. (In retrospect,
Brad Pitt might have been the reason my mom wanted to see it so badly.)
Norman Maclean wrote the semi-autobiographical novella A River Runs Through It at 74, after retiring from a successful career as an English professor at the University
of Chicago. He wrote it to tell the story of his brother Paul’s murder nearly 40 years
earlier and the events that led to it, weaving in romance, politics, philosophy, civil rights,
and plenty of trout fishing. He captured Prohibition-era western Montana in a way that
felt somehow familiar many years later.
The book was initially rejected by several publishers, reportedly because “it had trees in
it,” before the University of Chicago Press agreed to publish it in 1976. It soon became
an American classic, and inspired generations of fishermen—me included.
In June, I joined my friend Ryan, his father Jim, and sister Andrea on my first trip to
Montana. Our goal was to fish as many of its legendary waters as we could in an eight-
day period. My college friend Nate lives in Missoula and would be our guide for the first
leg of the trip.
Missoula sits at the crossroads of three big rivers: The Clark Fork, The Bitterroot, and
The Blackfoot—each holding trophy trout. In A River, Maclean refers to The Blackfoot
as “the big river,” and it’s the setting for many scenes in the book and movie.
Unfortunately, the spring runoff made The Blackfoot nearly un-fishable, especially for
wading, but we did manage to fish The Clark Fork and Bitterroot, netting good fish on
both.
After three days in Missoula, I had caught seven fish species: west slope cutthroat trout
(wild and native to Montana), brown trout, rainbow trout, “cut bow” (hybrid
cutthroat/rainbow trout), Arctic grayling (also native), the less desirable whitefish, and a pike minnow (which is misnomer for how large they get). The only thing left was a trophy trout—25–30 inches and double-digit weight. But that would just be the icing on the cake, and we were off to a great start. On our last night in Missoula, we enjoyed a steak dinner overlooking The Blackfoot before bidding adieu to Nate and heading west to our vacation rental in Ennis—just minutes from the legendary Madison River.
It was sunny and warm when I woke up in Ennis. The rental was in the middle of a
valley, surrounded by jagged peaks with snow still on some of the summits. I stepped
outside and took a deep breath of the dry Montana air. The sweet smell of the prairie
flowers and sagebrush was something I’d heard about but wasn’t sure I’d ever
experience. Me, Ryan, Jim, and Andrea had coffee on the porch, planning for the day
and enjoying the slower pace. A popular angler access point was within eyeshot of our
rental, but we planned on walking a couple of miles downstream to less pressured
water, which usually presents the opportunity for bigger and more plentiful fish.
The Madison is a tailwater, meaning it is dam controlled. While I’d always prefer a wild,
dam-less river, many of the most renowned rivers are dammed to provide electricity for
towns and industry. Dams are advantageous for fishing because the regular release of
cool water from the bottom of reservoirs supply fish with oxygen and food. Regular dam
releases can also prolong fishing later in the day when other rivers would typically warm
up past 70 degrees. My friend Nate said locals refer to The Madison as “the 100-mile
riffle” because of the steady flow of water.
While fish are surely present in the Madison, it is a tricky river to fish. The heavy flows
make wading difficult and it’s more a game of picking apart smaller pocket water;
placing a fly in a glassy pool behind a rock in the hopes a fish will eat it in the split
second before it gets dragged downstream by the current. Euro nymphing, an effective
technique that puts the nymphs on the bottom without using a traditional strike indicator,
would have been the most productive method, but I’m stubborn. I was set on using my
5-weight dry fly rod (after all Maclean said of this reverend and father: “He told us about
Christs' disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did,
that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the
favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.”) I eventually managed a couple 8- to 10-inch
rainbows using an indicator and stonefly nymph, but the fishing was slow. After days of
steady action, I was humbled.
Just as I was growing impatient, I heard a rustling behind me. Something big was
moving through the brush. I reached for my bear spray when an elk calf poked its head
out less than 20 yards downstream. It hadn’t picked up my scent, and neither had its
mother, who came ambling out of the brush behind her calf. I called to Jim fishing
upstream in a hushed voice. “Look, Jim. Elk!” I turned around and the cow had spotted
me. They both launched into the river and began to cross. I watched in awe as they waded into the river, their long legs making easy work of the deeper riffles. It was like a
cinematic, “Robert Redford” moment, like something that I had watched, wide-eyed in
the theater with my mother as a child.
I didn’t net another fish that day, but the trip felt perfect thanks to the elk encounter. We
walked back to the car as dusk set in over the valley. It was nearly 10 p.m. and there
was still some daylight. The sky was a blush of blue and pink, and a full moon was rose
overhead. It felt like a dream. We were surprised to see fishermen walking past us in
the other direction to start fishing. Then I remembered Maclean’s line, “Like many fly
fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I
often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening.”
While I was walking, I called my brother Pete, who bought me my first fly rod when I
was 20. I thanked him for introducing me to the sport and told him we’d come back to
fish Montana together. Of course, he gave me some brotherly advice on how to catch a
fish: “Throw on a Pat’s Rubber Legs and let it drift behind the rocks and along the seams.” He’s not wrong.
In all, we fished five rivers and hiked to an alpine lake. We floated the lower Yellowstone (thanks, Ben) and had some great laughs over drinks late into the evening.
We each caught our share of good fish, with Ryan taking the prize for the largest brown
trout. Nothing new there. We introduced Andrea to fly fishing and she’s now hooked.
Jim was able to revisit a place he’d explored as a younger man. We all vowed to come
back to visit Nate, sooner rather than later.
And Maclean is always there for me. I swore that, next time, I’d fish The Big Blackfoot “in the Arctic half-light of canyon,” with “the sounds of the river and a four-count rhythm and the hopes that a fish will rise.”
(Dedicated to Mom. 1943-2017)
