There Will Be Days

At departure time, lightning made the decision for us.

It was August in Montana, which sounds like summer until you step outside in the morning and start looking for the sweatshirt you were sure you wouldn’t need. Thunderstorms had been threatening all day. We went down hoping the forecast was bluffing.

It wasn’t.

Lightning over a river is a no. No one-more-minute, and no pretending a fishing rod isn’t a very long thing to be holding in a thunderstorm. So the Clark Fork could wait, and we went to the Mo Club.

Weather delay, Missoula edition

I walked into a very University of Montana bar wearing MSU gear. I thought I was safe right up until the bartender mentioned they had better clothes for sale.

Fair enough.

Once the weather gave us a safe window, we headed back for the river and floated the Clark Fork through Missoula in tubes from the Clark Fork Yacht Club. They handle the tube-and-shuttle problem, which is usually the part that turns a simple float into three vehicles, six straps and one person wondering where the keys went.

Late in the Montana river season, this is a good way to be on the water without making the whole day report for duty. We carried rods and cast a few lines when it made sense, but mostly we drifted. My parents got time with their friends, and nobody had to row a raft or pretend loading one back onto a trailer is part of the fun.

Fishing, just not at full volume

A tube isn’t a drift boat. You don’t get clean storage, a casting deck or much authority over where you’re going. The river makes most of the decisions, which may be the tube’s best feature.

You can still fish. Keep the setup simple, keep loose line under control and don’t start throwing hooks around when people are packed close together. If the cast isn’t there, let it go. Another piece of water is already coming to you.

That makes tubing a good middle ground for somebody who wants to fish but doesn’t want every trip to become an operation. You don’t need to know how to row or own a trailer. Bring one rod, make a few honest casts and spend the rest of the float talking to the people you came with. That still counts.

The river Missoula grew around

The Clark Fork runs roughly 310 miles across western Montana and into northern Idaho, where it reaches Lake Pend Oreille. By the time it passes through Missoula, it has gathered water from the Blackfoot and Bitterroot systems, with the Flathead joining farther downstream. A river that large going straight through town should feel like infrastructure. Somehow it doesn’t. It still feels like a place you can step into.

It also carries a history that isn’t especially clean. Mining upstream left contaminated sediment across the Clark Fork basin and created one of the largest Superfund cleanup efforts in the country. Restoration has repaired long sections, but the river isn’t a before-and-after story with the bad part neatly finished. It’s working water with a long memory.

Missoula has roads, bridges and whole neighborhoods arranged around this river. In summer, it also has bright tubes drifting under those bridges while people on shore act like they’ve never seen a person in a floating chair before.

Put the seriousness down for a while

By late summer, you check the river before you go. Water temperature, flow, smoke, weather and fishing restrictions can change what a responsible day looks like. Wear a PFD, know where the takeout is, and keep hooks away from bare legs and other people’s tubes. Lightning means you stay off the water. And if the river or the regulations say the fishing day is over, it’s over.

But when the window is safe, get on the river in Missoula sometime and leave the seriousness on the bank.

There will be days for getting serious about a run, changing flies until the box starts looking offended and staying through the last useful light. There will also be days when a storm sends you into a Griz bar wearing Bobcat gear, you make a few casts later, and your parents get to float beside their friends.

That one was the second kind, and I’d do it again.

Clark Fork conditions, closures and restrictions change, so check them with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks before you float or fish. If you’d rather wade than tube, Clark Fork River at Kelly Island gets into access closer to town.