Fish on a Stick

I recently found myself deep in the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness.  As many trips to the wilderness are, it was like a dream and it always seems like you wake up before the end.  Spending a few days devoid of screens and in midst of an existence of water, rock, sweat, dust, sun, and stars is my favorite way to strengthen the body and revitalize the soul.

As usual, I was chasing fish.  This time it was for work; to collect scientific data and tissue samples from Chinook Salmon.  It is never easy to catch up to a Selway River Chinook.  They move fast and hard on a long journey up the Clearwater, and they don't stop until they are far beyond the reach of legal anglers.  In August and September, they start to reach that finality that all salmon reach.  Reproduction and replenishment of stream nutrients.  We were there to catch up to them when they can't swim up any more.  We counted their redds and measured their carcasses.  We snorkeled with the offspring of their predecessors.  We worked our asses off, but it is the kind of job you daydream about when flipping your pencil around in your fingers when the professor fails to communicate the relevance of cellular processes to fisheries biology.

We worked up fish in a hole that woke up the inner cave men in us.  Hundreds of mountain whitefish loosely schooled in the green depths.  I had packed a rod to opportunistically sample fish and kill free time in the evening, but it didn't get much use once we realized the lock on the reel seat had come unglued from the rod butt.  Fortunately, the colleague I was working with wasn't afraid to fish outside the graphite box.  We needed lunch and a break from a march up and down a hot wilderness trail.  I carved a pole from the hawthorn that provided the only shade on the pool.  Emanuel fastened a 9 foot piece of monofilament, a split shot, and a stonefly nymph to the flexible end of the stick.  Before long, I was filleting whitefish that had just moments before been writhing on an invisible tether to a green hawthorn branch.

I have made dozens of excellent meals in the back country, but this was certainly one of my favorites.  Fresh whitefish fried in hot oil until the skin was crispy.  Turns out crispy whitefish skin is quite tasty, especially when you crave every calorie you can get your teeth around.  This all got me to thinking about the point of wilderness is to have the opportunity to get a little more primative.  Next time I head into the back country, I think I will leave the graphite sticks at home.  A whitefish in your belly doesn't care how much you paid for your fly rod.