Chapter 3: Guide Politics

Chapter Three—Guide Politics

            Rose picked up her clients at High Banks Fly Shop in Craig on an early spring morning in 2008. High Banks was the shop that Rose worked for last year. Although this season, she had decided to focus all her time on guiding, she still remained somewhat friendly with the fly shop, purely as a business decision, and was still doing some trips for them.

She had traded in the camper for a small cottage in Wolf Creek, just seven miles south of Craig. The cottage was newly painted white and had a new roof. However, it was built in the late 1800’s as a care-taker’s residence for the Wolf Creek Hotel and no matter how much paint and asphalt the owners applied, it was still showing years of weather, earthquakes and neglect. It sat directly behind the hotel nestled amongst the trees and elder bushes bordering the property. It had about 500 square feet of living space and was only a slight improvement to the camper. The inside of the cottage showed its age with old shiplap and paneling walls. It was a modest residence for Rose and Chase but it was convenient and the price was right.

The landlords, Ross and Karren Ainsley, lived in the 17-bed hotel that was no longer serving guests. The cottage was named by the local guides, The White House, as numerous guides had squatted there over the years. The guides in the area were a resource to Ross and Karren as they provided an income supplement to the aging couple. Ross had retired years ago from the Airforce Base in Great Falls, and Karren was a retired teacher. They welcomed Rose in and soon became a surrogate mother and father to her. Rose often referred to them as her “Montana ma and pa.”

Rose’s clients were two gentlemen who had been coming to the Missouri for a few years, staying at a bunker of cabins just downstream from Craig. There were a group of guys who rented the cabin every spring. Ron and Buzz were the only two who would fly-fish. The others were gear fishermen. Ron and Buzz would rent a boat and do the self-guided fishing, which on the Mo, can prove to be a challenge. After a couple years of paying over $100 a day for a boat and catching nothing, they decided to take that money, only fish a couple days, but spend it on a guide.

The two anglers contacted High Banks the night before after much debate. They were proud anglers and wanted to be able to generate their own success but it wasn’t going well, so the two decided it was time. Rose just happened to have the next day open so High Banks booked the trip with her.

In Montana, every fishing guide is required to have a guide’s license. That gives them the right to guide folks for fishing but does not allow them to solicit their own business. They have to be booked by an outfitter with the appropriate outfitting license. Guides are independent contractors, much like a subcontractor in the construction world where the outfitter acts a little like a general contractor. It gets a little sticky and a little political in some areas of Montana where fly shops don’t like guides they hire, working for other fly shops and outfitters who are their competitors.

Rose had done most of her guiding the previous year for High Banks but things were not going well with that relationship. Josh Stanford, the owner of High Banks hired Rose last year not realizing what a commodity she would become to the outfitters in the area. He thought she would become a shop staple that dudes coming in from all over the country would see as a welcoming sight. She was friendly and very good looking and someone Josh thought would bring visitors back, if for nothing else, to flirt with. Rose didn’t see it that way. She was a serious guide, who wasn’t going to be put on a shelf for window shopping. She wanted to be on the river and actually loathed those dudes that would come into the shop and tell stories to try to impress her.

Guides did it too and Rose often pretended to listen to them and stroke their egos but inside, she would feel the burning behind her eyes and the gritting of her teeth as she told herself to just shut up and listen and soon she would be out of the shop and on the river chasing her own dreams and these douche bags would be out of her head. She was learning the river and honing her skills as a guide and just wanted to be taken seriously. She knew why Josh had hired her and she resented that but she played the game because she also knew that this hill wasn’t worth dying on. Outfitters did respect her and were putting her on the river because they respected her as a guide. She wasn’t going to benefit by calling anyone out and burning any bridges so she would just shut up and listen.

There was another underlining motive to Josh helping Rose out that first year. Josh was single. He was attracted to Rose and would do anything to be with her. Rose, however, wasn’t the least bit attracted to Josh and really didn’t want anything like that to get in the way of her goals to be a successful guide so she did everything she could to thwart off any advances Josh made at her, which in the end, just created resentment in Josh and Rose soon saw herself slipping further and further down High Banks’ guide list.

It frustrated her to see less experienced guides getting trips before her. Even that April morning when she picked up Ron and Buzz, there was Billy picking up his clients. She was well aware he had been called before her for that trip because her trip was booked last minute. Billy had only been guiding for High Banks for a month and now he was getting called before her.

“Little fucker,” she thought to herself as she turned to Buzz and while smiling said, “Hi, I’m Rose. You must be Buzz…”

Blue wing olives were hatching on the Missouri and Rose knew where those little critters would most likely bring fish up. Just downstream from Craig was a big flat the locals referred to as “The Hemingway Flats,” due to the nephew of Ernest Hemingway owning a house on the banks overlooking the river there. It was only a few feet deep on the flat that ran for about a quarter mile along the west side of the river before dropping off into a deep bend and a pool known as Jackson Rock.

The flat was the perfect depth for springtime bugs as the sun would warm the rocks lining the bottom, causing nymphs to pop and trout to come up from the deeper pools to take advantage of the warming riverbed and those early hatches. Hundreds of fish would migrate to the flat and pod up, rising in a rhythmic manner that from a distance, would look like shallow riffles breaking the surface in ankle-deep water. Clients coming out from other rivers across the country were always amazed at these pods of fish when Rose would point them out. They would mistake them as riffles until they were made aware of the fish and studied their noses disrupting the surface as they gulped down bug after bug after bug. So many fish in such a tight space—it was hard to pick out a target.

“Just throw it out there, right?” Was often and error of assumption clients would make. “How could you miss?”

These pods of fish were so big and eating so readily, how could they not eat an imitation as long as you put it in front of them. The reality is, however, that these trout aren’t stupid and although they look easy, they are not.

Rose dropped her boat in off the Craig Fishing Access Point about a mile upstream of the Hemingway’s. She got Ron and Buzz into the boat and went through the initial instruction of casting and mending to get a perfect drag-free drift. They fished their way down to the flats, the whole way coaching Ron and Buzz into hooking fish on their nymphing rigs but they were having a difficult time landing them. It was the early stages of the trip where Rose would learn about the clients and their abilities while nymph fishing before she would throw them to the wolves, so-to-speak by testing them on dry flies.

As they fished, Rose could tell these guys were going to need a lot of coaching. They were great guys and she genuinely liked them but they were not very experienced anglers. When they got to the first pod of fish coming to the surface to sip emerging bugs, Rose dropped anchor and as they watched the pod rising, she shared with them the importance of the perfect presentation to trick those fish into eating their fly.

Rose recalled the story of two guys she had guided a couple days prior to taking Ron and Buzz out and while watching the pod working, she prepped them on what they could expect.

“The drift has to be perfect,” she told Ron and Buzz. “If it’s got any drag at all or it’s not right on their noses, they won’t eat it.”

She continued to tell Ron and Buzz the difference between freestones and tailwaters and what makes the Missouri such a technical river to fish.

“The biggest differences are one; the amount of food these fish have to eat and two; just how flat and relatively slow-moving the waters is. They get all a long time to look at your bug and if it doesn’t look right, they don’t eat.” She explains.

She had parked her Clackacraft drift-boat on this same pod with the two clients earlier that week. She would almost always park the boat just upstream of the fish at an angle to cast 45 degrees downstream to them. The client would have to throw a reach-cast, which would make their fly drop downstream of their fly-line, creating a perfect drag-free drift. The idea was to drop the fly about six or seven feet upstream of the pod and feed the fly down to them. The trick was to line up the fly, the leader and the fly-line in a manner to get that perfect drift but still not let fly-line drift over them. If it wasn’t perfect, they wouldn’t eat it.

“That’s close,” Rose shared the coaching she gave to the clients as she recapped what had happened the other day, “but it’s got to be perfect.”

“That’s bullshit,” the client in the front of the boat said. “That should have gotten eaten. They don’t want that fly.”

“It’s got to be perfect.” Rose said calmly, biting her tongue knowing that if it was a male guide telling them that, they would probably have taken the constructive criticism as truth.

This went on for about twenty minutes when the guy in the front of the boat got frustrated and told the guy in the back of the boat to give it a try. Rose continued to share with Ron and Buzz the story; how the guy in the back of the boat switched with the guy in the front and gave it a try. Again, none of the fish would eat.

Rose did change flies just to appease the client and again, got the same result. As the fly would drift into the pod of fish with just a bit of drag, the fish would go down, let the fly pass, and then come back up to gulp down naturals in the exact same spot they were previously eating.

“Fine, Rose,” said the client as he looked back at her with skepticism, “show us how it’s done.”

Rose stood up in the middle of the boat and grabbed the rod from the client. She took three false casts well upstream of the pod of fish and then angled her cast downstream, shooting about 15 feet of line to add to the 12 to 15 feet she was carrying in her back cast. As the line shot through the rod-tip and the fly rolled out, straightening the line; she reached upstream with the tip of her rod. The result was the fly settling gently on the water with the fly-line landing upstream from the fly creating the perfect drift. She stacked some line on the water and fed the Parachute Adams right on the nose of the closest fish on the edge of the pod.

The two clients watched in disbelief as the 18-inch rainbow slurped down the fly. Rose lifted the rod firmly and came tight on the trout.

Not even looking at either one of the clients, Rose calmly said, “It’s not the fly…”

Ron and Buzz both chuckled at the story while they watched this pod of fish eagerly eating emerging BWO’s—partly because they now realized why they couldn’t catch fish on the Missouri by themselves but also because they understood the plight of a female guide breaking into the business. They both leaned left of center, politically and they had a fair amount of sympathy for women who were often discriminated against in many professions, let alone a profession like guiding that’s comprised of 99% males. They admired Rose and liked the fact that she was able to put these guys in their place.

  The sun was rising higher in the sky as the mayflies were building in numbers on the surface of the river. Rose knew they would only have an hour or so before the water would warm too much and the bugs would stop hatching. She grabbed another rod out of the rod-holder in the boat and asked which one wanted to take a shot at these rising fish.

“Fuck it, I’ll do it,” answered Ron. “What’s the worst that could happen, these little bastards completely embarrass me?”

“Aw, it’s not that bad. If you put these guys down, you’ll have more chances,” Rose says trying to minimize the inevitable humiliation Ron would soon feel.

Ron strips about 30 feet of line off the reel and while trying to pick the majority of it up into is back-cast, turns downstream and throws it out onto the water in the vicinity of the pod with an aggressive “splat.” The entire pod erupts as they spook, turn tail, and take refuge on the bottom of the river.

“You can’t slap the water,” explains Rose.

“Nice work,” Proclaims Buzz as he gives Ron a sarcastic pat on the back. “It only took you one cast to put the entire pod down!”  

“You’ll get your turn, asshole.” Ron fires back.

“Sweet!” Rose says, “I’m guiding the actual ‘Grumpy Old Men’.”

Rose grabs ahold of the anchor rope and pulls, lifting the 30lb diamond shaped piece of lead off the stream bed allowing them to drift. She pulls on the oars while looking to the far side of the flat.

“There’s another pod over there. Let’s check them out,” Rose suggests while sliding towards them. “This time, try to carry less into your back-cast and shoot more.”

Before Rose could slide the boat even ten yards towards the pod, she hears a voice yelling at her from about 80 yards upstream.

“Rose! What the fuck are you doing?”

Rose jumped in her seat and snapped her head back. She felt the blood rushing to her face. Her heart started racing, partly out of fear and partly out of humiliation. She looked back upstream to see the boat of Jake Trapper. He was standing up in the middle of the boat with his arms opened up and hands splayed out as to emphasize his disgust. His clients were sitting, faces down and shaking their heads either as a gesture of disapproval for her actions or embarrassment for Jake yelling profanities across the river. Regardless, Rose quickly turned the boat away from the pod of fish and put on the breaks, moving back away from them.

“Pick a side!” Jake yelled.

“We’re going to find some other fish,” Rose quietly tells Ron and Buzz.

Buzz looked back at Jake and then at Rose. He didn’t say anything out of compassion for not wanting to make Rose feel more embarrassed. Ron wasn’t as sensitive.

“What the hell’s that guy’s problem?” Ron asked.

“Nothing. He’s right. I should have looked behind me before making a move.” She replied while pulling hard on the oars.

“He doesn’t have to be an asshole,” Ron added.

“It’s all right. He’s right. We’ll find more fish.”

 There are two fly shops in Craig, Montana. High Banks, which is the shop Rose got her start at, and the Missouri River Angler. Neither shop has an owner who is an outfitter to run trips through, so they rely on local outfitters to contract with to keep their books legit. Jake Trapper is one of the outfitters for MRA and has a reputation in town for being one of the heavy hitters. He has been guiding for decades on rivers all over the world. It’s every guide’s goal to get on MRA’s list and in the favor of guys like Jake and the outfitters that contract with MRA.

Rose hadn’t broken into that crowd yet. When she decided to get into guiding, her first contact had suggested talking to Josh from High Banks. It was a little easier getting in with High Banks because to be totally honest, Josh had a way of turning over staff and burning bridges. He was always looking for relationships with guides and outfitters to replace the relationships he had lost.

Rose wasn’t privy to any of the political dynamics of Craig before coming on the scene a year ago. She just wanted to guide but she was finding out quickly how important it was to make the right connections, not just any connections and if one was to align themselves with the wrong folks, the ceiling wasn’t only limited by their gender, but also by their allegiances. Rose was on strike two and wanted to change that quickly. Pissing Jake off was not going to help.

The rest of the day went as well as it could have for Rose, Ron and Buzz. In fact, it went so well that they wanted to book her again for the next day. Being on a bit of high and totally forgetting the interaction she had with Jake, she stopped by Izaak’s for a drink and to touch base with some of the other guides. Let’s be honest, Rose wanted to brag a little bit and let others know how good the day was.

Izaak’s is the one restaurant in Craig and was where all the guides would wind up at the end of the day. The owners, John and Melanie, were becoming close friends with Rose although it didn’t start that way. It was while Rose lived in the camper that she and Melanie met for the first time. Melanie was walking her dogs on a leash and Chase was running free, doing his sniffing and marking fence posts. As Chase approached Melanie and her two pups, one being a wiener dog and the other, an older fattened up chocolate lab, Melanie waved to Rose as the little yapper started giving Chase the, “what for.”

“Don’t worry,” Rose called out. “Chase will be alright. He’s chill.”

Not even thinking anything about it, Rose hadn’t realized Melanie mis-heard the exchange and let it brew. Instead of asking Rose what she had said, Melanie thought the worst. Her dog was barking at Chase and she didn’t hear that all Rose was saying is that Chase is harmless. It impacted her so much that she went to the bar that night and told the guides that were hanging out that Rose had threatened her to not let her dogs attack Chase.

“Who is that little fly-girl bitch?” Melanie asked before she started her venting.

From that day on, Rose was referred to as, “The Fly-Girl.” She thought it was cute and a little enduring but the reality is, they were really referring to her as the “The Fly-Girl Bitch” only they left off the “bitch” moniker. At some point, it was all just shortened to “Fly.” Rose accepted that as her nickname and wore it proudly until a year later as they were all hanging out at Izaak’s and Melanie shared with her the story and the little inside joke they all had.

“What?” Rose exclaimed, “I was just trying to be nice.”

“I know,” Melanie admitted, “but now you’re ‘fly’. There’re worse things to be called.”

As Rose pushed through the doors, entering Izaak’s on this night, she still got the, “Hey fly,” from the guides sitting at the bar. “What’s up?”

She recounted the day with the others, not even remembering the exchange with Jake. Josh walks in from High Banks.

“Hey Rose, how’d the day go?” Josh asked.

“It was great. Fish were happy. Ron and Buzz were cool dudes,” Rose was trying to downplay a little. “They said they were glad they got a guide. They actually caught fish instead of rowing in circles all day.”

“Yeah, I know,” Josh says while looking down at his feet, “I booked them for tomorrow with Billy.”

“What the fuck, Josh?” Rose was obviously pissed. “Those are my clients. I fished with them. It’s because of me that they’re getting a guide for tomorrow!”

“Hold on, Rose. You don’t have clients. You’re a guide. Those are my clients,” he explains. “And to be honest, they’re actually Pete Strom’s clients because he’s the outfitter I ran them through. You don’t want to turn over the apple cart, Rose.”

“Fuck that,” says Rose. “Absolute, bullshit.”

Rose storms out of Izaak’s and finds a place on the patio to sit down. She’s pissed. Her face is flushed. She feels her eyes burning and her teeth grinding. She is going through all the scenarios in her head of what she should do next. Does she go back in and tell Josh off? Does she apologize? She’s furious.

A few minutes later, Keith Merchant, another local guide who got his start a couple years before Rose walks out of Izaak’s with two Budweiser’s and two shots of Sinfire. He set’s the drinks down on the picnic table and pulls out a pack of Camel Lights. He offers one to Rose and she takes it. Keith ignites his lighter and holds it out for Rose to light her cigarette.

“Fucking asshole,” Rose says in a soft, low voice while exhaling.

“Yep,” says Keith. “But what’re ya going to do?”

Keith had kind of taken Rose under his wing from the first day she arrived on the scene in Craig. He was serving drinks at the Craig Bar in the mornings before the guide season got rolling. Rose had dropped in to have a cup of coffee and use the Wi-Fi at the bar to check emails and search the internet for gear. She would stop in every morning those first few weeks and they would chat. Keith had no interest in Rose on an intimate level as he was living with his fiancé, Kelly. Rose could tell that Keith was safe and had wanted from her. He was just a nice guy lending a helping hand the same way guys helped him when he first started. It was a way for him to “pay it forward.”

 “It’s not fair, Keith. Those guys are paying for another trip because of me and now Josh is farming it out to fuckin, Billy? You gotta be fuckin kidding me.” Rose exhales again.

“Here’s the deal, Fly,” Keith explains and when he uses the nickname, it actually sounds respectful and makes Rose feel good. “Regardless of how much of a dick that guy is, it doesn’t do you any good to piss him off. You gotta take care of yourself, which means don’t worry about Josh or High Banks. Don’t piss them off but start forming relationships with the big boys—the real players. You’re a good guide. Start working for real outfitters.”

Keith holds up a shot of Sinfire. Rose takes the other shot and as they clink, Keith says, “Cheers.”

“Prost,” Rose replies. It’s a form of ‘cheer’s’ she picked up while traveling though Germany.

The two take their shots and then slam the glasses down on the picnic table. Keith grimaces and shakes his head as the Sinfire burns down his throat.

Rose takes a drag off her cigarette and says, “Pussy.”