A neighbor saw me walking Birch Street down to the river with a fly rod in my hand the other day.

“Fly fishing!?” he exclaimed with such an inflection that one would expect to hear at the scene of a car crash. “Fly fishing from the banks of this river?”

I chuckled and said, “yep, it works occasionally.”

“Well, any fishing is better than not fishing, right?”

This was the same man I've seen numerous times fishing the tip of the triangle in town with large flashers rigged to a salmon rod many times to only say, “they ain't biting” each time I've asked how he's done.

Sometimes, there are numerous wrong ways to fish a spot. But any fishing is better than not fishing, right?

Fly fishing from the banks of the great Kootenai River through town could be considered a masochistic activity. There are rises near the shore, some larger than others, that 90% of the time will put up a strong fight for two seconds before allowing you to simply pull in the 14” Pike minnow that is now laying on its back, expecting a belly rub like a domesticated house cat. While you are fishing these rises, large fish–many that you can tell are large rainbows as they leap from the water to snag the small floating flies above them–are just out of reach of a good cast with a single-handed fly rod.

Or there is the classic moment that happens every single time that I fish down there. A large fish rises and I set up just the most beautiful cast only to be buzzed by a large, sweaty shirtless man on a wave runner who keeps going back and forth with a thumb on his nose and four fingers in the air, wriggling a taunt that only a man on such a worthless watercraft could wriggle.

There are the special nights though, where the wave runner man is staying down on the bend by Sewer Lagoon (God, may you have mercy on whoever gave that beach that name, and no I will never let that rest), and the water starts exploding with rises to flies that one cannot fathom ever being able to see. Not only that, but they are within casting distance and in a discernible current that, while hard to fish, isn't impossible.

With my 4 weight Orvis seven eleven and a #16 freshly tied Griffith’s Gnat, I had a night like that on sundown just last Tuesday. A warm sky and a cool breeze brought comfort in the midsummer air, the birds of prey were out but scanning areas hundreds of yards from where I would be fishing for the night, and rises from dimple to large splashes were peppering the water like a tommy gun spraying the current.

Directly in town, there are a few easily accessible areas to fish from shore, and many places that are anklebreakers and toe splitters. And honestly, the fishing is about as good(or bad) all throughout. There is either shore under the railroad bridge which provides decent fishing while dipping a nymph or yanking a streamer. When the water is low, wading out to some of the closer sandbars can provide good access to some fish.

On the north side of the river, there is what I call The Triangle (if you can’t figure out what that one is, you may need to reeducate yourself on some of the basic shapes) and the rock outcropping west of it that someone has been magnet fishing off and leaving the rusted junk that they find out on it where it normally finds its way into my vehicle and up to the dump. There is the dock at the boat launch of course, but who would honestly want to fly fish off that area?

Other than that, there is the long and rocky shoreline that, while tough to get down to most of the time, can provide some great fishing opportunities if your roll cast is up to snuff.

This evening, I was fishing the run of multiple currents that ride past the east side of the triangle. Close to shore, there is a bundle of some old logs, branches and other blowdown that provides a safe haven for some large pikeminnow, but the currents hold trout of many sizes.

The issue comes with the amount of mending one has to do to keep a good drift. It is the Kootenai, and with that comes an incredible power of cross currents, undercurrents, back drift, and spots of stillness. But if you have a good line and a bit of mending knowledge, it is manageable and rewarding.

I tend to stand down on the wobbly rocks at the end of the triangle and make long casts up towards the blowdown and let my fly ride down the current while constantly mending in towards the hypotenuse and stripping in line to keep my fly from squirming out into the deeper waters. It is a straight drop off from the rocks down to the bottom, maybe twenty feet or so when the water is low. Yet, the trout see your fly from down there and, as the water is clear, you can see the trout rising from the bottom, shimmering in the evening light. As any time you catch a trout on a fly rod, let the fish take the fly and give it a one count before setting the hook vertically.

On my third drift, one that I would consider a bit sloppy, I coaxed a fish up from the bottom. While it still seemed far away, and my fly was nearing my exact spot on the rocks, I continued to strip line in and hold the rod higher up off my body. I was sure that the trout was going to see this movement and be put down to the bottom by my actions, but the fish seemed too hungry to care. He came to the surface, did a quick slurp of my gnat pattern and took it straight down with no other thought. I set the hook, and the trout shot down the current and out into the deeper water.

My rod this day, and a rod I take out more and more as I find it to be just beautiful to fish with, is a 4 weight, 7’11” superfine graphite from Orvis that feels like a good middle ground between a slower fiberglass rod and a fast, regular graphite rod. The rod tip bent well, and as I shifted it around to manipulate the movement of the trout, it handled things well and kept my 6x tippet safe from the jerking trout and constantly changing current speeds. In one current, it felt like I had a dinker on and in the next, the fish felt like a three pounder. In one current, I could pull the line in with ease and in the next, I was letting the fish strip some line and make a run. Soon, a beautifully colored 12” rainbow trout was in my net. Not big enough to appease my wife’s demands for a trout for the next evening’s supper, but big enough to feel like a success of an evening.

This trout brought my yearly numbers in inner village Kootenai River Fly Fishing to 34 northern pikeminnow and 3 rainbow trout. Not great in terms of catching good fish, but pretty decent in terms of just landing fish in a net here in town. Of course, if you have a watercraft of some sort to fish from (and not just a completely, absolutely worthless wave runner) the center current of the Kootenai through town can be quite productive. Yet, I do not have such a watercraft so I can only talk about shore fishing. Get out there and lay a fly on the water sometime. If anything, it will provide you with great casting and mending practice. It might even provide you with a fish.

Tight lines out there, friends.