Decades ago, fly fishing was seen as what you could call “an old man’s sport”. Completely male-dominated, the sport was full of men of the older sort in tweed, waving a finely crafted bamboo stick around between taking pulls from a pipe (some corncob, some meerschaum), dining riverside with a tin of sardines and a flask of sweet, sweet whiskey (some bourbon, some scotch). It was the respectable side of the angling world where it was prized as an art form, a meditation on the stream of nigh-philosophical proportions where a man could be alone in his thoughts and ponder about life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and about just what the hell he was here to do on this Earth rather than work his fingers to the bone day in and day out. But the sport throughout the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s began to pick up a bit of steam and then on the fateful day of October 8, 1992 with the release of Robert Redford’s film A River Runs Through It, the sport took off like none other and every Joe Blow wanted to perform the ridiculous Shadow Cast that Brad Pitt’s character Paul Maclean (done on film by fly casting legend Jason Borger) and from there, the sport went downhill.

Of course, I kid about the latter point there. There was a large spike in the fly fishing industry at that point, and while the sport became cheaper and more popular, there was a coinciding rise in cost for high-end tackle with immaculate warranties and more products that were shat out to entice the fly fisher and his pocket book more so than the fish they wanted to catch. Rivers and streams once regarded as quiet holes for the fisherman were overtaken by masses of weekenders and the west became flooded by the eastern crowds who wanted to experience the truly wild rivers of this great country of ours. More regulations poured on including Hoot Owl laws during the hot months of the summertime (a great law), more rivers and streams getting struck by catch and release only restrictions along with no bait fishing allowed laws (another great series of laws), and higher fines for poaching, angling without a license, or for not abiding by the laws– honestly, the fines should be higher.

Now, if this sounds like I am being an old codger about this “old man’s sport”, guess what? I am. I am all for more fishermen of all ages. It is one of, if not the greatest hobbies to have in your repertoire. I am extremely happy that more people have been introduced into it, especially the younger generations and I am proud that more females are being included into the sport as well. But with the increase in traffic on our rivers and streams comes the repeatedly glaring realization of the destructive capabilities of the human race. We wouldn’t have to have Hoot Owl laws if more anglers understood the fragility of the average trout and how water temperatures and keeping the fish in the water as much as possible. Yes, you can skip taking the picture for your five likes on social media; proper fish handling is more important than your tenuous ego. Our great rivers and streams could do with less crowding, less feet stomping through them (and knowing when to stomp those feet; please stop fishing, and for some godawful reason keeping fish, during the spawning season in Deep Creek), and especially less garbage being left in the waters and on the shores. These are all very simple things to avoid, but from the amount I see, the average person just cannot fathom that what they do in their everyday life is harmful to everything around them. In our great North Idaho, I have personally seen people (neighbors, mind you) that have taken trout way outside the limit out of our lakes–stocked trout have rights too– along with people on catch and release only sections of our finest rivers such as the St. Joe and the North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene take home our native cutthroat trout. It’s because of these dummies that we don’t have the fishing of the good ol’ days anymore, and it’s because of these dummies that it will never get better either.

Let’s step back for a bit. Enough of the old man shouting at the clouds. And you may say, “James, you are 36. You are not at all old”. I love you, and thank you. But I grew up with a codger at home, a man I love who was also my father. He taught me everything I know up to a point. I have yelled at kids to get off my front lawn. With a new baby being born in April of this year, I have two kids now and I am sorry but children definitely age you a bit more. I grunt getting out of every chair, sofa, seating apparatus that my tuchus had been previously plopped into. All my friends that I have had since I was a young child in this town are still living in the city that we all moved to before my wife and I decided to move back up to beautiful Boundary county. My friends and acquaintances up here? Most of them are decades ahead of me in life experience (I would rather not call them old just in case they are reading this). Bonners Ferry, with its large rise in housing prices, minimal increase in wages, and sudden lack of activities for the younger generation have made it seem almost like it is becoming a rich man’s (or woman’s) retirement community these days. My childhood was spent at the Rex Theater each weekend, getting fries with brown gravy at The Panhandle, and spending copious amounts of time behind Valley View on the playground and ball fields with my friends from dawn until dusk. Well, we all know the situation at the Rex. The Panhandle doesn’t exist anymore, and if it did, the food prices wouldn’t be nice to the younger generations wallets. Valley View has fenced and gated their playground and ball fields to anyone other than kids during recess Monday through Thursday.

After that rant, the reader can probably tell that I have a great affinity for the past, as most people surviving in our current climate probably do, no matter what ridiculous side of the political spectrum you are on. And this doesn’t just sit in the hands of our great little community; it’s statewide. I want to segue a bit into the state here, and a bit about government in general. Senator James Risch has served as a state senator in 2008, and then since 2014 until now. And if you were to ask me on any given day of the week, his contributions to our great state have been nothing but sucking up to whoever will pay him money and backing down when his voter base in Idaho has any pushback to his ideas. I respect a politician that listens to his constituents. But the man tends to support any Republican pushed public lands sale bill (which luckily he has backed out of when pushed against), and how someone like that still has voters in Idaho honestly beats me. Risch just turned 83. In my opinion, and if you want to argue about this over a pint I am all ears open to it, politicians should be limited to 65 and under– and that doubly goes for presidents. Not that there aren’t any geriatrics out there that can help lead the country, it is just a fact (in my opinion– you like that one?) that at the age where there are at least two or three generations under you that will have to survive with their choices. From the generations that tend to always state the mantra that is “the youth are the future”, they sure seem to not want to leave our government and our land in a condition better than what they had. But as I mention age, we aren’t entirely talking about physical age here. We are talking about time in office, and making good use of said time in office. Politicians as they go on can become too relaxed in their position and basically become a piece of meat that just votes a certain way because “their guy says so”. This can lead to damaging effects to our great outdoors for years to come. I think most of you can pick up what I am putting down here without me directly stating it. And such things can lead to environmental mishaps.

For comparison, let us look into a current oopsie-daisy by the government of Montana. A recent report by Montana PBS shows that the amount of PFAS– Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or “Forever Chemicals”--are much higher in many of their bodies of water than thought of before. Internal emails obtained by Montana PBS indicate that DEQ scientists had, by fall 2024, completed the analysis and drafted fish consumption advisories that would have recommended avoiding fish consumption entirely in several popular waters. The raw data released through public-records requests showed PFAS concentrations thousands of times higher than the federal drinking water limit in fish from the Missouri River, Yellowstone River, and Fort Peck Reservoir. Ok, that is bad, but it was just reported, right? Well, it appears that the government over in our wonderful neighboring state had withheld these reports for a while now. Why was the release delayed? I mean, it is up in the air but why would a government of a state withhold a damning report such as this? It is quite obvious that there is no justifiable reasoning behind the delay unless somebody didn’t want the public to see it. Why didn’t someone want the public to see it? Well, such a report could very much negatively affect the tourism and guiding service economy.

These things should have been addressed immediately without care towards what it would do to the economical side of things. It looks better to lay it out on the line and admit that something bad has happened rather than it to come out and become a scandal along with a travesty to the great environment that should be available for people to enjoy for years and years after you, your kids, and their kids are gone as well. But when you play the game strictly for politics, these folks are leaving a humongous mess for the generations that follow to clean up. I want my children to have a better life than I live, and I stand by that. I vote on policies that will affect them in the long term. I want them to have more fruitful lives, better pay, the opportunity to own a house and retire. I know many folks in my generation that might never have any of those opportunities and it is our job to make sure that the potential Hell we go through is something that we deal with so our kids don’t have to.

And this comes back to fishing. Whoever the group was that left carcasses of eighteen 6-9” native westslope cutthroat trout behind a boulder of Smith Creek last year should be ashamed. The dam on the same creek should be removed for better spawning and fish populations. The Moyie River needs help, whether it is fixing chemical imbalances, implementing catch and release laws, or both. Deep Creek needs to have more restrictions during spawning season. I guarantee that any angler over the age of thirty in this county has memories of better fishing when they were younger. It is a mess that we need to fix before it is too late, and we can all do our part. Midterms are coming up on November 3rd of this year. Don’t just be a partisan hack, or someone stuck in the old ways. Find the candidates that care most about our great state, our outdoors, our people in whole and not just in your culture. Vote with the future in mind, and not just the next ten years. The kids are our future, and we need to think about them before ourselves. Don’t be selfish. Voting like that is like the Shadow Cast: performative, silly, and worthless.

Tight lines out there, friends.