March 12, 2025
By Lani Waller
He was indeed a good fisherman. A damn good one at that. And, like all damn good fishermen, he understood that the absolute truth is like a rubber band. In order to understand all its subtleties and possibilities, you have to stretch it.
If there was ever a place for stretching the rubber band, this was it. The landscapes still remained immense, formidable, and magical. Mountains almost fill the sky and have names given to them thousands of years ago before the first European settlers arrived. Some of the forests seemed to go on forever with thick stands of virginal timber still untouched, mysterious trails and ancient native burial sites some claimed were still hidden from sight–locations imbued with great magic and power. And, believe it or not, extraordinary creatures still live there. Ones beyond normal definition which exist nowhere else: Snow-white bears which are neither albino or polar, frogs which can stop their hearts from beating as they hibernate frozen for five months and then somehow restart their hearts during the spring thaw, and other things from out of the past which still roam around and are seen from time to time.
It is true that most of these kinds of creatures are often seen late at night as the observer is leaving the tavern at closing time, or in their sleep. Some can be found in books, paintings, and politics, but as everyone knows, literature, art, and especially human politics are like fishing and sometimes exempt from meaningful scrutiny or any kind of logic at all. And in the end, perhaps it’s anyone’s guess as to what is real and what is not.
Last but certainly not least, the fishing up there can be so good you usually don’t have to stretch the truth too far. But what fun is that? The way most of the anglers up there looked at it, the better the fishing is, the more you stretch the truth, in order to truly tell the truth. What could be more straightforward than that?
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It’s Monday, almost lunchtime, and everyone is gathered in the dining room ready for lunch, and here he comes. Wade Rivers himself. He’s a little late, but who cares? He’s been fishing. Wade closes the door and moves toward the dining room ready for almost anything or anyone: bad weather, Indians on the warpath, or even… God forbid… Steelhead Bill. Wade Rivers has always secretly wondered if Steelhead Bill might be better than he is, but then some have said that Steelhead Bill is better than almost anyone on the planet. That includes Steelhead John, Steelhead Bob, Steelhead Jim, Steelhead Moe, Curly, and Larry.
Wade still has his boots on, and their carbide pointed steel caulks are clicking on the varnished pine wood flooring. His knuckles are red and white from the morning fishing. It was a bit cold out there, he thinks. Could snow anytime soon. Maybe the frogs are getting ready. He surveys the other anglers. They are newly arrived and eager on the first day of a new week of fishing on what most believe is the greatest trophy steelhead river in the world and the world’s greatest fishing lodge. At least their exclusive U.S. sales and booking agent says it is, but it isn’t just their personal point of view. A lot of people agree this place is special. If it can happen, it can happen here. Who knows? Maybe a 40-pounder. Maybe even bigger.
They’re around and just to prove it someone (it was the Dithers Chamber of Commerce) put a couple of stuffed 40-plus pounders in the Dithers airport about five years ago for everyone to see. Interestingly enough the two 40 pounders share the airport waiting room with a 1,500-pound grizzly bear whose facial expression and body posture gives the viewer the impression it wants to get out of the plastic display as soon as possible so that he can feed either on the two immense steelheads or maybe a passenger or two.
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The bear mounted inside that the plastic cave is indeed quite a bear and there isn’t time for it here, so we leave it at this: The grizzly was said to have supernatural powers which let him know ahead of time when anyone came hunting for him and he would just disappear. He had in fact somehow eluded all the traps, the poisoned caribou meat, and professional hunters for five years, maybe more, and everyone says the “griz” took so many cattle you couldn’t count them all. No one knows for sure just what really happened, but in the end, the bear ended up in the Dithers airport after a two-year fight over ownership with another nearby town, Shouston, which claimed the bear belonged to them.
According to these accounts, the bear had actually been shot in Shouston and then tried to make it back to its den in Dithers. The bear didn’t quite make it and fell stone dead on the city line with its butt and hind legs in Shouston, but it’s head, shoulders, and front paws were over the line and sticking firmly into Dithers dirt.
It is said that the Dithers mayor found it one morning on his way to a city council meeting. According to these reports, the mayor got out of his car and single-handedly dragged the bear until its entire body was in the Dithers soil, thus making it city property and qualifying for display at the Dithers airport. He called a cab and they dragged the carcass to the taxidermist.
Who knows? Wade wonders as he looks at the rest of the anglers in the dining room. There are two women present. Wade doesn’t know what to think about that and neither do a couple of other men in the room, but it doesn’t matter. Sometimes the women outfish the men and there’s nothing you can do about it except respect their abilities. Only a fool thinks differently, Wade says to himself. Only a fool.
So everyone has arrived and they are now waiting for lunch and talking in excited voices about the possibilities for the coming week. There are a lot of words, a lot of conversation, and the spilling of old stories merge with new stories and possibilities, mostly about trophy steelhead fishing, and for the time being, everything else dissolves into non-existence. The stock market is gone. In fact, the entire economy disappears, as do most of the daily concerns and everyone left behind, including their mothers-in-law, dead or alive, rich or poor.
None of these things matter anymore. For the week, at least, they simply fade into oblivion. But it’s more than this. The entire universe beyond the banks of the winding river disappears and the only things which matter are the condition of the water and the answer to the ultimate question: “Are they here yet?”
Wade knows. He walks over to the coffee maker and pours a cup. As he stirs it, he takes a moment to look around and then walks to the edge of the table, and takes his position as someone asks him how he did today. “They’re here all right, and I did pretty good this morning,” he says. “I hit six just upstream from here, all around 18 to 20 pounds or so, maybe 22 pounds for the biggest. It could have been 22. It went 39 x 19.”
One of the guides, Deano Moelstra, looks at him and wonders. Hmmm… he thinks. The fish have been small so far with few fish over 12 pounds. Is it possible that the run of big fish has finally arrived? He hopes so. Twelve hundred U.S. dollars a day is a lot of money to fish in a river that has no fish. And, even if the fish aren’t here and talking, the money is.
Wade doesn’t care. Why should he? He always gets them. Some say he even gets them when he doesn’t, but who knows? The truth is, Rivers is a legitimate expert and maybe the criticism is just sour grapes. That happens... now and then. So he takes a drink of coffee, inhales, and continues. “It’s been like this everywhere, and one day last week, over on the Kwawia, I took five good fish all around 16 to 20 pounds on five straight casts. The day before that, I got seven, and last Thursday, I got 14 out of one pool.”
He pauses again, looks up at the wall and the trophy steelhead mounted on the pine rafters and smiles. “The biggest fish was like that one there,” he says, pointing. “Almost 30 pounds, because I measured it. I always measure them. That’s the only way you know for sure. Forty-two by 20, it was, and I got it on a floating line, and a blue and green tube fly on a long cast into deep water.”
By this time, none of the first-timers in the room are saying anything, and they just stand there looking at Wade with staring eyes and leaning toward him with a forward slant of their upper torsos. It seems as if he is just getting started and they want all the good news they can get.
Hmmm… The stuffed eagle says to himself as he hangs frozen in flight, suspended from the ceiling on a chain inside the living room, and not too far from the fireplace. “Maybe it will be a great week.” The majestic bird looks out at the river with her wings forever outstretched in an endless fight, then longingly toward a bright blue sky with cream-colored clouds and all those marvelous limbs she could be sitting on.
The bear lying on the floor in front of the fireplace is also curious, and even the immense bull moose head mounted on the west wall looks down at the room with its brown eyes wide open and its eyebrows arched.
“I love it,” someone says, inhaling deeply, looking up at the 30 pounder mounted on the fireplace. “When I hit a big one like that. And I watch my leaders carefully. I even keep them out of the light because fluorescent light will weaken your leader material. But I use a 20-pound test, so I’m not too worried. And I use a Bimini Twist knot on all my leaders.”
The moose blinks and looks at the angler. The moose had never heard that one before. The new guy in camp, the one at the end of the table who is a little intimidated by all of this and who has never done this kind of angling before, always thought the Bimini Twist was some kind of dance.
“Holy cow,” the moose mutters to himself as he looks down at the assembled group of anglers. “These people are worse than hunters. Or golfers.”
“Say,” the Bimini angler says suddenly, sticking out his hand toward Rivers. “I don’t think I got your name, partner.”
Wade response politely. “Rivers. Wade Rivers. Good to meet you.”
“That’s a hell of a name for a steelheader,” Bimini says. “Tell me something. Don’t you think it’s where you put your fly that matters the most? I’ve got 2,000 steelhead to my name so far, and hell, I feel like I’m just getting started.”
“Yup,” says Wade. “I sure as hell would say so.”
Bimini is happy for the confirmation and is smiling once more as he looks into the staring and innocent eyes of a newcomer to the lodge, a guy named Jim Snodgrass from Topeka, Kansas. “I’m sorry,” he says. “What was your name again?”
“Jim Snodgrass.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Jim. I know this is your first time. Damn it, Snodgrass! No shame in that! You just fish with me and my boat. I’ll put you in all the good places and you’ll get on this in no time. Won’t he boys?” Wade looks around at the other anglers who are now considering the possibility that perhaps they are dreaming all of this.
“Oh yeah,” one of them says. “Oh yeah. No worries. You’ll get on to it in no time at all.”
And then, suddenly, without warning, everything is interrupted by a clanging bell which announces, to most of the gathered anglers relief, that lunch is now being served. The moose exhales quietly and goes back to staring into outer space. The eagle settles on its imaginary roost, and the bearskin rug begins to relax once again. Even the potato salad seems relieved.
The conversations nonetheless continue through lunch, still polite and enthusiastic. All but Snodgrass are experienced steelheaders and seem to know their way around, so it’s only natural that the other rivers are mentioned, other locations and stories of amazing steelhead encounters wind their way in and out of the potato salad, the steaming vegetable soup, and dessert.
Now and then, an Atlantic salmon story is thrown in. “Yeah, you’re right, they’re almost like steelhead,” someone says. “I mean in some ways,” he adds. “In some ways.” Some of the others agree, including the exclusive U.S. sales agent representative who has only fished for Atlantic salmon once in his lifetime, but what does that have to do with it? Fifteen salmon are enough, and he knows a similarity when he sees one. Even if it’s different.
Sitting next to the sales agent are two anglers whom some think of as simply the “girls”–a mother and a daughter team who have caught a lot of Atlantic salmon. Wade looks at them for a moment and then back at the sales agent. “Well, there are differences, too,” he says, “because I read a lot of salmon stories over the years, and I know the truth when I read it. So hang on to your waders, girls.”
Rivers looks down into his soup. Too many potatoes in here, he thinks.
“And as far as this agent thing goes,” he mutters to himself, “they’re all the same, and they just tell you what you want to hear. They remind me of my mother-in-law.”
The rest of the conversation is much the same and doesn’t need repeating here, but you could feel the excitement growing as the rubber band is passed around the table, alternately stretched, then relaxed, then stretched again as eight well-intentioned anglers begin to think about the afternoon fishing and just where they would like to fish and with whom.
When lunch is finished, Head Guide Marv Havaneely introduces himself and delivers a thorough and truly expert orientation regarding fishing licenses, how to rig your gear, and how to avoid bears and moose. “Especially rutting males,” he says as he looks up at the immense head and antlers hanging on the wall. “Don’t mess with them,” he says. “If you see one, just get out of its way and keep your legs closed.”
The “What To Do When You Hook a Big Fish” talk comes next, followed by “How To Use Your Walkie-Talkie Radio,” and Marv finishes by asking the guests who they want to fish with after lunch and for the rest of the week.
The sales agent responds immediately to the question as if he has been thinking of this for some time now. He raises his hand, “I want to fish with Snodgrass and the two girls,” he says. “I’ll fish this week with Janet, Helen, and Jim and show them what to do!”
He continues. “As far as this afternoon is concerned, why don’t we put Jim up at Potter’s Rock? The bears and moose don’t go up there much and Jim will be OK there. I’ll fish just up around the corner at Vanadian pool. I can handle all that water with my 15 footer and I can watch Jim and can radio the lodge if he needs help. Maybe Janet and Helen can do Dinner Box. This time of the year, there will be a lot of fish over there because of the cool water coming in from the Shellakalot River.”
Snodgrass smiles and starts dreaming. Wow. Potter’s Rock. He’s heard of it. All to himself. Wow .
So, the deal is done. After lunch, everyone finally finished unpacking their 200 pounds of clothing and gear, which took, on the average, two hours. Then they purchased their license and other necessities, leaders, hooks, and now and then an undershirt. A few even bought some new green and blue tubes, and around 3 o’clock, the anglers went their separate ways.
As it turned out, the first afternoon’s fishing wasn’t all that bad. In fact, it was pretty good. Wade got seven in one place. “I hardly moved ten feet,” he said that dinner that night. “They were pretty standard for the Ravine, all around 16 to 18 pounds. I didn’t measure these, though. Didn’t have to. They were all so close to each other in length and girth.”
The sales agent said he had a good afternoon. “I got four. I didn’t have to measure mine either because I can tell how big they are by the distance between their eyes.”
Janet and Helen got two each from the Dinner Box and the other four guests took five among themselves. Best of all, Snodgrass, on his first day of steelhead fishing anywhere in the world, took six out of Potter’s Rock. On a dry fly. Dead-drifted on an upstream presentation. As if he was fishing for ordinary trout. “I thought that was how you did it,” he said when the guests stared unbelievingly at him. “I thought that was how you were supposed to do it. They looked like pretty big fish to me and I measured the biggest. It was 41 inches long. Is that big for this river? I fought it for 45 minutes.”
“What fly did you use, Snodgrass?” Rivers and the sales rep ask in unison. Silence, as Snodgrass considers the question. “What did you use?” they ask again. “A blue and green? A Steelhead Bomber? A Ravine Skater? A Wally-Wanker?” Snodgrass looks embarrassed. He didn’t know what any of those flies were. He wasn’t sure what the fly was he had used. It was a birthday present from his wife, Diane, who found it at Johnson’s Topeka Hardware down on the corner of Fifth and Main. “Well, dammit, Jim. Describe it. For God’s sake, Snodgrass, what fly was it?”
“I have it here,” Snodgrass answers. “I saved it. I got all six on the same fly. It still has part of the leader tied to it where I clipped it off.” He pulls it out of his pocket. The response is immediate. Eight heads roll forward, eleven counting the lodge manager, Ryan Kreider, and the two guides, as 22 eyes focus into one singular gaze.
Even the moose can’t stand it and he turns his thick neck downward and stares at the fly sitting in the palm of Snodgrass’s open hand. What is that thing? The moose thinks. What in the hell is that?
No one answers. Not even the eagle who can see everything. A great hush falls over the room and no one has to answer. There it is, all right. As flat as a pancake in Snodgrass’s palm. The once perfect arc of the model-perfect hook bend is almost as straight as an arrow. The pheasant tail and red floss body are torn to shreds. The peacock herl butt is missing. The white calf tail wings are upside down and there is no brown hackle left. Just the shredded twists of materials and a piece of 20-pound leader tied with something which resembled a square knot still securely attached to the eye of what used to be a new No. 10 Royal Coachman.
“Kiss my butt,” Rivers says under his breath, but still smiling as he gets up and heads down the hall to relieve himself. “Kiss my butt.”
That night, after hearing the day’s stories and Snodgrass’s unbelievable dry fly tale at Potter’s Rock two more times, everyone left the dinner table excited and ready for more of the same tomorrow. There was no mistake about it. The big fish were in. Rivers and Snodgrass had proven that. And who could say where the great wheel would stop next? It didn’t matter. They just liked being there and the truth was, there is no better fishing anywhere, for any better kind of fish than this place and this river.
And besides, the sales and booking agent said it didn’t matter and kept telling everyone what really mattered was how the river was winding its way through the cosmos and how the cosmos was winding its way back through the river. But everyone knows those kinds of people will say anything, in any way they can. In spoken conversation or with the printed word.
So it was okay, and by the end of the week it had all worked out and everyone was happy. The river took care of that and it had been a week to remember. Two hundred and fifty-six wild Ravine steelhead had been hooked and 202 were landed. First-time steelhead expert Jim Snodgrass had a great week and hooked 35 and landed 32 using only two flies: the Blue and Green Tube and No. 10 Royal Coachman, both fished up and downstream, on a floating line. “It doesn’t matter whether you do it up or down,” he said with a certain confidence and an assurance ordinarily reserved for those who had been doing this kind of fishing for at least three weeks. “Just throw it out there,” he said. “They’ll take it.”
And wouldn’t you know? “The girls” had outfished almost all the men, including the agent who hadn’t done as well as he had wanted and hoped for. He said it was his new rod. “Can’t get used to these short ones,” he said.
And Wade Rivers? Was there ever any doubt? He was indeed “top rod” and continued his long-standing tradition of fishing by himself as often as possible. “The solitude and privacy increases my concentration and gives me better focus,” he reminded everyone one morning at breakfast. And so it had. At the end of the week, his average while fishing by himself was 17 pounds. When the guides were there with him, talking and joking all of the time, his concentration suffered and the fish he caught then averaged the same as the rest of the group
What did it matter? There was, for the moment, and for that one week at least, a sense of community, the kind anglers seem to find now and then. The rubber band was passed around the evening dinner table until everyone had their chance to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Then, near the end of the last evening and another year on the river as the group finished their cocktails and the six-foot hand-carved stone fireplace threw dancing shadows across the pine log walls, someone said they just couldn’t wait until next year. Who knows what that will bring? They all wondered. Who could indeed say just where the Great Wheel of Cosmic Law would stop next year? Would it be Jim? Or Wade? Or “the girls?” No one seemed to know.
When the lights finally went out that evening, it started to storm. The first big storm of the season. The green pine branches and bare limbs of cottonwood were heavy with snow and all the trees bowed to the storm as if they knew what it would bring. The frogs shivered–just a bit–and started to dig in. The river went on as always and didn’t seem to care. Neither did the bear or the eagle, both safe inside the living room.
Outside, in the darkening pools of the river, the steelhead themselves exhaled a sigh of relief and began to gather in a timeless ritual of preparation, knowing full well what lay ahead of them.
Around midnight the moose looked at the bear for a moment, then at the eagle. He closed his eyes and went to sleep thinking about everything he had seen over his years, happily dreaming about all the fights he used to win, all the fishermen he used to scare, and all the cows he used to know when he was young. They always loved his big antlers. That was a long time ago, he thought. A long time ago. And next year? he wondered as he closed his eyes. Next year? He wasn’t sure, and even if he was, he knew he couldn’t say anything about it.
