Floating the Madison

I spent a few days fishing in Montana with Zane Grey in my tote bag. I always carry a few books for time spent in the air and at stopovers. Floating the Madison River was a step back in time—no cell service in the area, so books were essential. Zane Grey was my evening read. His stories from the 1920s resonate today as they did when published in Outdoor America, one of the first magazines of its kind. Known mostly for his Western genre fiction, Grey also had a lifelong passion for nature conservation.His writing was the ideal accompaniment on my trip to the pristine landscapes of Montana.

It was a special couple of days, in the company of a younger old friend who looked after me a bit, helping with the luggage and getting into and out of the boat.As much as I enjoy the open space and mountain views of the West, in the end, it is the people I am with that mean the most. My fishing friendships date back to my first trip to the Catskills in the 1990s to learn fly tying and casting. Since then, most of my buddies have aged out. I either fish alone and meet up with a guide, or encourage new friends to become fishing buddies, persuading them with tales of my fishing travels and finding my home waters in Maine.

I still have the same enthusiasm as I did when I was starting out and clueless. Now, with a few years of casting and rudimentary fly tying under my belt, I am still excited to cry “fish on!” and hang on to the rod while the fish tries to release himself at my slightest hesitation.

The rereading of some of Zane Grey’s fishing stories left me, at the end of the day, with a feeling of urgency about the preservation of nature. In a 1922 editorial for the Izaak Walton League Monthly, he wrote, “My appeal is not to save game and fish for sportsmen…I want to save something of vanishing America. For its own sake! So our children’s children will know what a fish looks like and will hear the sweet call of ‘Bob White;’ and see all the living and nesting inhabitants of our beautiful land.” I wonder what he would make of what is left of the wilderness today.Floating the Madison is a reminder that we have him and others to thank for what has been preserved of these wonderful running rivers and magnificent vistas.