Words: Paul Heffernan Photos: Jonathan Finch 2017-06-26 18:39:26
Hog Johnson is a shape shifter. When I first started fishing, he was a 14-inch cutthroat in the little creek by my house. As I grew older, he changed into a two-foot bull trout in the same stream. Put simply, he is the next big fish. I’m always looking for Mr. Johnson.
“Well, that was demoralizing,” I said as I collapsed next to photographer Jonathan Finch, already stretched out on the bank of the Blackfoot River. “Yup, over it,” he replied—he had traded reading the water for reading Harry Potter. As we sat in silent defeat, my eyes searched the dark water and I asked no one in particular, “Where is he?”
In 2015, I finished college. For the first time in my life I was left wondering, “What am I going to do with my life?” So, I decided to go fishing. I took my remaining $2,000 out of the bank and called Jonathan. We built a janky sleeping platform in the back of his truck and were off as trout bums with one goal: to find Hog Johnson.
A friend assured us he knew a spot on the Yellowstone River where Mr. Johnson might live. As we crept through traffic looking at rain-soaked bison, I tried to keep my enthusiasm in check. As soon as we started fishing some of the small water in Yellowstone, the tourism faded away and we were left standing in water filled with 20-inch cutthroat.
After a few days the urge to move from crowded campgrounds and nasty weather took hold and we headed north. As we drove, the gray skies morphed into royal blue and the snow-dusted mountains melted into golden fields. The fields met a dam, and below the dam was a canyon. We were in a lost corner of Big Sky Country on a forgotten Missouri River tributary.
My hopes of oversized browns started to soar. After a few days, however, we had a single trout to show for it. If Mr. Johnson lived in these waters he was not coming out. I was about to throw in the towel when a muddy backwater caught my eye. I slung my streamer and as I stripped it in a miniature tidal wave formed. We had found northern pike. We switched to steel leaders and fished until the sun set behind the canyon.
We drove by fields and sandstone cliffs and I marveled at the abrupt transition that the Rocky Mountains provide. Driving into Glacier National Park, it finally felt like we were at the end of summer. Each night the frost pulled more colors from the trees and our imaginations wandered among the proud cedars and towering mountains. And while I didn’t so much as see a fish over 14 inches, we ended every day happy.
We met with guide Abby Montgomery for a Kootenai River day trip. Known for giant rainbows, only a few bull trout came to inspect our streamers. We found no giants. I watched Abby catch fish after fish. Jonathan, always with his camera, was glad he finally had someone catching fish to photograph.
We moved to the Blackfoot River. After four days, we were in a slump—a big one. From Box Canyon to Thibodeau Rapid, we came up empty-handed. I began sacrificing old flies in the campfire, drinking beers out of fishing boots—anything to appease the fish gods. Nothing seemed to work; dries during the day, streamers at dusk, mice under the moon, nymphs when we got really desperate.
In a last-ditch effort, we went back to Box Canyon on the Blackfoot. We floated into a thickly forested canyon with deep holes that only Hog Johnson could inhabit. As the sun set, I tied on a jet-black sex-dungeon and ripped it over the shallows and then slowly dropped it over a rock ledge. I felt a tug and knew I had him. I reeled slowly until a cutthroat the size of a fish stick came up.
I walked back to Jonathan, immersed in the wizarding world of Harry Potter. I asked to no one in particular, “Where is he? Why can’t we find him?” I was just about out of funds, summer had passed. October was almost over.
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