RIGHT Paul Heffernan works into the night building a sleeping platform in the back of my Toyota Tacoma. We wanted drawers, cubbies, hatches, latches—the works. After all, this would be our sleeping quarters for the next two months. At the Missoula Home Depot, reality hit hard—neither of us had any carpentry experience. We left with a few pieces of lumber, some plywood and got to work building one of the jankiest bed platforms ever. 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 photographer Jonathan Finch. 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. H og 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 read-ing Harry Potter . As we sat in silent defeat, my eyes searched the dark water and I asked no one in particu-lar, “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. 084 JONATHAN FINCH
The Flyfish Journal Volume Eight, Issue Four: Page 84
