Boat inspection trouble

Fishful Faithful may remember my Aug. 31 trip to Waterton when I’d hoped to return to St. Mary to get my personal pontoon inspected so I could fish Duck Lake.

But I’d learned in Babb that the St. Mary watercraft inspection station had already closed and my only option was to drive over 70 miles round-trip to Browning or East Glacier.

There had been no information on the tribal website about the closure, only spring opening dates and summer hours.

On Sept. 15, once again planning to fish Duck Lake, I checked with a local fly shop and was told the East Glacier inspection station was open until Sept. 29.

But when I arrived at the site at 10:08 a.m, it was closed. So I drove to tribal fish and game headquarters on the road to Starr School.

When the lady at the desk asked if she could help me, I told her I wanted to get my boat inspected.

“Well, if you’ll just calm down,” she said, “I’m gonna try to help you.”

I said, “What?”

“Aren’t you the guy who called and said he’d waited over two hours for the inspection station at Cut Bank to open?”

“That wasn’t me,” I answered, realizing I wasn’t the only frustrated fisherman that morning.

The lady made some phone calls, eventually reaching a pair of wardens who returned to the office to look at my pontoon which hadn’t been in the water since September 2015.

I’d waited over an hour.

She also told me she would do what she could to get the website updated, which, I believe, did happen that afternoon.

When I asked one of the wardens why I couldn’t do a “self-inspection” — rather than bothering wardens— he told me “because ‘Whitefish’ wouldn’t allow it.”

At home I contacted Caryn Miske, Executive Director of the Flathead Basin Commission which oversees the watercraft inspection stations.

She agreed “postseason communications had gone awry” and pledged to make them a priority next year.

For the latest info regarding watercraft inspections on the Blackfeet Reservation, go to www.blackfeetfishandwildlife.net.

Jerry Smalley’s Fishful Thinking column appears weekly in the Hungry Horse News.