Feeding grayling flies and other tales

I suppose if someone were standing on the bank above me they probably would have thought, “Hmmm, has that guy lost his mind?”

The answer, wouldn’t have been too far from the truth, but sometimes you get an idea for a photo in your head, and then you have to do a few strange things to pull it off.

So I sat there on the edge of this high country lake in the Bob Marshall Wilderness on Friday afternoon and smacked fly after fly that would land on my legs.

After awhile I had a pretty good size pile of flies stacked up, seven or eight at least. Most were those yellowjacket flies — flies that look a lot like a yellowjacket, but are completely harmless pollinators. They have no stinger.

At first glance you panic when one lands on you, because they’re everywhere in parts of the high country. I assume they’re attracted to people because of salt from sweat, but whatever the case, there was no shortage of them landing on me. There were also big black flies as well and then smaller, more insidious flies that actually did drill into me and bite.
it was flyville for sure and when the wind died down, it Mosquitoville, too.

But back to the reason for all of this: The lake was brimming with grayling and they were feeding on anything that landed on the water, including the above mentioned yellowjacket flies.

So I had this idea of throwing a fly onto the water, then focusing quickly on the fly as the grayling zoomed up to eat them, to get a picture of the fish eating the fly.

It was fly fishing photography at its finest, sans line and hook, of course.

The fish were all too willing, but it took dozens of tries to get it right, namely because the fish grabbed the flies almost immediately. There was barely time to get the camera to my eye.

But eventually I got a few, but I have to admit, it took a few hours.

Not that I was going anywhere. the lake is in the Sun River Country, which is about 19-20 miles from the trailhead. It was a typical Bob Marshall hike, which is to say, long, but rewarding. Many hikes in the Bob, particularly if you start west of the Divide, are in the woods for a good 12-15 miles before you get out of treeline.

But once you do, it’s worth it.

We saw more people than usual this trip — most were Continental Divide Trail through-hikers.

Colorado has way more snow than usual, so as I gathered it from talking to a few of the hikers, they’re getting through New Mexico, then bagging it, then starting in Glacier and heading back south.

Lots of them — for awhile, it was one after another.

The thing is, they were all also doing a short cut that got them to the Chinese Wall faster and cut about 14 or so miles from the trip. The route also cuts out some pretty cool scenery, which I thought was sort of the purpose of doing the hike, but as one guy explained it, he was already carrying several days worth of food as it was — the next stop at civilization, at least for him, was Lincoln.

I didn’t argue with him — I’ve carried nine days worth of food in the Bob before and it’s not a lot of fun, but it wasn’t the end of the world, either. If you’re going to hike the Continental Divide, then hike the Divide. I can see making a shortcut if you have to hike a road or something, but not the backcountry.

But I’m old and crabby that way.

I also met some friendly locals who had gone to another lake and they were coming out — they hadn’t seen anyone in a couple of days. But like our hike, it was a ways back there — about 13 miles, give or take.

Then there was the German. The German was this fella that had flown to Kalispell, hitchhiked the 70 miles of dirt roads to the trailhead (no small feat in itself) and was sitting there when I came across him eating hot dog buns. He also appeared to be drinking olive oil straight from the bottle.

He was a nice enough guy, however, and was heading across the wilderness to Benchmark. I mentioned we were heading out and he sheepishly asked if we had any extra food. I had been lugging around a big bag of peanut M&Ms that I never got around to eating, so I gave them to him, plus an orange.

He was grateful. I wished him well on his journey. Don’t know how long a guy can live on peanut M&Ms, but it’s gotta be better than hot dog buns and olive oil.