Gary LaFontaine and The Life of Flies
Treasured or not, flies deserve lives of their own.
"Dry" Fly January v. 1
I don’t know exactly when or why he gave me the Air Head, but I imagine it was back in the early 1990s when I was writing a book for Gary LaFontaine and he was still unaware of an upcoming ALS diagnoses.
I considered Gary a friend, a mentor, a business associate, and one of the coolest fly fishers I ever met. He was into it, for sure. Stalking monster browns at the Hog Hole. Tempting wary rainbows at Railroad Ranch. Mastering spring caddis blitzes on the upper Clark Fork. Earning those big, high-country cutthroats and goldens. Hiking and camping in major grizzly country. He liked the serious stuff. He was also deeply engaged with entomology and fly tying and made indelible marks in both arenas.
He and I appreciated angling literature. We shared a love for dogs, too. He owned big shepherds. I’m a Labrador guy . . . but he never held that against me. We talked quite often—back in the days when you called somebody. His first question would always be, “How are Moose and Shadow?”
Gary went through a predictable and steady decline and by the time he moved to an assisted living facility in Missoula, he was mostly bedridden. I lived a mile away and visited when I could, which meant helping him eat and drink, often tilting a bottle and angling a straw just so, trying to get him what he needed without drowning the man.
Gary’s wasn’t a simple life. His wife also had long term health issues and died prematurely. However, even in the late stages of ALS Gary still believed life was worth living . . . if he could continue to write. He told me about new technology and hoped it would allow him to write with his eyes. If that didn’t pan out he’d use his mouth and a pen until he no longer could. He was tough—I never heard him complain about his affliction. He never told me life wasn’t fair. Instead, he told me about the royalty he fished with and how fortunate he’d been to spend most of his days on the water. In his opinion he’d been the luckiest guy alive. In my opinion, Gary LaFontaine was Lou Gehrig in waders.
In January 2002 I was sitting at a desk in Seattle, Washington, overlooking the West Wall, which is where the Alaska fishing fleet departs for the northern crab, cod, halibut and salmon grounds. Someone jumped off the Ballard Bridge that morning. I raced down to the docks, camera in hand, ready to get the story. They dragged the jumper onto a float. He was pale and long gone. I didn’t have it in me to shoot.
I walked back to the office and talked to my boss, John van Amerongen. John gave me my first professional writing assignment and then a job as managing editor of Alaska Fisherman’s Journal. He asked about the jumper and I said, “He didn’t make it.” John never criticized me for not taking photos. In fact, he never asked about it. But he added, “Did you hear about your writer friend?” I said, “Gary?” He said, “Yea, he’s dead.” Gary LaFontaine was 56 years old.
It wasn’t a good start to the day. I probably left for Fremont, known locally as the Center of the Universe, by three o’ clock and spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening in the Red Door saloon. A few days later I’d thrown in the towel on Seattle and moved back to Ketchum, Idaho, where I continued my trout education on Silver Creek. I quickly learned, if you could get them on the Creek, you could get them anywhere.
I was living with three fly-fishing guides who were deeply into tying the next great pattern for Silver Creek—The Answer, they would call it. I didn’t share their passion for tying, but I also wasn’t completely satisfied with the Callibaetis, brown drake, mahogany dun, and PMD imitations in the local fly bins. I’d call Gary, explain my plight, and ask, “What should I do here?” He’d tell me a story and suggest some adjustments, little idiosyncrasies in my cripples and spinners that made a difference on Silver Creek.
When the going got really tough, meaning I couldn’t get a fish to eat a dry, even after Gary’s suggestions, I’d twist on a Mohair Leech and pull some giant brown trout out from under the grassy banks . . . much to my roommates’ chagrin. They masqueraded as dry-fly purists. I knew better. “Well,” I’d say, “it aint pretty, but the photos don’t lie.” Soon I would find remnants of mohair on the tying desk and that told me those boys were also mining for gold . . . when nobody was looking.
Before moving to Seattle and my subsequent return to Idaho, I’d lived in western Montana. I was just getting into fly fishing and by that I mean I was almost kicked out of the University of Montana’s journalism program because I fished too much. One of my professors, Jerry Holloron, was a noted hard ass. He detested my coverage of local politics and returned my articles dripping with blood-red ink. Which was a problem. You had to get through city council reporting to graduate. He called me into his office one day, literally spitting with frustration. “Damnit Thomas,” he said. “Your coverage of city council is shit. Stop going to the meetings! Don’t put me through this again!” He paused, then sighed and said, “Give me two more sports stories a week and we’ll call it good.”
I made it through college, but before doing so I’d taken a walk off campus one winter day, into Hellgate Canyon, on a trail that winds along the Clark Fork River, fly rod in hand. I expected to find midges coming off and trout rising steadily. For whatever reason, the bugs weren’t there. I turned around, started back to campus and bumped into an angler wading upstream. I said, “Probably not worth the hike. Nothing coming off and nothing looking up. It’s a waste of your time.” The guy nodded and said, “Ok, well, I’ll probably just go up and take a look around anyway.” It seemed like the only response a big shepherd at his side would accept.
That man pegged me as a student and asked, “What are you studying?”
I said, “Journalism.”
He said, “I studied journalism here 20 years ago. What’s your beat?”
I said, “Sports. And I write the outdoors column.”
He said, “Twenty years ago I wrote the outdoors column.”
I took his card and walked away. Hmm. Gary LaFontaine. Fly-fishing writer. Everything I wanted to be.
That evening, I showed the card to a roommate. He shook his head, raised eyebrows, seemed starstruck and said, “Good lord, you met Mr. Caddis.”
Mr. who?
This was pre-internet, pre-search engines, and before passwords and scams ruled our lives. I didn’t even own a computer at the time and wondered, How am I going to find out who this guy really is? I talked to my roommate. I asked around. I went to the bookstore. It didn’t take long to understand the magnitude of that meeting on the Clark Fork; to Gary’s credit were the highly regarded tomes, Caddisflies; Challenge of The Trout; Dry Flies: New Angles; Trout Flies: Proven Patterns; and Fishing The Mountain Lakes. Readers treasured Gary’s voice for its scientific approach and, equally so, for the adventurous stories it told. It worked—to this day his books are considered Masterclasses on many fishy subjects. Even now, I chuckle when remembering that, as a fledgling fly fisher and aspiring writer, I told Mr. Caddis he wouldn’t catch any fish. Just hand me that Glock, please.
LaFontaine stayed in touch. He actually wanted me to live in a van outside his house in Deer Lodge so he could help me work on the writing. I’d chosen Missoula instead, but not before he sent me away with a fresh book contract and a pile of flies that came off his vice, including one called the Air Head. These flies weren’t appropriate for Silver Creek, but they crushed in western Montana and there would be more over time. In fact, every year or so I’d get a package of “new creations” and a note saying, “Greg, try these.” I treasured Gary’s flies but also fished them. Over time the supply dwindled until one remained—that Air Head.
This past summer I trimmed down a few fly boxes for a trip into Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness. My daughter and I would ride 40-some miles in on horseback, fish the evenings, then take a day of “rest” (i.e., a hardcore, full-day hike upstream). Then we’d spend four days leisurely floating out of the wilderness. Our targets? Native westslope cutthroats and bull trout.
As I paired down those boxes, I noticed that Air Head. Gary’s fly. It’s not the most attractive pattern, just a combination of brown mink dubbing with guard hairs jutting out, a brown elk-hair wing, and a head consisting of three strips of closed-cell foam tied in bullethead style, the remainder representing wings. According to Gary, the Air Head worked best as a highly visible attractor, probably representing ants and moths, but also a decent match for yellow sallies and early brown stones when tied in the appropriate colors and sizes. Basically, the Air Head was created to be a cutthroat killer. When I spotted it in my box, I knew I would free it in the Bob, on the South Fork Flathead River.
The South Fork could be the prettiest stream in the West and its cutthroats are super eager, rarely demanding anything more technical than a big, high-riding attractor dry. If you want numbers, place an X on the map. That’s what my daughter, Tate, and I found during our trip. She’d cast a bit from the boat, hook as many fish as she liked, and as many or more when we stopped and waded the runs. At one point Tate turned to me and said, “Dad, do you know what just happened?” I said, “What?” already knowing the answer. “I just landed eight cutthroats on eight casts and then missed two on consecutive casts.” It was exactly what I’d hoped for, a few days on horses, sitting around campfires, drifting in rafts, mostly thinking of wilderness and the native fish found there. Totally off-grid. Unplugged.
One day we pulled over for lunch. While I built sandwiches Tate covered the lower portion of a beautiful run. Just 50 yards upstream I’d noticed a downed log, with limbs jutting over the water, resting against the far bank. Cutthroats love wood and this spot surely held several good fish. After lunch I said, “You know that fly I showed you? Gary’s fly? This is where I’ll fish it.”
I’d shown her the Air Head at our first campsite, told her about meeting Mr. Caddis on that cold winter day, and talked about the ALS diagnoses. I reminded her how life may turn on a dime. You prepare well, I said, give yourself the best shot, but you must live large and drink it all in while you can. She poked at the campfire, glanced at those surrounding mountains and said, “I think that’s what we’re doing.”
It wasn’t like the Air Head produced better than any other fly. But the Air Head brought up two of the largest fish of the trip, each 17 or 18 inches long with pale sides, fine black spots on their backs, and a touch of crimson splashed under the jaws and along their bellies. I wanted to camp on that hole for the rest of my life.
I’d tried to go soft on the fly, but each time I pulled it from a cutthroat’s mouth the foam and that mink fur hung up on teeth. I’d landed a few fish on it, had an excuse to share an important story with my daughter, and felt a deep connection with Gary more than 20 years after his death. I paused for a moment, clipped off the fly, put Gary’s Air Head in the box, and closed the lid. Tate recognized the moment and said, “Nice, dad.” I took a seat on the raft and said, “You wade out there and get a few more.
Fishing does that, you know. Flies do that. They give you reason to slow down, to remember, to think. But the questions everyone asks is this: Why would you fish such a valuable fly? Why didn’t it go in a shadow box, preserved for all to see?
Here’s my answer: Because nothing lasts forever. Not the people we care for most, nor the flies we treasure. All have unwritten futures and finite lifespans, some snapping off on the first cast, others disintegrating at home in a barn fire. That Air Head lived to see the light of day. It could see sunlight again. Because, like our own lives, you can’t really live if you spend your life in a box. I think Gary would approve.