BEING THANKFUL FOR NIGHT FISHING WALLEYE ON THE SPEY ROD
By A.M. Giacoletto
Thanksgiving marks the tail end of the fly fishing season. Days grow short (Daylight Savings sucks), brown trout collect on redds to spawn for the next generation (don’t cast to them – leave ‘em alone), and time becomes engulfed by family commitments for the holiday season. Chasing horns in the mountains and birds on the water or in the uplands competes for fishing time, and before we know it, the new year smacks us in the face. Through all the noise and competing activities, I try, each year, to reserve a few weekends in November and December for my final fly fishing trips of the year. As a 30-year-old bachelor if nothing else, I have time, and I sure as hell plan to put that time into catching a releasing a perfectly good fish that my ancestors would have loved to roast over an open fire.
These days, spey fishing is my focus during the late fall, so I comb through my options of lake-run fish in hopes of fooling my steelhead-fisherman-wanna-be ass into thinking I near a close approximation. Regardless if such a concept is true or not, I enjoy being a swinger (ha, ha). To avoid infringing on spawning brown trout, which I find spawn well through November and December on numerous systems, I search for lake-run, fall-run rainbows. For one, lakes are capable over growing large fish, and I often, like so many fly bros, pretend to be a “big fish fisherman,” as Norman Maclean proclaims himself in the fly bro’s Bible-like publication A River Runs Through It. Also, as mentioned, a fancy myself a pseudo-spey fisherman, and what better way to play steelhead than to pursue the closest approximation I can find: rainbow trout running from a lake rather than a vast, deep ocean.
My close friend Garret, whom I attended Montana State with, still lives in Montana, so rendezvous at his crib after I travel through a slushy snow squall. After a good night’s sleep, we take our time the next morning with breakfast and a trip to the local hot springs. Attempting my best Joe Rogan impression, I hit the cold plunge twice, sweat my butt off in the sauna, and feel rejuvenated to catch trout.
Well, fish for trout… catching – not so much.
The downside of chasing migrating trout comes with finding the fish. If the fish made it to the place we’re fishing, in theory we should find them, but if their National Lampoon’s fall vacation hasn’t rounded Wally World and up the river, we find the substance of a post-2020 Disney movie: nothing. Clearly, we’re too high in the river system above the migration and the early sunset prevents us from spot hopping downstream; however, there is an exception.
“We can go below one of the dams for walleye after dark,” Garret suggests.
“This time of year?” I respond.
“Yeah. It’ll be cold, so bundle up.”
Lights flicker below the dam and the booms and cranks from the hydroelectric operation echoes down canyon. Final rays of sunlight drop below the western ridge while we stroll to Garret’s spot. Still on the spey train, I pack it along incase I see a run worth swinging, and after 15 minutes of trying, I take seat on a rock.
Garret asks pointing to my trout spey, “Can I give it a try?”
“For sure.”
To my surprise, after a few casts he shouts “I’ve got one!” To my further surprise, it’s a walleye. A walleye on Blue Line Schlap Dawg no less.
Garret loves walleye – one of the few areas in life we don’t see eye to eye on as I find walleye to be a sad excuse for a sport fish. If want to reel in a slow, lifeless sandbag, I’d fill a sock full of dirt, tie it to the end of my line, and drag it in circles through the water. This is the equivalent to a walleye fight. One would assume a fish that primarily feeds on other fish would act like a predator and not a sloth with shiny eyes and sharp teeth, yet, after largemouth bass, it’s the next most popular tournament fish in America. Don’t misunderstand me, the eating part makes sense because walleye are delicious and praised as “the best eating freshwater fish,” but are as serviceable a sporting fish as George Clooney’s portrayal of Batman.
My biases aside, seeing Garret land a walleye as his first-ever spey catch at night is damn cool. He misses a few more before the cold air encourages us to head home and catch a snooze for another crack at fall-run rainbows the next morning.
Trout Routes serves as my guide to find an access point lower in the system and closer to the lake. If the fish are in the system, the closer to the lake the more fish we should find logically speaking, so the next morning we drive to a boat ramp a few miles up stream the migration’s origin. A deep run rests downstream of the concrete launch on the river right side and micro-seam runs for fifty feet along a steep drop off – perfect holding water for migrating lake fish. Anchor, tension cast, shoot line, mend, swing, strip back, two steps downstream and repeat. Suddenly, my line pulls tight and the run of a fish ensues. I reel and water ten feet below me boils while the trout surfaces, and within moments a lake-run rainbow sits in my net with the same walleye slaying olive Schlap Dawg sits in its mouth’s left corner pocket.
My time with an old friend made the weekend worth it, but finding a fish in the place and the terms I set out proves a bonus. While the brisk winds of the changing seasons ripple the water’s surface and turn my jacket into a sail, I peer across the landscape and realize how lucky I am. To have the wonderful friends, family, and to live in a beautiful place plentiful of wild fish alone are the ultimate lottery, but to enjoy it with those wonderful people seems like the stuff of fantasy, yet here I am on a river in Montana with Garret. Other than two small rainbows, I don’t find anymore fish, but who cares? This year, every year, brings me more banner fishing days than I ever deserved and more than most people experience in a lifetime. To be upset over a slow fishing weekend would be shortsighted and completely ungrateful. Garret’s spey-caught walleye and my one fat, lake-run rainbow made the trip one I’ll never forget.
With Thanksgiving looming, I give thanks and feel gratitude for the wonders nature provides me year in year out in my pursuit of fish. I close out another successful fishing season and look forward to my final trips of the year as winter settles in for the long haul, so this Thanksgiving, take a moment to feel grateful for what you have and who you share it with because the people we share it with and the places we go make it all worth it.