Kathleen Clary Miller has written 300+ columns and stories for periodicals both local and national, and has authored three books (www.amazon.com/author/millerkathleenclary). She lives in the woods of the Ninemile Valley, thirty miles west of Missoula.

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            Every sport has its code of conduct, and woe to the beginner who knows not what she does in this regard while learning the technical rubric of any game.  Fly-fishing is no exception; there is acceptable and not-so—the culture of the catch.  Never wade ahead of someone else’s water; give every fisherperson plenty of personal space; don’t raise your voice lest the fish spook; catch and release, and to the horror of every new enthusiast: Kiss your first fish.

            Before I lived in Montana and would visit Rock Creek, it didn’t take long for my husband and stepsons to bridle my braggadocio over having snagged more fish than any of them—and right out front of our cabin where, according to them, “There are no fish.” While they chose to drive miles to test their rods in some reputed deep hole filled with the biggest fish ever, I would don waders and boots on the back porch and stroll a few feet to the supposed piscatorial purgatory before me.  A few hours later, I’d be back with six or seven or eight or nine to their none or one.

            That’s when the grilling (and I don’t mean of fish) began.

            “Did you net them all?” asked Brad who had shepherded me to the sport, pleased that husband and wife might fish together (as long as he was catching more than I).

            Well, not exactly.  So the first family fishing debate began:  When is a fish caught?  If it’s on the hook, you look into its bug-eyes, and while you are fighting the good fight to corral it into your net that it touches as its flash of fin spins in circles around your legs, and at the last second escapes your greedy grasp?

            “You have to be able to eat it,” Brad stands firm in his resolve that if it’s not in the net, it doesn’t constitute caught.  Wife and children vehemently disagree:  We contend that if it’s on the hook and you see it as you reel it in, it’s yours to add to the day’s tote board.

            Stacy Jennings, Missoula’s award-winning fly-fishing guide says some folks argue that if not netted, in order to count it as a blessing it must be witnessed.  What about those of us who fish solo? 

            Stacy, Brad and I were on the Blackfoot floating and mending lines upstream and down and BAM!  Second cast out and yours truly snagged a fat one!  Brad’s usual reaction was a bit delayed, due to his not wanting to seem a poor sport in front of pleasant and professional company.  At first came the genuine congratulations, followed by the other fishy question among our family.

            “Was it a rainbow?”  Translation: If it’s not trout, it’s not valid.

            Stacy reported that it was a native species whitefish, what Brad has nicknamed “garbage.”  She acknowledged existence of such heinous attitude; she has known people to toss them out like trash on the riverbank rather than release them to procreate. Manipulating a superior race of fish?  Please! 

            The kids and I contend that red fish, blue fish, rainbow, brown or whitefish—if it swims, has gills, mistakes a fly for food and fights you like the devil, it’s a fish that counts as caught.  Stacy informs that there is even a market in Ennis where you can trade your fresh whitefish and a dollar for a scrumptious smoked one.  Fish or fowl fish?  Which is a whitefish?

             A whitefish’s lips are thinner,” instructed Brad.  My first fish had to have been a trout then; when I kissed him, his lips kissed back.  “Whitefish only go after the fly on the drag,” as if that somehow falls short of desirable.  Why bother to tie on a nymph then?  I argued.  If he’s hooked he can be cooked;  I say he’s caught—and counted.

            That day with Stacy the count favored this fishwife: seven (six of them whitefish and a few sprung free, but if it’s on the hook and I get a good look…well, you know).  Husband netted net one (counting only trout and technically landed).  What will his fellow fishing friends say about that score?

            Someone enlighten me.  If not, I must posthumously ask Dr. Suess for the answer: One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish—pray tell, what is the rule about catching a whitefish?

Jenna Caplette migrated from California to Montana in the early 1970s, first living on the Crow Indian reservation, then moving to Bozeman where she owned a downtown retail anchor for eighteen years. These days she owns Bozeman BodyTalk & Energetic Healthcare, hosts a monthly movie night, teaches and writes about many topics. 

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Sarvis berries. Serviceberries.  Juneberries.  They grow wild on hillsides and in gullies around Montana.  Mostly, they ripen in July.   

Seasonal past-times like berry picking are so completely about how people have lived and made a living here, that they root us to our heritage of living off and with the land.  For myself, picking juneberries roots me to my own Montana history.    

In the summer of 1974 I was a junior at UC Santa Cruz, cruising out West in my VW Beetle, ready to work for the Crow 4-H program in Eastern Montana.  Within two days of arriving on the reservation, I was sent to Black Canyon Youth Camp up in the Big Horn Mountains.

There were only three of us working at the camp who didn’t speak Crow, and Crow was the primary language spoken.  I was new to the reservation, young, overwhelmed.  The language barrier was a challenge I hadn’t expected.  Then one morning when I was out jogging (such a California thing to be doing forty years ago, up in the mountains, on the reservation), I found some berries that someone introduced to me as juneberries.  Drier than blueberries and not so sweet as a huckleberry, juneberries are filled with grainy, edible seeds.  Fresh off the bush, I loved them from the first bite.

I picked enough berries to bake two pies. Sharing the kitchen with the women who cooked for the camp, laughing as we worked, the language barrier softened and I felt less an outsider.

Later, I listened to stories about Juneberry picking from my ex-husband who is Crow.  He spent his childhood summers camped in the Big Horn Mountains with his grandmother and other relations. He says his grandmother taught  him to make a circle of juneberry juice around his belly button to keep from getting a stomach ache after feasting on berries. 

A mixed-blood elder from Roy loved to tell how she would head out with other women to pick, loading supplies and a picnic in her old chevy pickup. She glowed when she told berry picking stories and she told them often.

When my daughter, who has Down Syndrome,  turned two and began to walk it was something to celebrate.  My husband told me it is a Crow tradition to have a walking party and that the traditional food for that celebration is juneberry pudding.  I used berries I had canned the previous summer and made the “pudding” with a mix of berries, water, sugar, and cornstarch, heated just enough to make the sauce thicken.  Scoop that pudding with fresh fry bread and life tastes pretty good. These years later, my daughter won't eat juneberries unless I make them in to Indian pudding.

Every summer, I still pick. Sometimes right in Bozeman city limits. Sometimes I feast my way up and down favorite trails with joggers and hikers passing, oblivious to the bounty- or maybe, like my daughter, they just prefer the taste of blueberries.

That's good with me. I love that juneberries are mostly ignored. It leaves more for birds, bears -- and me!

Kathleen Clary Miller has written 300+ columns and stories for periodicals both local and national, and has authored three books (www.amazon.com/author/millerkathleenclary). She lives in the woods of the Ninemile Valley, thirty miles west of Missoula.

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A friendly brown bear strolls through the woods just off our back patio once or twice a week, I’d say.  In the soft light of a summer evening, she emerges, sometimes with one or both of “her twins,” as my neighbor refers to her offspring. 

We’ve done everything right to instill fear of human habitat.  Despite the irresistible temptation to encourage her visits so we can watch typical bear behavior from the comfort of our picture window, we issue Cody, our German shepherd, the command to chase her into the woods.  He stops on a dime when we order it, after we see her disappear in a mad rush.  I dig down deep and muster great discipline to dissuade her since there is nothing more adorable to me than a big fluffy bear acting like a human.  It must hearken to my stuffed-animal childhood.

The only sign of her refusal to entirely call it a day and try her luck elsewhere is evidenced by her few attempted break-ins—and failures to succeed—on our “bear resistant” trash container. 

“Bear resistant” would be an understatement.  Trust me, this container turned out to be the best investment we ever made.  I could film a commercial for this baby where trucks run over it, robots hurl it over a bridge, and King Kong himself drops it from atop the Empire State Building.  Covered with claw marks and scratched and dinged it still stands (some mornings we find it lying on its side) never farther from its designated spot by the garage than the patch of gravel that abuts said spot.  Gravel is obviously a rough road to travel when you’re a bear either wheeling or rolling a week’s worth of kitchen bags filled with trash secured in a very, very heavy bin.

Against all odds, the small pincher latches remain closed, anchored to the receptacle by steel cables.  The tires are intact.  The metal rim around the lid may be a wee bit bent out of shape, but that lends it the character of a courageous battle-scarred survivor.  

This morning I opened the back door to walk out to the garage and immediately noticed a certain lack of something.  The bare spot on the breezeway.  The bear.  The trusty trash container was missing from the view—missing in action, as a matter of fact, as I scanned the woods in search of what I determined may have finally lost the battle. 

I snapped a picture and sent it to my daughters, instructing them to imagine they are back in the dentist’s office reading “Highlights” magazine, the page where you have to discern the hidden pictures.  Find Waldo’s trashcan.  It took me as long as it is taking you, to spot it.

Hint:  It’s green.