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Latest Update: June 19, 2001 by Ben Marcus

21:34 MONDAY, JUNE 18, 2001 MIKE AND RICH'S CABIN, WISE RIVER, MT

Home, home on the range! Sorry. It's 22:34 Mountain Time and it's finally dark. I'm in the living room of the cabin Mike and Rich are renting for $120 a night. I've offered to pay a third of it for letting me use the phone and such. This place is nice. Out in a field in the middle of nowhere, up-river from the town of Wise River. I like it here.

Ike is in the house, being a nuisance, as usual. I used their phone line to log on and check my e-mail. The most important one was a roughly-written account of what happened to Jay from a photographer named Bill Morris, who was working on the O'Neill Fashion Shoot with Jay.

This is how it read, unedited: Hi Nick, Just got home from the O'Neill gig. We quit a few days early as no one was up to it obviously. I just read the report on swell and thought I would fill you guys in on what went down. We were staying in the resort at Lohifushi and just using a boat during the day to get around. The surfers where needed to shoot fashion that morning on the Island while I was out shooting the girls at Sultans on the boat and I didnt get back until 1.30pm for lunch. Cory was the last of us to see Jay late morning after the fashion shoot saying he was going snorkeling near the pier before lunch. Some Brazilian guys were diving and one of them said he did a couple of dives but Jay was going further down the buoy rope, maybe 15 m and sitting on the bottom. The guy said he dived down and seen him with his arms out horizontal just sitting there, the guy came up and went back with his friend and didnt check him again though he said he heard Jays watch alarm go off which he was timing him self with but didnt see him surface. That was around 1130. Larry was filming Cory paddling around and underwater right over the top of him 2 hours later at 2pm. They were there an hour or more. Cory noticed Jays back pack out the pier when they finished with Jays fins in it and kind off flashed on that being a bit odd but forgot about it when we went and shot this small left with me for the rest of the afternoon. When he never made it to dinner we checked his room than the pier for his pack and it was still there. That was 8. 30 pm. We got the dive school guys and they went out and found him straight away on the bottom about 50 feet from the buoy he was diving on. The current was very strong and it was a wonder they found him at all. This shoot was for O'Neill Europe who Jay has been doing these summer shoots with for the last 5 years. This was my 4th year with Jay doing this shoot and everyone involved is deeply shocked along with anyone else who knew him. He was probably the nicest guy you could ever meet and thats an understatement as you know. Billy

So that answers a few mysteries but inspires others. Like, what was he doing sitting on the bottom in 50 feet of water. How did he die? Did he black out? And why wasn't he washed away in the current? That's what I'm going to spend the next few days figuring out.

There was other e-mail and I looked up the San Francisco Giants stats for Mike. He was a great baseball player until he had a stroke. Now his left side is mostly out of order, which makes fishing an interesting proposition. They fished from the boat today and got a few fish. This evening we drove up the Big Hole to fish the banks. My wordy it was beautiful. Saw a moose out in a field, lots of gophers or prairie dogs running across the road and mule deer everywhere.

The fishing wasn't too great. Rich hooked a trout and a couple of whitefish. The whitefish are a drag. They're slimy and a waste of time and they eat the trout eggs, so, to quote Lawrence of Arabia: PRINCE FAISAL Sometimes they are dealt with harshly. BENTLEY How harshly? PRINCE FAISAL More harshly than I hope you can imagine.

Enough said on that. I hooked one little trout but didn't set the hook and it got away. The Big Hole reminds me of the Owens River near Bishop, but it is much better, mostly because it is loaded with fish, and they are wild. No hatchery fish at all. The river winds and curves through the thickest, greenest pasture with big, healthy cattle grazing and the occasional deer and moose. There are very few people around and there is a lot of mountain and sky. I am in awe. Montana rules.

But I'm getting ahead of myself at little. Back at Jerry's Creek I fished for a little bit-still without a license, because they don't sell them at Troutfitters. I tried the rig they sold me there: a salmon fly up front with a smaller caddis fly behind. At first I was using my smaller rod but I still had the sinking tip on and salmon and caddis flies are meant to be fished on the surface. So I started to replace the sinking line with a floating line and that's when I got confused. Took me a while to tie a bad nail knot, and I ended up putting the floating line on the wrong reel. I tried casting with my spey rod for a while but it was too much of a beast. So I stripped the floating line off again, got it on my smaller rod and that felt better. I saw a few trout come up in front of me and got one nibble, but that was it.

Ike was right down at the water with me, rubbing up against my legs and meowing and occasionally lapping up the very cold water. He's having a jolly good time.

Leaving Jerry's Creek I gave a ride to a kind of a dingaling guy from Berkeley/Alaska. He drifted the river with his girlfriend today and she killed it using size 14 flies, while he didn't get a bite on the salmon flies. WE talked about this and that and he kept saying "Canadia."

"You took a gun into Canadia?"

"The Yukon, that's in Canadia, isn't it?"

But he was personable and had a few things to say. I dropped him at his truck and unwisely took a hit of pot. That stuff makes you stupid. I'm over it.

Head spinning a little bit and feeling pot-anxious, I went back to Troutfitters and got the scoop on where Mike and Rich were staying; in a cabin a couple of miles up the road.

I found them, and it was cool to see familiar faces in the middle of nowhere, which is where I am. I logged on and got my e-mail and read Mike and Rich that account of Jay's drowning. Mike manages the O'Neill Surf Shops in Santa Cruz and he is very good friends with Kim Moriarity. He wants to be there to give her a hug. Like everyone, he feels terrible.

We sat around for awhile and Mike and Rich decided between fishing and dinner. Everything closes here at 8:00 and the sun doesn't go down until 9:00, so fishing won. Mosquitos are a problem here in the afternoon. Mike and Rich both wore long-sleeve shirts and pants. I finally got to boost out the mosquito hat I bought in Bodo, Norway. As all things Norwegian, it is a high-quality mosquito hat, but as it turned out, I didn't need it.

We drove a few miles up the river, passing epic spot after epic spot. We stopped where a guy from Placerville was giving up. "Too many whitefish," he said.

Mike and Rich fished first with very light fly rods and lines and leaders. My stuff may all be too heavy. Rich caught a trout and then I tried. There were rises all over with a couple of big splashes. The trout stick to the banks while the whitefish are out in the middle. So we fished along the banks. Rich caught a little trout and a couple of whitefish. I got one fish on but didn't set the hook and lost it. But catching fish is just a side benefit where we are. This place is absolutely pristine. We are fishing for native trout on a river that is too far away from everything to be too heavily fished. This isn't California or even Washington. We are in Montana, and it's nice. The cows were mooing and there were odd bird noises. The bugs weren't too bad but the fish weren't very active. As soon as the sun disappeared it got cold very fast.

We packed it up and came back to the hut. Mike and Rich are already down. They had a long day on the river and they'll have another one tomorrow. I'm going to work and do justice to Jay Moriarity's memory.

 



TRAVELS WITH IKE
June 18, 2001
June 17-18, 2001
June 16, 2001
June 15, 2001
June 14 , 2001

NORTH COAST
March 14, 2001
March 11, 2001

March 8, 2001
March 4, 2001
March 3, 2001
March 1, 2001
February 20, 2001
February 19, 2001
February 18, 2001

February 17, 2001

February 16, 2001


ALASKA 2000
November 19, 2000
November 18, 2000
November 15, 2000
November 14, 2000
November 14, 2000
November 12-13, 2000
November 11, 2000
November 9, 2000
November 8, 2000
November 4-6, 2000
November 3, 2000
November 1, 2000
October 31, 2000
October 29, 2000
October 27, 2000
October 26, 2000
October 25, 2000
October 22, 2000
October 22, 2000
October 21, 2000
October 19, 2000
October 17, 2000
October 16, 2000
October 16, 2000
October 14, 2000
October 12, 2000
October 11, 2000
October 10, 2000
October 10, 2000
October 9, 2000
October 8, 2000
October 7, 2000
October 6, 2000
October 6, 2000
October 5, 2000
October 4, 2000
October 3, 2000
October 2, 2000
October 1, 2000
September 30, 2000
September 29, 2000
September 28, 2000
September 27, 2000
September 25, 2000
September 24, 2000
September 23, 2000
September 22, 2000
September 21, 2000
September 21, 2000
September 20, 2000
September 19, 2000
September 19, 2000
September 18, 2000
September 17, 2000
September 16, 2000
September 15, 2000
September 15, 2000
September 14, 2000
September 13, 2000
September 12, 2000
September 10, 2000
September 10, 2000
September 8, 2000

September 8, 2000

PHOTOS
October 1, 2000
October 1, 2000
September 27, 2000

 

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