Fly Fishing the Yellowstone
Bill Havers And I Go Out West
By James Donahue
In the summer of 1958, Bill Havers invited me on a trip with him and his parents on a month-long trip west to the Rockies and north into Manitoba, Canada. I talked it over with my parents and they agreed to finance my share of the trip and pick up the tab for my return to college in the fall, so the trip was on. It was going to be an adventure of a lifetime.
It was, for me, the first of several trips across the United States, literally from border to border. Once addicted I never tired of the trips.
For the Havers family it was going to be a budget trip, even though I was sure they were well-to-do. We made the trip in a new 1958 Ford. Bill Havers Senior was glad I was going along because he wanted someone to do some of the driving, and neither his wife Blanche nor Bill liked driving. I loved driving and was glad to share time behind the wheel.
The family stocked up on lots of cold meat, bread and other supplies from the family grocery store so a lot of the things we ate, especially our noon lunches, were sandwiches and potato chips and other things to munch on during the drive. For me, it was the first time I was ever out of Michigan, so every mile we took on that trip was an adventure into something new and exciting.
We drove north across the new Mackinaw Bridge to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, then followed old US-2 west from there all the way west across Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota and into Montana. When crossing North Dakota we stopped in the Badlands, a vast area of strange rock formations that went on for miles and miles. Bill and I took each other’s pictures there. We laughed when Bill said we were the “Beavers in the Bad Lands.” He said they called it the Badlands because “it is nothing but bad land.” Indeed, there were no towns, no farms, not even trees or green growing things to be seen. The most noticeable life form was the prairie dog. These little creatures were everywhere, constantly popping their heads up out of holes in the ground.
Apparently Mrs. Havers liked liverwurst because she packed a lot of it in the cooler. I ate a lot of liverwurst sandwiches with mustard. Every time I see liverwurst or even think of it I remember that trip. But I do not recall ever eating liverwurst again, not that I missed it.
When we entered Montana there was a large sign that welcomed us to the state. Pictured on the sign was a tall man in a western hat and boots with a smile on his face and his hand raised in welcome. After that we began seeing and smelling the sagebrush. The sage was rolling across the road in the wind. When we stopped for gas and food, people were using silver dollars for currency. I had never seen a silver dollar before that and soon had a pocket full of them. They quickly weighed us down from the mere accumulation of so much metal. Not long after that trip the silver dollars were removed from the American currency and I wished I had saved a few of them just to have around.
We got to Billings then turned south toward one of the main routes into Yellowstone.The road into the park involved a winding, twisting route high over a mountain, then through a pass. Finally we entered the park. By the time we got that far I had apparently proven myself as a good driver because I was given the task of driving us over that mountain. It was my first experience in mountain driving and it was a bit scary. Sometimes we were on the edges of some cliffs with sheer drop-offs where you got dizzy looking down. There were some guard rails, but not always. There were some places along that road where we could stop to look around and take pictures. It made us dizzy to look down over the edges of some of those precipices.
Once in the park we rented a low-cost cabin in a wooded area that offered beds, a wood-burning stove for heat and cooking, a table and some chairs and little more. We had to gather wood for the stove. The park was full of bears that were real scavengers. They were always hanging around the cabins and camp grounds seeking food. People who left food in their cars often found the cars extensively damaged by bears clawing to get into them during the night. We had to be on guard when looking for firewood. We also were at such a high altitude that Bill and I discovered we were quickly out of breath with any exertion. We noticed also that sunsets came quickly in the mountains. When the sun went down, it just got dark.
We brought fishing gear on the trip. Bill and I spent our first day fly casting for trout on the Yellowstone River. We had to fish because that was going to be our dinner for the day. The park limit was three fish per person. I remember that some kid was selling worms and I bought a packet of them. Bill laughed at me. He was anxious to show his experience at fly casting by using his assortment of carefully prepared flies. He attached a fly to his hook, and I put a worm on mine, and we both stood on the bank of the river, casting our lines off into the stream. I had a fish on my line within seconds and soon reeled in a nice trout. Bill took one look at that and asked me for one of my worms.
We fished all that morning before catching our limit. It was odd because it was a warm summer day in June and we were both in t-shirts. But as we fished, a cloud passed over and it began to snow. It was the strangest experience. We cleaned and fried our fish that night on the wood burning stove in our cabin. It was a grand meal.
After that Bill and I went out in the park for some evening adventures. We met up with some college students, some of them people we know from Central Michigan University, who were working at the park. They showed us some of the warm pools where they swam and took us to some places that only they knew about.
We saw Old Faithful blow, walked various trails, one of them taking us to a sign that announced we were on the Continental Divide. Bill joked that if we urinated on that spot, we would be pissing in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at the same time.
After Yellowstone we drove north into Lake-of-the-Woods, Manitoba. It was a long hard drive and we went down some poorly developed roads to get there. We finally found a cabin to rent on one of the many connecting lakes and set up for another day of fishing. The next morning we rented a boat and motor, packed food, drink and our fishing gear and prepared to set off. The boat rental place strongly advised us to hire a guide because of the danger of getting lost in the maze of forests and lakes. As wild young men, we scoffed at the danger. But I did buy a map just in case. I was later glad I did.
As we made our way through the various waterways, through channels and around islands and took all kinds of twists and turns, I was careful to note on the map just where we were at all times. We moved from place to place, occasionally dropping a fishing line but having no luck. Yet the experience of operating a small motorized boat in such a massive complex of lakes was adventure enough. At one point, while crossing a large body of water, we were startled when a sea plane came in over our heads for a landing. At another time we came upon another boat with two men in it who were lost. They asked if we knew our way out of the maze. I showed them our map and pointed out where they were and gave them the directions I believed would lead them back to where we started from. They thanked us and motored off.
Later in the day, when we decided we had enough exploring, I turned us back toward what was, for us at that time, home. I was quite surprised when we motored right back out of the maze with ease, arriving at the boat launch site without making a single wrong turn. I was quite proud of my navigational skills that day.
The trip home was not as exciting as the trip west. I remember we ate liverwurst sandwiches and potato chips.
By James Donahue
In the summer of 1958, Bill Havers invited me on a trip with him and his parents on a month-long trip west to the Rockies and north into Manitoba, Canada. I talked it over with my parents and they agreed to finance my share of the trip and pick up the tab for my return to college in the fall, so the trip was on. It was going to be an adventure of a lifetime.
It was, for me, the first of several trips across the United States, literally from border to border. Once addicted I never tired of the trips.
For the Havers family it was going to be a budget trip, even though I was sure they were well-to-do. We made the trip in a new 1958 Ford. Bill Havers Senior was glad I was going along because he wanted someone to do some of the driving, and neither his wife Blanche nor Bill liked driving. I loved driving and was glad to share time behind the wheel.
The family stocked up on lots of cold meat, bread and other supplies from the family grocery store so a lot of the things we ate, especially our noon lunches, were sandwiches and potato chips and other things to munch on during the drive. For me, it was the first time I was ever out of Michigan, so every mile we took on that trip was an adventure into something new and exciting.
We drove north across the new Mackinaw Bridge to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, then followed old US-2 west from there all the way west across Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota and into Montana. When crossing North Dakota we stopped in the Badlands, a vast area of strange rock formations that went on for miles and miles. Bill and I took each other’s pictures there. We laughed when Bill said we were the “Beavers in the Bad Lands.” He said they called it the Badlands because “it is nothing but bad land.” Indeed, there were no towns, no farms, not even trees or green growing things to be seen. The most noticeable life form was the prairie dog. These little creatures were everywhere, constantly popping their heads up out of holes in the ground.
Apparently Mrs. Havers liked liverwurst because she packed a lot of it in the cooler. I ate a lot of liverwurst sandwiches with mustard. Every time I see liverwurst or even think of it I remember that trip. But I do not recall ever eating liverwurst again, not that I missed it.
When we entered Montana there was a large sign that welcomed us to the state. Pictured on the sign was a tall man in a western hat and boots with a smile on his face and his hand raised in welcome. After that we began seeing and smelling the sagebrush. The sage was rolling across the road in the wind. When we stopped for gas and food, people were using silver dollars for currency. I had never seen a silver dollar before that and soon had a pocket full of them. They quickly weighed us down from the mere accumulation of so much metal. Not long after that trip the silver dollars were removed from the American currency and I wished I had saved a few of them just to have around.
We got to Billings then turned south toward one of the main routes into Yellowstone.The road into the park involved a winding, twisting route high over a mountain, then through a pass. Finally we entered the park. By the time we got that far I had apparently proven myself as a good driver because I was given the task of driving us over that mountain. It was my first experience in mountain driving and it was a bit scary. Sometimes we were on the edges of some cliffs with sheer drop-offs where you got dizzy looking down. There were some guard rails, but not always. There were some places along that road where we could stop to look around and take pictures. It made us dizzy to look down over the edges of some of those precipices.
Once in the park we rented a low-cost cabin in a wooded area that offered beds, a wood-burning stove for heat and cooking, a table and some chairs and little more. We had to gather wood for the stove. The park was full of bears that were real scavengers. They were always hanging around the cabins and camp grounds seeking food. People who left food in their cars often found the cars extensively damaged by bears clawing to get into them during the night. We had to be on guard when looking for firewood. We also were at such a high altitude that Bill and I discovered we were quickly out of breath with any exertion. We noticed also that sunsets came quickly in the mountains. When the sun went down, it just got dark.
We brought fishing gear on the trip. Bill and I spent our first day fly casting for trout on the Yellowstone River. We had to fish because that was going to be our dinner for the day. The park limit was three fish per person. I remember that some kid was selling worms and I bought a packet of them. Bill laughed at me. He was anxious to show his experience at fly casting by using his assortment of carefully prepared flies. He attached a fly to his hook, and I put a worm on mine, and we both stood on the bank of the river, casting our lines off into the stream. I had a fish on my line within seconds and soon reeled in a nice trout. Bill took one look at that and asked me for one of my worms.
We fished all that morning before catching our limit. It was odd because it was a warm summer day in June and we were both in t-shirts. But as we fished, a cloud passed over and it began to snow. It was the strangest experience. We cleaned and fried our fish that night on the wood burning stove in our cabin. It was a grand meal.
After that Bill and I went out in the park for some evening adventures. We met up with some college students, some of them people we know from Central Michigan University, who were working at the park. They showed us some of the warm pools where they swam and took us to some places that only they knew about.
We saw Old Faithful blow, walked various trails, one of them taking us to a sign that announced we were on the Continental Divide. Bill joked that if we urinated on that spot, we would be pissing in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at the same time.
After Yellowstone we drove north into Lake-of-the-Woods, Manitoba. It was a long hard drive and we went down some poorly developed roads to get there. We finally found a cabin to rent on one of the many connecting lakes and set up for another day of fishing. The next morning we rented a boat and motor, packed food, drink and our fishing gear and prepared to set off. The boat rental place strongly advised us to hire a guide because of the danger of getting lost in the maze of forests and lakes. As wild young men, we scoffed at the danger. But I did buy a map just in case. I was later glad I did.
As we made our way through the various waterways, through channels and around islands and took all kinds of twists and turns, I was careful to note on the map just where we were at all times. We moved from place to place, occasionally dropping a fishing line but having no luck. Yet the experience of operating a small motorized boat in such a massive complex of lakes was adventure enough. At one point, while crossing a large body of water, we were startled when a sea plane came in over our heads for a landing. At another time we came upon another boat with two men in it who were lost. They asked if we knew our way out of the maze. I showed them our map and pointed out where they were and gave them the directions I believed would lead them back to where we started from. They thanked us and motored off.
Later in the day, when we decided we had enough exploring, I turned us back toward what was, for us at that time, home. I was quite surprised when we motored right back out of the maze with ease, arriving at the boat launch site without making a single wrong turn. I was quite proud of my navigational skills that day.
The trip home was not as exciting as the trip west. I remember we ate liverwurst sandwiches and potato chips.