Montana
What I Learned About Fly-Fishing and Friendship on a Montana River
This spring creek was not one of the most eminent Montana spring creeks, not Nelson Spring Creek and not Armstrong, not the sort of place where you could plunk down twenty-five dollars per rod per day for the privilege of casting your fly over large savvy trout along an exclusive and well-manicured section of water. On this creek you fished free or not at all. I fished free, because I knew the two people inside the house and, through them, the wonderful surly old rancher who owned the place.
They lived there themselves, those two, in large part because of the creek. The male half of the partnership was at that time a raving and insatiable fly-fisherman, like me, for whom the luxury of having this particular spring creek just a three-minute stroll from his back door was worth any number of professional and personal sacrifices. He had found a place he loved dearly, and he wanted to stay. During previous incarnations he had been a wire-service reporter in Africa, a bar owner in Chicago, a magazine editor in New York, a reform-school guard in Idaho, and a timber faller in the winter woods of Montana. He had decided to quit the last before he cut off a leg with his chain saw, or worse; he was later kind enough to offer me his saw and his expert coaching and then to dissuade me deftly from making use of either, during the period when I was so desperate and foolhardy as to consider trying to earn a living that way. All we both wanted, really, was to write novels and fly-fish for trout. We fished the spring creek, together and individually, more than a hundred days each year. We memorized that water. The female half of the partnership, on the other hand, was a vegetarian by principle who lived chiefly on grapefruit and considered that anyone who tormented innocent fish—either for food or, worse, for the sport of catching them and then gently releasing them, as we did—showed the most inexcusable symptoms of arrested development and demented adolescent cruelty, but she tolerated us. All she wanted was to write novels and read Jane Austen and ride the hot mare. None of us had any money.
None of us was being published. Nothing happened in that town between October and May. The man and I played chess. We endangered our lives hilariously cutting and hauling firewood. We skied into the backcountry carrying tents and cast-iron skillets and bottles of wine, then argued drunkenly over whether it was proper to litter the woods with eggshells, if the magpies and crows did it too. We watched Willie Stargell win a World Series. Sometimes on cold clear days we put on wool gloves with no fingertips and went out to fish. Meanwhile the woman sequestered herself in a rickety backyard shed, with a small woodstove and a cot and a manual typewriter, surrounded by black widow spiders that she chose to view as pets. Or the three of us stood in their kitchen, until late hours on winter nights, while the woman peeled and ate uncountable grapefruits and the man and I drank whiskey, and we screamed at each other about literature.
The spring creek ran cool in summer. It ran warm in winter. This is what spring creeks do; this is their special felicity. It steamed and it rippled with fluid life when the main river was frozen over solid. Anchor ice never formed on the rocks of its riffles, killing insect larvae where they lived, and frazil ice never made the water slushy—as occurred on the main river. During spring runoff this creek didn’t flood; therefore the bottom wasn’t scoured and disrupted, and the eggs of the rainbow trout, which spawned around that time, weren’t swept out of the nests and buried lethally in silt. The creek did go brown with turbidity during runoff, from the discharge of several small tributaries that carried meltwater out of the mountains through an erosional zone, but the color would clear again soon.
Insects continued hatching on this creek through the coldest months of the winter. In October and November, large brown trout came upstream from the main river and scooped out their spawning nests on a bend that curved around the sheep pasture, just downstream from the car bodies. In August, grasshoppers blundered onto the water from the brushy banks, and fish exploded out of nowhere to take them. Occasionally, I or the other fellow would cast a tiny fly and pull in a grayling, that gorgeous and delicate cousin of trout, an Arctic species left behind by the last glaciation, that fared poorly in the warm summer temperatures of sun-heated meltwater rivers. In this creek a grayling could be comfortable, because most of the water came from deep underground. That water ran cool in summer, relatively, and warm in winter, relatively—relative in each case to the surrounding air temperature, as well as the temperature of the main river. In absolute terms the creek’s temperature tended to be stable year-round, holding steady in a hospitable middle range close to the constant temperature of the groundwater from which it was fed. This is what spring creeks, by definition, do. The scientific jargon for such a balanced condition is stenothermal: temperatures in a narrow range. The ecological result is a stable habitat and a twelve-month growing season. Free from extremes of cold or heat, free from flooding, free from ice and heavy siltation and scouring, the particular spring creek in question seemed always to me a thing of sublime and succoring constancy. In that regard it was no different from other spring creeks, but it was the one I knew and cared about.
The three of us stood in their kitchen, until late hours on winter nights, while the woman peeled and ate uncountable grapefruits and the man and I drank whiskey, and we screamed at each other about literature.
The stretch of years came to an end. The marriage came to an end. There were reasons, but the reasons were private, and are certainly none of our business here. Books were pulled down off shelves and sorted into two piles. Fine oaken furniture, too heavy to be hauled into uncertain futures, was sold off for the price of a sad song. The white-stockinged mare was sold also, to a family with a couple of young barrel racers, and the herd of trap-lame and half-feral cats was divided up. The man and the woman left town individually, in separate trucks, at separate times, each headed back toward New York City. I helped load the second truck, the man’s, but my voice wasn’t functioning well on that occasion. I was afflicted with a charley horse of the throat. It had all been hard to witness, not simply because a marriage had ended but even more so because, in my unsolicited judgment, a great love affair had. This partnership of theirs had been a vivid and imposing thing.
Or maybe it was hard because two love affairs had ended—if you count mine with the pair of them. I should say here that a friendship remains between me and each of them. Friendship with such folk is a lot. But it’s not the same.
Now I live in the city from which college students flock off to the Fourth of July rodeo in that little town, where they raise hell for a day and litter Main Street with beer cans and then sleep it off under the scraggly elm in what is now someone else’s front yard—the compensation being that July Fourth is quieter up here. It is only an hour’s drive. Not too long ago I was down there myself.
I parked, as always, in the yard by the burn barrel outside the stucco house. The house was empty; I avoided it. With my waders and my fly rod I walked out to the spring creek. Of course it was all a mistake.
I stepped into the creek and began fishing my way upstream, casting a grasshopper imitation into patches of shade along the overhung banks. There were a few strikes. There was a fish caught and released. But after less than an hour I quit. I climbed out of the water. I left. I had imagined that a spring creek was a thing of sublime and succoring constancy. I was wrong. Heraclitus was right.
MISSOULA — Four out of five members of Montana’s Public Service Commission were in a federal courtroom in Missoula Thursday morning, as the PSC’s former president challenges the disciplinary action taken against him earlier this year. Now, newly released documents are shedding more light on to what led up to this point.
(Watch the video for a closer look at the case.)
New documents shed light Montana PSC dispute
Commissioner Brad Molnar has sued President Jeff Welborn, Vice President Jennifer Fielder and Commissioner Annie Bukacek – the three PSC members who voted in May to require him to work remotely, after an investigation into complaints about his workplace conduct. Molnar has claimed he is being unfairly punished for constitutionally protected speech, and he asked Senior U.S District Judge Donald Molloy to allow him to return to the PSC offices.
Matthew Monforton, Molnar’s attorney, told the judge that barring Molnar from the building was limiting his ability to do his job.
“He has not been officially kicked out of office, but his voice has clearly been diminished,” said Monforton.
But Natasha Jones, an attorney representing the other three commissioners, said the findings were about behavior, not just speech, and that the PSC’s action was a reasonable response.
“These are serious concerns about a pattern of conduct that has made employees quit,” she said.
Jonathon Ambarian
On Tuesday, Molloy ordered the release of redacted versions of two full investigative reports into Molnar’s conduct – more than 100 pages of documents. Monforton had moved for the full reports to be made public, and Molloy ruled attorneys for the other PSC members hadn’t shown a compelling reason to keep the documents under seal as long as the names of people involved in the investigation were obscured.
While the names remained redacted in the investigation reports, the attorneys for Welborn, Fielder and Bukacek also filed additional documents – including a public declaration from Bukacek and from former PSC executive director Alana Lake, providing information about their allegations against Molnar.
The two reports, from an outside investigator, cover Molnar’s alleged actions over two periods: the first from February to August 2025, and the second from August to October 2025. The investigation began after the first formal complaint, filed by Bukacek in May 2025 – though the reports say employees had been bringing up concerns about Molnar’s behavior informally for several months prior.
Bukacek’s complaint claimed Molnar had repeatedly made what she called “sexualized and demeaning comments.” The examples she cited included saying the PSC should replace “Taco Tuesdays” with “Topless Tuesdays,” reminiscing about watching girls in bikinis as a teenager, and commenting about the beauty of women in areas of China who didn’t get “old and wrinkly.”
In her declaration, Bukacek also claimed Molnar had “maliciously disseminated false information” about her and “engaged in behavior that was dismissive, derisive and otherwise abusive.”
“My primary concern now is not for my safety nor my feelings, but for the rest of the staff who may not have the temperament to speak up or may feel too intimidated to speak up given concerns over job security,” Bukacek said in her declaration.
MTN News
The investigators determined Molnar had violated the PSC’s code of conduct by making comments of a sexual nature, and that it appeared his behavior had continued for some time after he was warned about it. They also found he had behaved unprofessionally and in a belittling manner toward Bukacek, though they said Bukacek herself had at times used “language that could be considered inappropriate” in emails to staff or other commissioners. Bukacek told MTN she “readily self corrected” any behaviors that were brought to her attention.
The investigation also found a violation in connection with a complaint from a PSC staff member, who said he “felt bullied” by Molnar when the commissioner sent an email complaining about his team not being “people with competence.”
However, much of the first report and the entire second report was focused on conduct after the initial complaints, when Molnar was accused of retaliating against people who participated in the investigation. Lake said in her declaration that she saw “an immediate and significant change in his behavior toward staff involved in the process.” She claimed he said he would use an attorney and private investigator to go after people who filed complaints, and she accused him of publicly criticizing her in interviews and removing her job responsibilities because of her handling of the investigation.
Lake said Molnar’s actions led to “declining morale within the agency,” undermined staff members’ ability to do their jobs and damaged her reputation. She said that led her to resign as executive director.
“I believe no employee should be forced to choose between reporting misconduct and protecting their career, reputation, or personal well-being,” she said in her declaration.
Lake has since become Helena city manager.
Jonathon Ambarian
The report said there was evidence to show Molnar had retaliated, including by “making disparaging statements about investigation participants” including Lake, by sending an email warning he could file complaints of his own against people involved, and by taking other actions investigators said could dissuade employees from reporting behavior in the future.
Monforton said during Thursday’s hearing that the initial comments Bukacek complained about were jokes Molnar had admitted were inappropriate, that he regretted saying them, and that he hasn’t made any similar comments in about a year. But he argued the vast majority of the findings against Molnar were about retaliation – and that those were primarily based on speech that the other commissioners don’t have the right to interfere with.
Monforton said it’s unreasonable to punish Molnar for what he said in the July news conference where he announced he was under investigation, in interviews with the media or in commission meetings. He said Molnar’s conduct doesn’t rise to the level of actual retaliation.
“This is an elected official, engaging in speech in his forum,” Monforton said.
He said Molnar may have made harsh comments toward staff, but that he had the right to raise objections about the way the agency does business.
Jonathon Ambarian
Monforton also argued the retaliation claims no longer justify keeping Molnar out of the office, since Welborn, Fielder and Bukacek voted to remove him as president in October and he no longer has the authority he’s accused of misusing. He said there haven’t been further complaints about his behavior since that time.
“We’re not asking for the moon and stars, we’re asking for the status quo as it existed for the last seven months,” he said.
Jones said there is enough evidence to show Molnar would have been punished regardless of whether any protected speech was excluded.
“This is not about a couple of jokes,” she said.
Jones said Molnar made maliciously false statements about people like Lake, and that type of statement isn’t covered by free speech protections.
She also said Molnar’s exclusion from the PSC offices is temporary, and that the PSC will reconsider whether to let him return if he apologizes for his actions, accepts the agency’s code of conduct and undergoes training.
Molloy indicated he saw indications that there was “acrimony” on both sides of the situation, and said he was skeptical it would be resolved easily.
“It would be nice if instead of juvenile behavior, there was professional behavior,” he said.
However, the judge said there was an avenue for Molnar to pursue if he wanted to reach a resolution.
Molloy took no immediate action Thursday. He told the parties he would rule as quickly as he could.
Carrie Gilbertson has been executive director of Cancer Support Community Montana for just under two months, stepping into the role in April with more than 15 years of nonprofit experience and a lifetime of Montana roots.
The organization provides psychosocial and mental health support to anyone affected by cancer — not just those with a diagnosis, but also family members and others walking alongside them.
WATCH: Meet the new leader of Cancer Support Community Montana 🎗️
Cancer Support Community Montana names new executive director
“This mission of providing psycho-social supports and mental health supports for anyone impacted by cancer, not just that person who has the diagnosis, but also family members, anyone who is walking alongside someone as they experience that often scary diagnosis, that’s just something that’s important to me,” Gilbertson said.
Gilbertson’s role extends beyond the Bozeman office. Cancer Support Community Montana’s Missoula location is already up and running, and a Helena location is expected to be operating soon. Each presents its own set of challenges.
“Each hospital is different. They might have different resources. Their social workers might be connecting to things in a different way. So understanding what those hospitals need, what different participants need in each community, is going to be different just because the communities are different, resources are different,” Gilbertson said.
The Bozeman office has been operating for more than 20 years, providing a foundation that supports the organization’s broader statewide efforts.
“I think this is a crew that looks at what does this community need what do our participants need what are some of the changing landscapes in cancer care what things are the gaps that we see that we can maybe just jump right in and you know let’s see if we can provide that for people so that’s something I really love about this crew that I work with and just this mission that there is some flexibility in being able to adjust and adapt as we learn more,” Gilbertson said.
Those adaptations show up in unexpected ways. The organization converts its parking lot into a pickleball court every Friday morning.
“I didn’t know there was a pickleball court. I pulled in actually with my daughter pulled in and she was is that pickleball court and I was like oh, it kind of looks like it is so yeah that’s fun, every Friday morning we clear out the parking lot and put up the net and I haven’t played yet I’ve been watching just to kind of see how that game works but they take it pretty seriously,” Gilbertson said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
-
Georgia2 minutes agoGeorgia National Fair announces ticket pricing changes for 2026
-
Hawaii7 minutes agoHawaii economy remains resilient despite inflation – The Garden Island
-
Idaho15 minutes agoIdaho Targets Japanese Beetle in Caldwell to Protect Agriculture
-
Illinois18 minutes agoPedestrian fatally struck by Metra train in Palatine, Illinois
-
Indiana23 minutes agoMan dies after near east side apartment shooting
-
Iowa30 minutes agoIowa man injured in 3-vehicle crash on I-35 near Albert Lea
-
Kentucky33 minutes agoDemetrus Liggins disputes Fayette County board’s claim he resigned, attorneys allege misconduct
-
Kansas33 minutes agoWhere to watch St. Louis Cardinals vs Kansas City Royals: TV channel, start time, streaming for June 19
