Customer Reviews

Many Rivers to Cross: Of Good Running Water, Native Trout, and the Remains Of Wilderness

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The valuable insights, gentle humor and wistful beauties it contains should not be reserved just for the fishing fraternity. M R Montgomery describes, with wit and sensitivity, his search for the last remaining bastions of the native trout of the mountain west, the cutthroat. He describes the people who help him on his quest with humor and with empathy. In those remote places, his interest and his eyes wander to show us paticularities of landscape and peculiarities of the flora and fauna that cohabit there with the trout. Beneath the surface Montgomery is addressing concepts like "wilderness", "preservation" and "stewardship" without referring to them directly. He begins his story near the Little Big Horn Battlefield, but the last stand that he wants us to contemplate is not Custer's.

Montgomery's gentle quest for the last haunts of native cutthroats is worth reading twice. A more gifted writer than most of his more celebrated contemporaries.

The late American author, William Humphrey (a fine writer and fly fisherman), noted that there were two types of people that wrote about fishing-fishermen that wrote and writers that fish. He recommended reading the latter. M.R. Montgomery of The Boston Globe fits into the latter class. This elegant book takes the reader into the vanishing world of the cutthroat trout in the western United States.

This is one of the most beautiful books ever written about the American West, and its native fish. The book reads like a spring creek meander and includes all kinds of interesting historical facts about cowboys and indians, and western streams. You will apprechiate cutthroat trout like never before if you read this book. It was clearly a labor of love in writing...

M. R. Montgomery goes fishing. Well, to be precise the author goes in search of rare, hard-to-find, native trout. The places and the numbers of native fish he finds are as telling as the sharp observations he gives the reader.

I initially picked up the book on account of it's subject matter - fly fishing for native trout around the West. As I read the last couple of chapters I found myself less interested in his fishing activity and more drawn into his commentary and writing style. To do his writing justice, here's a small taste:

"... The only barriers to exotic fish in the West have always been Keep Out signs and geological obstacles like water-falls that prevented upstream invasion."

"... Anyone who thinks elk and mule deer are as destructive as cows ought to take a tour of the Trinchera (Steve Forbes ranch property). I believe we counted upward of thirty mule deer and a dozen elk in a three-mile drive. And the edges of Placer Creek were solid willows; the dry hay in the meadows was knee high."

"The federal government essentially owns southeastern Oregon. Private ranches, always concentrated at the few places with reliable water, have fallen one by one into the hands of the feds -- the only people in the high desert who always have cash in the bank."

"... At this writing, the Alvord cutthroat is presumably extinct, having had the misfortune to encounter the gregarious and prolific stocked rainbow trout in all its waters except, of course, those waters from which cows had already evicted it."

I selected these passages based on the crisp, dry wit of the author as much as the message he communicates. Anyone who reads the quarterly conservation newsletters - with the word "Trout" somewhere in the title - is familiar with the points he makes throughout the book. Planting non native trout and herding cattle in and around streams spells trouble for the locals. The locals in this particular case being Alvord cutthroat and Rio Grande cutt's to name a few.

As someone who reads those quarterly newsletters, it's not always apparent why a barrier needs to be built across some stream, or why money needs to be raised to purchase private range along critical stream habitat. When you read through Many Rivers to Cross, the need to conserve and protect native fisheries comes into sharp focus. And that focus comes directly through the author's clear vision -- with a fly-rod in tow.

This book was first reviewed on the reviewer's own site:

EcoAngler.com - The Nature of Fly Fishing.

The author travels to unlikely western destinantions in search of native cutthroat trout. The difficulty encountered finding pure strains (those unpolluted by stocking) is an eye-opener; there are few places remaining where man's hand has not altered the biology of US streams. The devestating impact of cattle ranching on streams is also explored. You are left with the sad knowledge that many of these populations of wild trout are not far from extinction.

I'm a fan of the West, trout, and of Monty's dry wit. Read the first 3 pages. The rest of the book is written similarly. My only criticism is that Montgomery doesn't consider bait fishermen true anglers. A real Westerner, in fact, prefers bait to artificial flies, and would also never consider sticking a perfectly good trout in formaldehyde.

One other note: Mr. Montgomery's attempt at naming a sub-species of trout after Robert Behnke, the author of "Trout and Salmon of North America" by publishing this in his book was successful. Montgomery and his book are both named in Behnke's 2002 edition (page 175). I also recommend Behnke's book, if just to browse through the colorful trout and salmon illustrations.

Since the Sheepheaven Redband Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss spp.) has NOT been completely named yet I'd like to hereby describe and name:

ONCORHYNCHUS MYKISS MONTGOMERII

The Sheepheaven Redband Trout
Description: see Behnke
Distribution: Sacramento River Basin, Sheepheaven Creek

So published, let this trout be forever named after the world's leading trout philosopher.

How can it be that there are only two other reviews of this fine book since 1995?

M.R. Montgomery does the thinking, the exploration, the examination and the analysis; all we have to do is read his book. His descriptions of cutthroat trout and their environs, First Nations peoples (Native Americans / Indian), the steady changing of history "ripping pages out of the history book" as he calls it, and the incredible pace of destruction are both fascinating and chilling.

Kathie Durbin's fine work on The Tongass, "Tongass: Pulp Politics and the Fight for the Alaska Rain Forest", is a work of journalism, and it describes, with a very sharp focus, the same practices at work that Montgomery reveals in, "Many Rivers to Cross", in the U.S. Nation's very first park. Montgomery had it right from the start.

Law and public policy may be on the side of preservation and conservation, but as M.R. Montgomery and his colleagues make clear, "wise use" is anything but "wise" and once used, its gone.

Edward Abbey's, "The Monkey Wrench Gang", is, apparently, the only answer that makes for popular reading. This is a shame where Montgomery's prose and observational style are just as accessible as Abbey's.

Read this fine book, check out Ms. Durbin's excellent piece of journalism and consider whether Mr. Abbey was writing a novel or a policy proposal.

In a day and age where greenhouse gasses are increasing, the US will not participate in the Kyoto accord and the lumber industry is nothing but a byproduct of the pulp industry - only books like these (ironically printed on pulped wood fibers) can educate us about the last of the wilderness.

Teddy Roosevelt created the parks. . .M.R. Montgomery shows that it is impossible to argue that wilderness conservation is limited to people with only one political view or to just one special interest group.