Not Your Everyday Guide

When Spokane fly fishermen invited Joe Kipp, Blackfeet Indian Reservation fishing guide, to talk about fishing on his home waters, they expected to hear a typical guide’s talk on where and how to fish Blackfeet lakes and streams.

But Kipp, an intelligent, philosophical and humorous man, isn’t your typical guide. The owner of Morning Star Troutfitters didn’t tell members of the Inland Empire Fly Fishing Club what insects hatch on the lakes and streams on the reservation, what flies to use and exactly how to fish for the outsized trout.

Instead, Kipp, an articulate storyteller who once attended East Valley High School, talked almost reverently and at considerable length about Blackfeet land, his brother Blackfeet, nature and why he fishes. And the fly fishers seemed to love every word of it.

Yes, he did spend a little time talking about the fishing on Indian waters and he showed slides of fly fishers fighting and holding trout as long as and longer than their arms. Blackfeet lakes, it seems, are full of rainbows, cutthroat and brown trout that are capable of breaking fly rods.

The Blackfeet Indian Reservation, east of Glacier National Park, has been the homeland, Kipp told the fly fishers, of the Blackfeet the last 13,000 years. It’s what’s left of a homeland that once extended from Edmonton, Alberta, to Bozeman and from the Continental Divide to North Dakota.

“When you come to our homeland, you’re going to find the people act a little differently about things,” he said. “We have a lot of poverty and a lot of hard times that go with it. But if you dig a little deeper, you’ll find beautiful people, people who want to share things.

“We believe we aren’t any higher evolved than a fish, or a bear or any other animal. We believe we were created last. All the animals were created first.

“You will be our guests. Come with an open mind and a sense of humor. Look around and see our land. Look up and see the golden eagle flying over your head.

“Our land is very beautiful. It’s a rugged place. Eagles roam the skies freely. The great wolf has never been shot out of our land. We’re proud to survive the long, bitter winters when temperatures commonly drop to 30 degrees below zero and the winds blow at 50 miles an hour.

“For us, ice-out time is a magical time. It’s a time when the grass starts growing and the birds come back.”

When, some fly fishers were wondering by that time, would Kipp get around to telling them which lakes hold the biggest trout, when is the best time to fish them and what flies to bring?

Ice-out time, Kipp said, is not only a magical time for the Blackfeet. It’s time to start fishing the lakes. As the ice melts, he said, the big trout start moving into the shallows, which warm quicker than the deep water.

But it’s a tough time to fish, he warned fly fishers. Usually, a fly fisher breaks off after a big fish has taken a fly and run a few hundred feet.

“The big fish start moving into the redds (spawning beds) the last week of April or the first week of May,” he said. “They aren’t darkened yet. With these fish, you have ample opportunity to break your rod.”

As the weather warms, insects hatch and the fish gorge themselves and become the trophy trout that make fly fishers’ hearts pound.

Kipp said there are more than 800 miles of trout-filled streams on the reservation. Nearly all the streams are on private land and a fly fisher or his guide must have permission to fish the streams.

Tongue in cheek, he suggested that visiting fly fishers obey the Blackfeet laws.

“You might be checked three different times a day by three different game wardens,” he said. “The wardens don’t have a sense of humor. They love to write tickets. If you argue with them, you go to jail. You’ll appear in the Blackfeet tribal court. The judge will be a Blackfeet. The lawyer who will represent you will be a Blackfeet.”

That’s the kind of talk the fly fishers never hear from guides. Most fishing guides leave the impression that rain never falls, insects always hatch, the fish nearly always bite and game wardens are friendly and reluctant to issue citations.

But Kipp didn’t discourage many fly fishers, particularly after they saw the size of trout his clients caught.

Like most fishing guides, Kipp loves to fish. And he knows why.

“I fish to be in touch with nature,” he said. “to be in touch with my Creator, to walk upon my mother earth, to look at my older brothers and sisters that I share the world with and to look at the grass that grows.”

To that, most fly fishers would say, “Amen.”

, DataTimes MEMO: You can contact Fenton Roskelley by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 3814.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Fenton Roskelley The Spokesman-Review