A Message from Jim's Family

 

I have been called a lot of thing in my life but one of the names that I am proudest to be called is Jim’s nephew.  Many of the familiar faces that I saw at his funeral were all introduced to me that way.  Being introduced as Jim’s nephew became so common that when at the Flyway Ranch I became accustomed to introducing myself to people saying, “Hi, my name is Jake Range, I’m Jim’s nephew.”  I was born and raised in Georgia until I was old enough to come to Montana.  Uncle Jim and Lizzie were kind enough to share the ranch with me during the summers and put up with all my antics.

I grew up along the banks of the Missouri River spending evenings amongst the caddis and mosquitoes learning how to fly fish, but luckily I had an advantage because Jim had recruited a caretaker named Pete Cardinal who took me under his wing and made sure I knew that I was not bass fishing and that I should not set the hook like I was.  I will always remember that when Uncle Jim arrived to the ranch from wherever his travels with work had taken him, people could always see that he just sort of relaxed and was able to be himself and not have to have his mind churning on the turmoil of work. We spent many days outside doing the things that he enjoyed doing like making sure that his garden was tended, using his tractor which included finding and picking all the rocks that would be necessary to make the borders around his vegetable garden, miscellaneous chores and always setting up the tasks that I was to accomplish while he was gone.  In the times that we were not working around the ranch we would spend our time fishing the rock wings and floating whenever we could.  More importantly, Pete had taught me how to tie flies and I had been drafted to make sure that Uncle Jim’s box was never out of caddis, sparkle beady nymphs and other necessary flies that Pete had come up with.

In the late evenings after dinner had been finished, the table cleared, dishes put away and Maime walked to her car, we would persuade Liz to go on an evening walk with us and the dogs down the gravel road to gaze up at the stars and remind us how lucky we were to be able to enjoy a place as special as this.  We spent many days doing similar things but he always made sure that we had enough food in our stomachs to keep the work up, whether it be leftovers from the previous nights meal or a hot dog from O’Connell’s store.

I remember a fishing trip that I took with him a few years back, I had driven up from Bozeman for a few days because I had heard that he would be at the ranch. When I arrived, he did not hesitate to put me to work.  After it was completed, we went fishing that evening and made plans to go floating the next day.  It was just him and I. We put in at Wolf Creek and started our float, by this time in life I had been promoted to head rower. It was not hopper season yet so we just floated until we saw some water where a fish should be and would anchor down river from where the fish would be and get to work.  At this one particular spot while he was busy stalking a nice trout, I was sitting in the boat looking down river and watching a certain fish that had caught my eye. I dared not say anything because if he saw it, he would definitely call dibs on that fish; in the Range family, you are expected to be honest and not hide things unless it has to do with fishing because that supersedes all other rules, if you tell someone about a honey hole you better be ready to lose it because, well, fishing is god.  I marked the spot and as soon as he had caught the fish he was gunning for, I told him to get back in the boat because I knew of another place to find some nice fish, making sure that he did not have time to see the fish that I had seen. The next stop that we made, he decided that I could get after these fish and let me loose.  After years of fishing the Missouri and Pete’s guidance, I believed that if you were going to catch a nice fish, there were two necessary points that must be required: One, you had better catch it on a dry fly; Two, it had better be a structure fish meaning basically that it was going to be hard as hell to get the fly where it needed to be in the first place for the fish to see it and secondly get a decent enough drift that the fish would take it.  So I barged through a number of the lower fish in search of the big daddy.  I received a few of Uncle Jim’s choice words for doing so but I told him that I had my eye on one. I spent the next five to ten minutes working the fish trying to get the right drift.  Finally the fish took my fly and proceeded to charge downstream with my fly and line attached making the reel scream loud enough for Uncle Jim to hear it (so you know it was loud). After a brief fight I got it in, there was no doubt that I had a grin on my face because he just leaned back and laughed in that cackle that we all know so well.  I held it up and showed it to him like a child showing his parents what Santa had brought him for Christmas. Then I let it go as was customary for any fish that I caught unless I was camping, got back in the boat and was about to put out to the next spot when I was surprised with one of the greatest compliments that I have ever heard.

Uncle Jim said, “Well by god you’ve become one hell of a fisherman.”

 I was floored, all I could manage to get out of my mouth was, “thanks.” Many of you know that compliments pertaining to fishing and hunting from Jim Range were few and far between because he had seen quite a bit of spectacular fishing and hunting.  At that point in time, I knew that day wasn’t going to get any better.  We finished the day with a few more fish and I rowed it into Craig.  We worked for the next few days and fished from the banks of the ranch.  I drove him to the airport and told him that I looked forward to seeing him again soon and that I would call in the next few days to let him know what I had gotten done.  I went back to the fish that I had seen on that day and after it seemed like forever and all the flies in my box I put a size sixteen caddis on and caught a “tuna” brown.  I called him back in D.C. and told him of the work that I had gotten done, the trout I caught and where it was, he called me a son of a bitch and laughed. That was the last time I floated the Missouri with my uncle.  I can’t imagine a better last float but wish that I had a few more.  I’ll miss him till I see him again and hope that he will be ready for another float.

 

Love ya boy,

Jake