The Fisherman
Traipsing around West Yellowstone in search of someone willing to talk, eventually led to an old fly shop on the main road. The shape of a timber awning, the air conditioning behind a timber door pry the summer heat off in layers. Inside, a young boy's face lights up as he turns over a lure in his small hands. His father boasts warmly to the old fisherman working the desk, “He loves fishing, can’t get enough of it.” A simple pride in the timeless joy of fishing saturates the air. The fidgeting childhood excitement to hold a fishing license, never quite lost on its way through life, is still glowing behind the smiling eyes of a veteran guide sitting behind the desk at Bob Jacklin’s Fly Shop. The West wall of the fly shop holds thousands of fly lures, each exquisitely handmade. The two story building is a sort of cathedral to fly fishing, drawing devotees from across the country. In it, Bob Jacklin himself stands as the grand priest.
Bob stands at a work sink, washing up a piece of equipment
“I’ve been here 50 years. I came here first in July 1967, came here fishing, and then it turned out to be one of the trout capitals of the world so I spent my whole adult life here. I grew up in Elizabeth New Jersey, that what a fishing area too so that was good. We’d go in the summers, sometimes with my father, but I learned myself on trout fishing. I went to high school back in New Jersey and I was a musician, a drummer. So I went right from high school to the military in the band. We were going into Vietnam and I knew I was going to get called. They claimed they had a computer that called everyone up in a fair chance. Bullshit. They put in who they wanted into the computer and that’s who they got out. But I knew military band is something special, so I tried for that. Took the musical audition, and made it. So I went to Little Creek, Virginia, where they taught Navy and Army bands how to play the military way, a little different. Believe it or not, I was stationed 50 miles from home then for my whole career, Fort Monmouth, for 2.5 years. But I was into fishing for well before that and obviously after that, selling lures and the like even as a kid.”
As we spoke, he effortlessly fiddled with a reel. He was switching it from right to left, a task he rarely picked his eyes up from during the conversation. Bob excelled where he focused, so it’s no surprise that his lifelong pursuit of a single passion has yielded him so much. His store is filled with newspaper stories, trophies, and testaments to his dedication to the pastime. One article boasts of their local fishing legend catching his largest brown trout while filming a tutorial in the Madison River back in 2006. The town is proud to call him one of theirs, and it shows it with a nearly constant flow of articles and accolades. Early on though, being an easterner ruffled some feathers when he was trying to establish himself in the community.
The reel was manually switched, greased, and reassembled
“The local game warden was on my case because he knew I was a kid from Jersey. He wouldn’t even talk to me, a real crotchety old guy. One time he tried to write me up for purchasing a resident fishing permit. But I had already registered to vote and moved in fully to Montana. Seems he really couldn’t think of me as a local. When I eventually opened up my shop here, he wouldn’t ever give me permits to sell out of my shop. Denied my application a number of times. But I went and made friends with his boss and applied once more, this time with a letter to him and his boss. I was denied by the warden but after another couple weeks, he was in my doorway with permits.”
The fences around joining the community were noticeable but porous for Bob as he became a fixture in the town. Sticklers here or there did little to keep him out and the rest of the community welcomed him with open arms. It wasn’t long before he was as local as anyone could get.
The shop stands prominently on the main street
“I like a lot of us who’ve lived here for a long time, most of us took their turn on the Chamber of Commerce, took their term on City Council. We all took the time to be involved in the city. We cared about what happened here in West Yellowstone so we worked and tried to follow that care as stewards. And the community has done pretty well.
So small town life is very rewarding like that. People see what we get. I was chairman of the tax committee when we successfully put in the first sales tax in the state of Montana. We called it a resort tax and other “resorts” were able to sign up and get the tax status too. It was 3%, very small. But we were a town of 1000 people, counting kids, and we were impacted by 1.2 million people in the summer. So we went to the legislature and said, “You can fund our town, fund our police, fund everything, or you can let us do it.” And they said, “We’ll let you do it.” So that’s still alive, we’re doing fine now because of that tax. It allows us a lot of things. Like the ambulance service, that was a big priority for me too. Now when someone’s sick, there are several people that can show up. It’s really helped build out the infrastructure of the town.
One really good thing is that for kids there’s always a job available, washing dishes, working at a cash register. There’s always work like that, summer and winter. There’s jobs for everyone, not always jobs people would want, because it’s work like waiting tables and such. But you see signs all over for Help Wanted. We do have one major problem which is we don’t have a lot of facilities for people. Trailer homes, low-income housing. Years ago there were small cabins with no bathrooms or facilities but that’s not allowed anymore, you can’t do that in a civilized world so there’s no place to stay for low-income people. City’s been trying to work on that but they haven’t figured it out yet.”
Bob finishes up another reel
The town is low, flat, and culturally old west, leagues different from a town like Whitefish. But it’s again an account of a lucky infusion of tourist dollars, and a testament to the power and importance of aggressive reinvestment into community commons. The things Bob speaks most proudly about in town are the public facilities, services, and resources that they were able to conjure forth from a modest tax proposal. It is impressive to see even in ruby red Montana, the success story of a town hinging on a tax hike and the effective channeling of community resources.
On the other side of that community feel though, the town seems to hitch itself to an independent ideal. It happily hosts outsiders but cherishes its small town character. Even as tourists course through the town like a year round salmon run, West Yellowstone stays somehow contentedly apart, preserving its own sense of self. Like the fisherman, the town seems perfectly happy let alone with its thoughts, though an abundance of riches filling the river makes for a better day on the water.
