Our Story
Staiger reels in his first trout on a fly rod while Scott stands ready with the net.
Sometimes the story of a life is not so much about where it begins or where it ends, but rather the twists and turns it takes along the way. In this way, life mirrors the motion of a river, so perhaps it is with a river that this story begins. A boy—not Scott, but rather his son—rocks back against the current, arms raised high. A deep blue sky stretches overhead and beyond the murmuring waters of the river, the rolling hills flash gold. In the boy’s hands, a fly rod, curving hard toward the river’s surface—toward the fish he has hooked. His face lights with a wide grin and, behind him, his father is grinning too. It is in this moment that Scott remembers what it means to be here, with a rod in hand and the open sky above. And he knows that somewhere, someone is nudging him to embrace it. This is not the beginning perhaps, but it is a beginning. Here is another.
Craig removes the hook from a brown trout.
Scott built his first fly rod in 1994, a short while before he opened a fly shop in Four Corners. It started years before, with the chance meeting of a six-foot Washington native named Craig. After a single day of fishing together on the Gallatin, Craig was already insisting that Scott should become a guide. A few calls in the yellow pages and several years later, both were spending over 200 days a year on the river— working with many great Outfitters and Orvis endorsed fly shops, guiding fishermen on the Madison, Gallatin, and Yellowstone Rivers. Their days were dedicated to the art of fly fishing; their nights to telling stories with their buddies and dreaming up plans for the future. It was here that Montana Casting Company was born, and (with Craig’s prodding) the rods followed shortly after.
Perhaps more importantly were the quiet moments in between. Moments with no clients. No obligations. Just two friends, singing along to Sammy Kershaw in a peeling ’85 Bronco on the back roads… Two friends with their fly rods and the river stretching endless in either direction. No fly-fisherman could wish for more. But a river rarely flows straight, and it’s perhaps even rarer for a life to do the same.
It was a frigid evening when Scott’s world fell apart, the sunny warmth of autumn slowly giving way to the darker skies of late November. Craig had called earlier in the day; he and another buddy had limited out on ducks at Ennis Lake and were looking to do it again that afternoon. Scott declined his friend’s invitation in favor of getting the Christmas lights up at the house. That night, he received an altogether different call: a drunk driver had slammed into his friend’s truck on the way back to Bozeman and Craig had been ejected through the windshield. The crash snapped his neck and there was nothing life support or a rushed flight to the Billings hospital could do. A few days later, Craig was gone.
The last place Scott ever fly fished with Craig was at a yearly gathering on the river. For years, they and their tight-knit group of friends and family had been gathering there in anticipation of the season opener. Following the death of his best friend, Scott gave up fly fishing. He stopped guiding and closed the shop in Four Corners. He would not touch a fly rod, let alone build one, for over half a decade. Craig’s passing marked a turning point, an insurmountable loss… And yet, in spite of this, Scott continued to return to this yearly gathering year after year. Not to fish, but to watch and remember.
Staiger presents his catch.
It was his ten-year-old son Staiger who finally pulled him back to the river. The day was warm and sunny, a distinct contrast from that distant November night. Scott had decided to take the boys to the annual gathering and as they sat on the banks, Staiger watched as a young man landed fish after fish with his fly rod. That was when he turned to his father and asked to be taught to do the same.
So Scott built a fly rod. He gave it to his boy. And the next spring, he watched Staiger land his first fish after just a few casts. Somewhere, Craig was smiling.
A fly rod is, in its own way, a story. A story of streams walked and the deep holes where fish lay; of sunny afternoons and frigid mornings when the fog still clings to the riverbanks. A fly rod is a story not only of fish caught and fish lost, but of a million perfect moments and the people that were there, sharing each one. Above all, a fly rod is a story of love. Love for this place, with its proud mountains and rushing rivers. Love for the fish and the patient skill it takes to catch them. Love for the friends and family that walk beside us, in life or in memory.
Montana Casting Company is the story of two friends, a story of loss and remembrance. But it is also the beginning of a new chapter, each rod a promise of what’s to come and a reminder of what life can be at its most pure: a river and you in the middle of it.
In loving memory of craig.
