The View From Behind

A fly fisherman makes his case for sitting in the back of the boat.

Author: Brian Worthington
Print Issue: Spring 2025 (Available for purchase here)

Photo: Preston Keres, USDA

I’m in the back seat of the drift boat, again. It's late April in Montana, 28 degrees, and snowing sideways. My brother-in-law Jeremiah, our guide Slade, and I sit in the only boat in sight on the Madison River. We won’t see another boat all day.

I just watched Jeremiah catch the biggest trout of his life. Candidly, the 24-inch long, battle-worn rainbow would have been my personal best as well.

I’m shaking. Partly from the cold, but mainly because sitting two seats from a friend landing their biggest fish is pretty exciting. It’s similar to the feeling of watching a buddy kill his or her first elk; it is exhilarating, you’re just not the one holding the rod or the bow.

The bend in the rod — and the large flash when the fish went to run — told me that it was big. But I would have missed out on much of the fight if my back was turned to the action, and I had instead kept fishing for myself. I would have missed Jeremiah’s reactions, the tense moment when the fish raced toward a fallen tree, and the nuance in the guide’s movements that said, “this fish is different.” I wouldn’t have seen that personal best until it was in the guide’s net.

Sure, from the back seat certain thoughts do go through your head. If I was in the front seat, would I have a new personal best? Unknown. If I was in the front seat, with Jeremiah in the back, and he still caught this fish, would my perspective be the same? Would I still be shaking?

I’ve never fished from the front seat of a drift boat. While I’m a competitive person, the number of fish I catch doesn’t matter to me — unless someone else is counting. That made my first couple of trips in the back seat a little frustrating. Then, I realized that living in Montana affords me the opportunity to take more of these guided trips with friends and family than I could have ever dreamed of prior. Because of this, I’ve learned to appreciate the lens that the back seat of the drift boat — technically the stern — offers.

My love affair with fly fishing began during my childhood summer vacations, when my family traveled to Rocky Mountain National Park. My dad and I would carve out a couple of days to chase brookies, and avoid elk, in the beaver dam-crafted fingers of the Big Thompson River in Moraine Park. When I moved from Texas to Montana, I immediately fell in love with the sheer size of the rivers, the fisheries they support, and the stream access laws that allow all of us to enjoy them.

I don’t own a drift boat — yet. When choosing a place to fish, my wife and I look as much for scenery, solitude, and relaxation as we do for water features that might hold numbers of hungry trout. Our favorite fishing hole is roughly an hour from home. To get there, we drive past dozens of large riffles and pocket waters where we probably have a chance of catching more fish. It certainly isn’t the best spot on the river as far as the fishing goes, but that’s part of why we like it. To us, fly fishing is less about how often we catch fish and more about the entirety of the experience.

People, as I’ve learned from the back of the boat, are a big part of that entirety. One of the benefits of living in a destination state is that your friends and family want to travel to you, even if they’re partly escaping southern summer heat. I try to use each visit as an excuse to book a guided float trip — admittedly as much for me as for my guest. It isn’t a hard sell by any means, but if need be I’ll paint a guided trip as one of the best experiences to be had, which I would argue is the truth. What better way to see Montana and get away from our busy, always connected, day-to-day lives than floating down a river?

In my opinion, the front seat of a drift boat is the most coveted spot — at least if the goal is catching fish. More importantly, it’s also the best place for a less experienced angler to sit. There, the guide has them in full-view, and they can provide instruction from cast-to-cast on what’s going well and what needs to change. So when arriving at the ramp, the natural spot for my visitor is at the bow.

Watching a friend who has little fly fishing experience on their first guided float trip is a microcosm of learning to fly fish over many years. It often starts with a much-needed casting lesson in the boat ramp parking lot, followed by the initial excitement of actually casting a fly to the water. Nervousness and frustration set in over missed opportunities and knotted lines. A slow period occurs where everything seems to be going alright, but the fish just aren’t cooperating.

Perhaps the angler in the back seat actually catches a few fish, while the beginner is left wondering what they did to upset the fish gods. Finally, if the aforementioned gods bestow generosity, there’s the first fish, the photo op, then another, and another. By the end of the day, your friend is casting to and catching fish before the guide tells them where to cast. The view of all this from the back seat is spectacular. It also allows for capturing all of these stages in photographs so you and your fishing partner can later relive the experience together.

Besides having a back row seat to your buddy’s escapade peppered with occasional hilarity (ever watch someone catch a fish on their backcast?), manning the stern offers other benefits. From there, it’s much easier to learn from the guide regarding fly choice, dropper depth, the amount of weight required to reach fish in the current, and why you’re fishing this particular stretch of river or this run versus that one. I would never have seen my favorite guide Slade Fedore, of Slade’s Montana Fly Fishing, tie a clinch knot using only one hand — a task I have requested him to show me over and over, without learning how myself. The view from the stern also allows you to see the guide’s entire process — how they read the water, how they teach different personality types, and their approach when the fish aren’t biting what they were yesterday. The back seat of a drift boat, as a result of its vantage point, might offer more learning opportunities — and more enjoyment — than the mighty bow.

Fly fishing is a teacher. The lesson comes in the entirety of the experience, and not always in the number of fish you catch. Some of my best fishing memories have come from the back seat.

My wife and I recently welcomed our first son, giving us a full boat. He has obviously yet to pick up a rod at one month old, but he’ll likely be a fisherman too, so I’m grateful for the hours I’ve spent learning in the back seat. Until he’s older, I will choose the back of the boat and all that comes with it. At least until I have one of my own.

A new drift boat will make a perfect first birthday gift.

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Brian Worthington lives in Bozeman, Montana with his wife, Labrador retriever, and 2-month-old son. An avid gearhead, he leads the brand partnership team at Guidefitter and spends his free time hunting birds and big game, fly fishing, trail running, and showing his Texas-based family all Montana has to offer.