With four hours of open Idaho road bisecting sagebrush and basalt in the predawn hours, there’s plenty of time to think. I spent some of that time thinking about the upcoming day. With a goodly portion of the synapses firing in a rainbow pattern (trout, that is).

Kevin invited me to the Big Lost River, a place where I’d had great success fishing with Dan the year before. With the prospects of fishing for decent size rainbows in a relatively small water, I could hardly say no.

But there was something else occupying brainwaves. Actually, someone else. His name is Boone Barnes. He is a realtor in Arco, Idaho, gateway to the Big Lost. (And yes, for those of you who may have read my post within the first month or so after that trip in 2008, that’s the place I called “The Armpit of America.”)

It’s not nice to call a place where real people live, an armpit. People make their home there. They work and play there. Something keeps them there.

These were some of my thoughts in those dark, rhyolite hours on the road. I was glad I had taken the armpit reference down long before Boone happened across my site, or he may not have paused long enough to leave a comment about what the Big Lost used to be like. As I got to know him through email, I realized that, much like the old cliché of not knowing a book by its cover, you don’t know a town by what you see just driving through. The real character of a town is indeed its characters—those who not only populate it, but who animate it.

As with many comments left when visiting a blog, Boone included a web address pointing to his MySpace page. I always like to know a little about who comments, so I looked at his page. Come to find out he’s not just a realtor, he’s also a musician. He has samples of his acoustic/alternative/rock music on his page. I listened to them and really liked some, so I purchased them. But he also had a link to some footage of a few people trying to rescue some stranded fish in a quickly dewatered river, and that really caught my angler’s sensibilities.

We ended up sending a few emails back and forth. When he found out I was going to be at the Big Lost again, he invited me to stop by and see the fly tying “room” he inherited.

With the sun well above the horizon when I rolled into Arco, I still saw dead trees lining a lost river running through a faded town. But I also knew the passion of one man, who, as a little boy, watched his father catch five pound trout below the shade of tress that have now permanently lost their leaves. I knew the passion of a man who rescues trout stranded in the pools of a river that has always lost its water, draining into the underground Snake River Plain Aquifer, only to reappear further along the Snake River Plain at Thousand Springs. Now it seems in danger of becoming forever lost.

Looking around Arco this time, I still pictured the cover of the town, but I understood some of the pages under that cover too. And I realized there was a spine that binds it together.

I met up with Kevin and his fishing buddy Daryl. I left my car in Arco and we fished the Big Lost. When I got back in town, I gave Boone a call. We met about five minutes later and I followed him to his office. We got out of our vehicles, made the official introduction with handshakes, and I met his little daughter, Cora, full of wonder and energy.

Something about the light in the eyes comes through when someone talks about things close to their heart and it’s immediately recognized as passion. As Boone showed me into a room on one end of his office building, the passion was hard to hide. There, covering one wall, plus a little more, was what Boone had inherited—what appeared to be one man’s purpose for living—a fly tier’s bonanza overflowing drawer upon drawer. When Boone’s father’s friend passed away the previous year, Boone inherited all of his tying possessions.

Everything in the picture, except the lights attached to the ceiling, is what he got—books, vices, drawers, materials in the drawers, etc.:

Apparently the man had a couple of sons who, for some unknown reason, didn’t seem to get along all that well with their father. And when the man died, he left the tying things to Boone. Maybe the brothers tied flies, maybe they didn’t, but they lost the opportunity to inherit something they could have passed on to their own children. They lost something that is now gone for them forever.

It’s hard to describe the excitement someone has, the absolute wonder they feel, at being blessed with something they can hardly imagine. Boone has had some time to adjust to his windfall of feather and fur, but you can’t help but notice that awe in his voice as he showed nook after cranny stuffed with tying materials. It’s not the, “I’ve got a bunch of cool stuff, ha, ha, ha,” attitude, but more along the lines of, “I can’t believe what has happened to me—I can’t believe this has been given to me.”

Cora picked at the feathers and bobbins, flitting from one thing to another. She settled for a moment at the vise as Boone helped her adjust some things. She seemed as enamored with the pretty colors and textures as my daughter, who loves to tie big, gaudy flies—I call them “girly” flies—tufts of bright yellows, greens and pinks..

As much as the tying room made me happy for Boone’s good fortune, what really struck me was the concern for his home river, the Big Lost. We talked about the way it used to be. Regarding this picture, in Boone’s words:

“[This] was my father’s favorite fishing hole as a youth. You can see the remnants of the hole at the top of the picture as the river curves. It was the first hole he fished on Memorial Day (opening day) each year. He tells me of his incredible anticipation on the morning of opening day and how, even though the water was a raging torrent, they would fish the entire day. They named this hole buttermilk because of the curds and whey that used to run into the Big Lost on this corner from the old cheese factory. It is in this same stretch that dad saw his older brother, Jack, catch 2 fish at the same time on a nymph and a nymph dropper. He landed them both too. Dad was about 8 years old. He is now 70.”

I could sense his anguish as he related to me in person the memories of the river running past Arco, and how it now disappears miles before making it to town. His grief and feeling of helplessness as he watches a part of history, literally his story, disappear.

How does one lose a river? And, more importantly, can one regain a river?

The Big Lost River is on the northern edge of the Snake River Plain. Before white people settled in the area the Big Lost “disappeared” (percolated back into the ground thereby rejoining the aquifer) about 40 river miles northeast of Arco (about 24 miles from Arco as the crow flies, and 7 miles due east of Howe, Idaho) in an area known as Big Lost River Sinks.

Because of its interesting hydrology, the groundwater and river water are closely connected. The aquifer under and near the Big Lost drainage is surprisingly close to the surface, in some places only about 10 feet deep. Because of the close proximity of the aquifer and river, they are often seen as a single source of water, not two separate sources.

The bulk of the water within the Big Lost system is from precipitation, much of it coming as winter snowpack. Obviously, in dry years, the aquifer drops, causing the river to percolate into the ground further upstream than in wet years. But these are natural fluctuations that cause the Big Lost River to flow longer or shorter.

Humans have had a huge impact on the Big Lost aquifer, known to those who use the water as Idaho Water District No. 34, or Basin 34 for short. Irrigation is a major draw on the resource, taking water from both the surface and ground. Water rights are more typically used for surface water, but in Basin 34, when water is taken from the surface, it depletes the ground water and vice versa. This disrupts the availability of water for share holders no matter the source.

Idaho has a “first in time, first in right” law meaning those who received their water rights first, have first claim on the water. Those who received their rights last, have last claim to the water. Let’s say someone downriver has older shares than someone living upriver. The water would bypass the newer share holder and be delivered to the older share holder. However, maybe because of low snowpack for the year, the water never makes it to the lower part of the river and the older share holder. How does that right holder get his water? Basin 34 has special regulations that try to fix these problems with weirs, canals, diversions and ditches. These special regulations are meant to protect the share holders’ rights to the use of the water.

Does the river have a right to retain its natural flows? What about those who have historically relied on the river for non-irrigation purposes? Water gives us more than just the ability to grow crops or water livestock. It gives more than just sustenance to humans—it’s a place for the soul and psyche to refresh itself. Towns sprinkled along the Big Lost’s shores used it to swim through, hunt near, skate on and fish in it. Past generations, like Boone’s father, relied on it for more than it’s utilitarian purposes.

Boone is frustrated with the policies and spiteful actions of some who end up hurting the river system as a whole. Their petty grievances cause the river to suffer and continue its disappearing trick more rapidly than ever.

As Cora grows and refines her tying skills, then makes her way to the river to offer those flies to fish, will it be her home water, the Big Lost, mere blocks from her house? Or will the Big Lost be gone so she has to go miles from her house, in someone else’s town—someone else’s water? What legacy will be left for Cora to pass on?

Once the Big Lost is lost, is it lost forever?

All photos shot by Boone Barnes. Post-processing work (cropping, black and white work) by Cutthroat Stalker.

Boone’s MySpace page and his music

Boone’s rescue operation video

Idaho Department of Water Resources

Idaho Department of Water Resources , Basin-wide Issues 5-34 (has legal issues and cases going back many years)

What Is a Water Right? An explanation of Idaho’s water rights

Some information from Trout Unlimited on the Big Lost (PDF file)

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