(ethereal music) - I've been fishing all my life.

It holds fascination for me and probably will never stop.

- When you come to Montana fly fishing kind of like takes you over.

You don't really take it over.

It's just something you do.

- We're outside every day.

So we get to enjoy nature.

And it's really fun to feel like we're maybe making a difference for the future.

- When myself and a lot of other guides found out that we're able to guide because of COVID, it was really stressful.

- We had about 200 boats booked for our spring season through the end of May and we did 12.

So it stung us.

- Even though I do a lot of other recreational things, I would really miss fishing.

I love it, you know?

So I, yeah, I would feel like a big, big loss to my heart and my soul.

(light music) - [Announcer] This University of Montana School of Journalism production was made possible with production support from the Greater Montana Foundation encouraging communication on issues, trends and values of importance to Montanans.

And by the University of Montana.

- If you live in Hawaii, you learned to surf.

If you live in Colorado or Aspen, you learn to ski.

And if you live in Montana you learned to fly fish because it is the best in the world.

Anywhere I go, I take a fly rod and it's really that simple.

I started fly fishing at age 13, which would be 1973.

My grandfather just said, here's your fly rod.

Walk over the hill, get in the water here and start fishing.

My name is George Kesel.

I am 60 years old and I have been in the fly fishing industry for a while.

See that guy?

That's a blue winged olive.

I keep seeing little blue winged olive casts go by and I keep putting a mahogany back on but that may not be the smartest thing I've done all day.

I have made fly fishing, the central pillar in my life.

I enjoy talking about fishing and have for all my life.

I'm starting to figure some things out at this age having been in this business for 35 years.

When I was young and full of vim and vigor.

I wanted everyone to see fly fishing exactly as I did.

Now I want people to find what they want to find out of fly fishing.

(light music) - Fishing's such a fun adventure and it's great way to enjoy Montana.

You see everything at its best.

You're on a river.

You're in the woods.

You're checked out from reality.

You can put away the cellphone and live in the moment.

I'm a memory maker, I call it.

I make memories every day.

And that's really special.

My name is Jenny West.

I am an outfitter and fly fishing guide here in the Bitterroot Valley in Hamilton, Montana.

I've been guiding for over, since 2002.

So that's about 18 years now.

And I've been an outfitter since 2016.

I love rowing.

I love just feeling the water underneath the oars.

I just loved floating and being on the water.

And it was a good way to connect with my father.

We had a little raft when I was in high school.

And so he and I would switch off rowing and fishing.

So instead of going to the mall, probably going fishing with my dad, you know, so he taught me a lot.

I was a little different, but it was good.

(barking) Oh, I know.

I know, I know.

In that not unknowing time in April and May, all the guiding and outfitting businesses were non-essential.

So we couldn't work.

It was horrible.

It was scary.

Those first two months, you didn't know what was going to happen.

We didn't know.

Would you be running your business again?

You know, one little false move and it can just shut down your whole business - When myself and a lot of other guides found out that we weren't able to guide because of COVID, you know from the beginning of the season.

It was really stressful financially because we rely on every single month of the season.

The financial impact of COVID on my guiding, personally, was pretty worrisome.

Many of us have had to go on unemployment.

When I did go on unemployment that was very helpful, but it was a big hit for a lot of people.

That should have been a fish right there.

It felt a little sick one day.

And I actually got tested and I canceled my trips.

I had to wait for when I got my test results back but it was necessary because you don't wanna infect anyone.

Not a trout fish, but they're still fun to catch.

This is a whitefish though, a very small whitefish, native to Montana.

(light music) - Let us backtrack to the first day I ever went fly fishing and went over the hill without any supervision.

There I am fishing and I caught two fish.

And I went down at about 6:30 and I came back up at about 8:30.

And my grandfather says to me, he said, so how'd you do?

I said, I caught two fish.

He goes, that's great.

It's not dark yet.

I didn't think he'd be home.

Like, I'm out of flies.

He said that was a season's supply of light Cahills.

I'm like, they're gone.

He said, well, if you want to fish tomorrow you better learn how to tie flies.

And that's when I learned how to tie flies.

I been asked, what do I do for the Missoulian Angler?

And the truthful answer is as little as possible as most employees do.

Coronavirus has affected this shop in many, many ways.

It has impacted me tremendously.

I am care taking for my father right now.

He is 88 years old.

He is declining at what we feel is a more rapid rate than should be.

I can't take him out to dinner.

I can't take him to the mall to walk.

There are so many things that are restricted to a man of 88 years old.

And so I haven't worked in this shop since late March because I cannot be exposed to the different people who are coming through here.

I also love being in the store and doing that.

And those things have disappeared.

- That was the hardest part.

We're trying to save our business, but then our kids are also struggling with remote learning in school.

And so we didn't, we kind of pushed them to the side.

We're like, no, we gotta keep our house.

I felt like, you know, that was for me as a mom that was a really hard time.

You know, fly fishing is in our blood.

We love it.

It's what we do with our family.

But we also, there's something about being an entrepreneur and loving running a business.

- [John] We started our business basically out of our bedroom and we just started to do some guiding trips and have built it up from there.

- [Terri] Yup, John's on the river most of the time.

And I'm kind of doing this whole situation, the shop.

- It's been a wild ride.

And now we're in this big facility.

Which is a big deal for us.

Because we pushed a lot of marbles across the table.

A little pro tip.

Don't do that in the middle of a pandemic.

It's been challenging for us.

- [Terri] We lost the bulk of our spring season.

So we were very afraid that nobody was going to travel here.

And as it turned out, a ton of people came here and once they got here, they decided we should go fly fishing.

And so we were lucky with that, but no way did we even begin to touch what we lost.

- It's still down significantly from what we should be.

And you know, you knock that down by another 20 below where we're at, it's a pretty substantial blow.

We were prepared as much as anybody could possibly be.

And we did get some PPP money, but really that Paycheck Protection Program, that basically kept us from losing our house, our managers from losing their houses.

It does nothing for the store.

- [Terri] As we all know, Montana's a tourist based economy.

So that's a big hit for not only us, but every outdoor industry - [John] We're base generators of income across the state.

So we spend all the money to get these people to come here and restaurants, hotels, airlines, everybody else reaps the benefit of our business.

I mean, it's huge.

I don't know how many millions of dollars we brought to Montana over the last 30 years, but it's in the tens of millions (light music) - Right, we had the COVID cycle where we're like, oh the world is going to end, nothing's gonna open up.

And then the next day you're like, no everything's gonna be open up, it's fine So it was really like the COVID rollercoaster but I knew I would get some trips.

I knew some ladies would wanna fish.

Because they're in that hole.

We are a fly fishing school for women who want to learn how to fly fish on their own.

To tie their own knots, to be able to choose their own water, to go into a fly shop and not be intimidated is to give these ladies the tools to do it themselves.

And that's what differentiates us from other women's fly fishing schools.

It's still enough where a bird of prey could see the trout.

It's not a guiding trip, it's a learning trip.

Why is it all women's?

I don't know.

Don't guys have everything?

My name is Carlye Luft and I am a fly fishing guide.

And the director of the Montana Women's Fly Fishing School.

Knowing that if I pull on this, I'm not gonna break anything.

So I used to be a naturopathic medical doctor and I put fishing aside a little bit to go through my education and build my career.

I could tell that being away from my passion and being out of nature was really affecting my quality of life.

I went around to a few outfitters to see who was interested in growing a women's fly fishing program.

And funny enough, this shop already had one started and it just, it like all came together just instantly.

And here we are.

I don't think that we lost a whole lot of participation because when we were shut down in the beginning that just really pushed people to get out there later in the summer.

So the numbers, as far as participation, is high and classes are full.

- I'm so excited!

(laughing) - I'm Ruth Ann Halls.

I'm a physical therapist from Fargo, North Dakota.

The Gallatin River guides really made a point to say that they were practicing social distancing and mask wearing in their fly shop.

And that they were conscientious about that out in the open as well.

So they really addressed it both when I came in and talked to them in the shop and over the phone, when I signed up with them.

- It's not, so this isn't a 4X here, right?

This is probably like a one.

And the leader we loop the fly lines through that leader loop.

- I think I was a little intimidated by going into fly shops and guys always having the jargon down and things of that nature.

Whereas doing it with some women friends of mine from the beginner levels, starting out and kind of learning together really it was a bonding thing and gave me a lot of confidence to be able to come out and do it with some people that were at the same level as I was.

- [Carlye]- In the afternoon we head out and we go fishing.

And catching the fish isn't our number one priority for that first day in the afternoon.

We talk about fly selection and then we're working on casting, the drift, the hook set and reeling in that fish.

There, that's good!

Those are up into the shallows.

- Oh, okay.

- Get a mend and then let's let it fall into this bucket.

There you go.

Yeah, yeah, yeah!

There you go, strip, strip, strip.

Good job, good.

- Yup, tension strip him in, strip, strip.

I had the thrill of catching a fish sort of on my own with a little guidance from Carlye.

But it really felt good to be able to catch one and land one on my own.

That felt just great.

There you go, we got him!

(cheering) - Yes!

I see the stress on people's faces go away.

I see women stop worrying about like kids all the time, or a husband all the time, or partner all the time, or work all the time.

I just, I see that within a day.

Pop him back in the net.

- Good job.

- Thanks for playing, buddy When I was in medicine it would take years to do that.

Whereas like with fly fishing, I was like, oh this is like an easy road to getting people to relax and reduce stress right away.

And to feel empowered and have excitement that they caught a fish and they were out in nature and did stuff.

And just seeing that for the first time it was just so exciting for me that I was like, oh yeah this is the best medicine for sure.

The best medicine.

- Once the state opened up in June everybody was coming to Montana wanting to experience fishing and I had a really busy season.

We had guidelines like for, you know cleaning your car, sanitizing your vehicle, and your boat.

But you know, I think overall being on the river once you're on the water in your boat, I felt really safe.

And I think people felt that too.

They wanted to just get away and have some kind of good thing happened to them and not just always have this pandemic-y cloud, you know, rain cloud over their heads all the time.

- We fished together for a long number of years.

- Yeah.

- And it's always fun to fish with her.

And she coaches us a lot.

She helps us a lot.

She knows, she'll go to a pool and say, okay there's a fish in here.

And so, you know, put your fly right there.

And invariably when you put, if you put your fly in the right place, one of her fish will grab the line.

- Whoa!

Holy macaroni!

He's part rainbow and cutthroat.

See that orange underneath his chin?

That's a cutthroat sign.

And then he's rainbow with the rainbow stripe.

Pretty, huh?

- We love it.

We love to be on the river, but we're not the best fishing.

She's good to us.

Because she fishes with people that are really good fish people.

- It's good that she's patient with us.

- Yes.

- Which is nice, which is nice, yeah.

- [Jenny] I mean, when you come out on the river you're, you gotta just live in the moment.

You gotta focus on connecting with that fly.

What's happening now, we're seeing water temps rise a lot more quickly.

Especially when the water gets lower.

You know, when the temperatures get above 70 degrees on the water, it's pretty bad.

I mean that's really warm and it's really hard on the fish.

That's a neat thing about my job.

You know, you are a conservationist and if you're not you probably shouldn't be doing that job.

If you're just out to catch fish and you don't care.

That's not the reason you should be out there.

You gotta care for the resource, too.

And take pride in it.

- There's a reason why the world flocks to Montana to fish.

It's because we have the most trout fishing per square mile of anywhere in the world that I know of.

In 1992 some guy named Brad Pitt and some guy named Robert Redford said fly fishing is cool.

And 50% of the population went, oh.

Fly fishing is cool.

And all of a sudden it's hot.

(light music) - Outdoor recreation, specifically, is on the rise.

It was an insane summer and it wasn't just the summer.

It was an insane spring and summer.

I don't think we ever realized that many people could come.

I mean, it was that bad.

At one point had 144 cars that were overflowing the parking lot out onto the road, at one site.

We know for a fact that there were more boats on the rivers this year than ever before.

- [George] Agriculture and tourism run neck and neck for monetary wealth brought into this state.

So it behooves this state to keep their rivers clean.

So conservation happens in many different ways and in many different forms, as you cross the spectrum of what we call the fly fishing industry.

When your business is extraction of a resource which is what fly fishing is, fly fishing is a resource.

We are mining that.

We're using that to our advantage.

Why would you not want to protect it for the next generation?

And why would you not care for it as if your business depended on it?

- You have to have good, healthy fisheries in order for I feel like, a fly fishing industry to be successful.

Fishing is such a big part of Montana and not just as far as the fly fishing industry but through time.

What are numbers doing, you know?

Are some species declining or are some species on the increase?

Is disease present?

And all of that is super, super important.

Whether you're just a general fishermen from the general public or whether you're in the fly fishing industry.

Electro fishing, it's our primary sampling method for doing fish counts.

- When we put that electrode in the water fish are attracted to that electrode not because they want to be, because they have to be.

Which allows us to capture 'em with dip nets.

Using electric fishing like that allows us to collect this background data that we have in case we need it.

183.66 Leslie, who works with me brings an incredible kind of history and knowledge of what's happened in the basin.

And to me that's incredibly important 323, 354.

- [Leslie] As we're kind of keeping track of those fisheries noting the health of those fisheries.

And if we see something, maybe something needs to change.

- [Jason] A lot of the stuff we want to focus on are habitat improvement, making sure fish populations are connected.

So, removing barriers where it's appropriate, putting in fish screens, stuff like that to keep fish in these systems.

- Fish coming out of the Clark Fork River, they want to swim upstream up Rattlesnake Creek to spawn in this pristine wilderness we have up here.

But this dam blocked them from doing that.

Fish like native cutthroat, whitefish, bull trout.

And then now non-native fish like rainbow trout and brown trout couldn't move upstream.

It looks like a big disturbance, a big construction project.

But in the end, you know we're trying to basically re-naturalize the site.

Put this thing back together more or less the way it looked over a hundred years ago.

And we get to, you know, really finesse the entire project, the entire area.

It's going to be a great natural wild area for people to enjoy.

There is this cycle of habitat that feeds the fishing and the recreation experience.

It's been a really good groundswell of people that have come together to support it and really without all those different groups coming in at different angles I don't think we could have made it happen as quickly as we did or as well as we've done.

- This is my second season working on the same project.

Like last year we cleared the dam of trees and now this year it looks brand new and way different than it did last year.

And knowing I took part in that is pretty gratifying.

If we care and protect, you know, land in the right manner then it will care for us in return.

And hopefully that rhetoric is carried forward.

You know, everywhere we go from here on out.

- [Jason] The crystal ball of what's going to happen to our trout populations in Western Montana is, it's a little cloudy but it doesn't look real rosy, either.

Especially for our native fish.

As you turn on the news every night and you hear climate change, climate change, climate change.

And I think a lot of people want to drown that out.

- It's tough.

It's really tough to turn back the increasing temperatures of water.

But maybe we'll figure that out so that we can keep that moving in the right direction to help protect the fisheries.

It's not just about being out there catching a fish.

They should understand what goes into maintaining and managing healthy fisheries.

Why is habitat so important?

And preserving that for future generations.

It's not just for right now.

It's not just for, you know, this moment.

We'd like to be able to maintain that and have good healthy fisheries into the future.

- You know, I think it's important for us to realize that we're not going to see this increase stop anytime soon.

And so conservation work helps us, hopefully figure out how to provide recreation for this many people but do it in a way that we can still do it 10 years from now.

- [John] Because not only is our livelihood based on having clean, clear water and amazing view sheds, but that's what we love, that's who we are.

- That's our moral compass, right?

- It's important to us.

And that'll never change.

I don't think, I hope not.

- No way.

- I'm glad we're done.

I'm glad I'm finishing my season up and it's good to just kind of let the dust settle and hopefully things will change in the spring.

- [George] There's pretty much a perfect freedom when you're out there.

You're not concentrating on anything else.

You are pitting yourself against a creature that has a measured IQ of four.

You are being defeated on a regular basis and you don't care.

I'm out there for my amusement only.

And that always makes me happy.

I can't imagine what it would be like without fly fishing.

I don't want to imagine it what it would be like without fly fishing.

(light music)