2016 Fly Fishing Film Tour - Missoula review

Line outside the Wilma Theater

The 2016 Fly Fishing Film Tour is great!  I went back to Missoula to get the big city effect. The tour in Missoula is amazing. They have two showings now because so many people show up. I remember in the early years when there was plenty of seats and a ton of giveaways.  There are still some great prizes but they are a bit diluted nowadays with the packed house.

The films were great this year.  It was mostly salty but in a good way.  Lots of new species to get excited about someday.  The best this year was from Geofish (formerly Geobass).

The show makes its way to Butte on Feb. 11 and is hosted by The Stonefly Fly Shop.  I bought some of my students some tickets and will be supporting my local show as well.

Montana Standard's "Caddis Conundrum" describes the Missouri River bug study

The Montana Standard has a great article titled, "Caddis Conundrum" which discusses the macroinvertebrate study performed by Morrison Maierle Inc.  The study was commissioned by the Upper Missouri Watershed Alliance.

It sought to make baseline observations of the macroinvertebrate communities in the Missouri River below Holter Dam.  In the past decade, the river has had significant ecological and structural changes which have manifested in a change in bug densities and communities.

I hope they'll get to continue this study in the long term because although these preliminary results are interesting, they mean nothing without observations over a longer time interval.

Restore Our Creek Coalition and the Montana Standard to hold public forum on the Parrot tailings

The Restore Our Creek Coalition and the Montana Standard will be holding a public forum to discuss the removal of the Parrot Tailings along Upper Silver Bow Creek.  This should be a really cool meeting because representatives from the EPA, the MT DEQ, ARCO, BNRC, and Butte Silver Bow will all be together in one place with the public.

The forum will be at 6:30 pm on Tuesday, January, 19th at the Mining City Center, 400 West Park Street, in Butte, Montana.

A very sad day in music news

David Bowie has gone back up to space.  The world will never be the same again...

Southwest Montana fisheries improvement meeting on Monday in Butte

Silver Bow Creek cutthroat trout

Next Monday, January 11th 2015, there is a public meeting to discuss the improvement of Southwest Montana fisheries. At 6:30 pm Ron Spoon, State Fisheries Biologist, will give a presentation on the Jefferson River Project, a restoration project which is helping make the Jefferson River into a world-class trout fishery. 

Also, Josh Vincent of Water and Environmental Technologies (WET), a local environmental engineering firm, will discuss how he, Pat Munday, and Steve Luebeck utilized a grant they received on behalf of the George Grant Chapter of Trout Unlimited which they used for habitat improvements on German Gulch, the most important tributary (for trout) to Silver Bow Creek. 

The meeting is at the Butte Business Development Center at 305 W. Mercury Street in Butte, Montana.  This is the old Boys Central School Building.

See you there!!

Info from The Montana Standard

Local Butte musician has great album with songs about Big Hole and Opportunity

Yesterday, I discovered that local Butte professor, fly fisher, conservationist, musician, and author Chad Okrusch has this great album while listening to Butte America Radio KBMF .  My favorite song was "Opportunity Blues" which talks about the town of Opportunity Montana and its plight as a "big ol' corporate toxic waste dump."  Another great song is "Big Hole River."  You can't go wrong with a song about one of the coolest rivers on the planet!

You can listen to the whole album here and buy the songs here.