The delicate, white-feather legs of a thistle seed run upstream with the wind. The fragile physics of a miniature tumbleweed ballet make it magically spin against the weight of mountains while standing still until this exquisite balance fails and must wait to find its moment again downstream from where you brace your feet against the...
Ernest Hemingway in the Yellowstone High Country by Chris Warren (Riverbend, $19.95) paints a portrait of the Nobel Prize-winning novelist that may surprise and enlighten Hemingway enthusiasts. Shining a light on the small ranch outside of Cooke City, Montana, where the writer spent five summers,...
When he’s not in the kitchen, Chris DiMaio, the executive chef of Three Forks Grille in Columbia Falls, Montana, is often out on the trail foraging for wild food: morels, boletes, chanterelles. When the mushrooms fade, he then looks for arnica, elderberry, and fiddlehead ferns....
To almost everyone who enters Yellowstone National Park, or even those who just look at a map of it, it must seem puzzling that the park laps over into only a few miles of Montana and Idaho. Why is 1 percent of Yellowstone in Idaho,...
There are many reasons why fly anglers are drawn to the sport, some more obsessively than others. Maybe it’s time spent outdoors, the peaceful spell of rushing waters, the game of trying to emulate nature and fool a fish. There’s a beautiful simplicity about angling,...
On the night before my son Jaren’s 18th birthday, I went online to buy him a fishing license. But I wondered if I would regret it. How annoyed would I be if he only used it once? Or more honestly, how disappointed? Worst case, I’d be...
Hilary Hutcheson may be small in stature, but she has the energy and drive of a Class V rapid. Owner of Lary’s Fly & Supply in Columbia Falls, Montana, the town in which she grew up, Hutcheson, 42, started guiding at age 18. She still...
While tinkering around in his shop, Andy Toohey, a master carpenter and an avid Colorado-based angler, started pondering the history of wood boat building and designs, experimenting with different materials and styles. He found that building a hull out of polymer could provide the look...
As I age, a disturbing development is emerging: I take more chances. Why? I want to catch bigger trout. Bigger trout live in nasty, unpredictable places. They hide under ledges, in deep holes, in whitewater, or at the base of waterfalls that are choked with...
June 4 – 6, 2020 North American Rendezvous Backcountry Hunters & Anglers invites sportsmen and women to unite in Missoula, Montana, in support of the backcountry. The 2020 Rendezvous features a lineup of speakers, skills seminars, and social activities, including a wild game cook-off, hands-on demonstrations, raffles,...