By BRYCE MCLEAN
Every year about this time, I start to slowly go insane.
Sure, this winter has been pretty easy on us, but I’m definitely ready for some warmer weather and some dry flies! Now that we can’t spend our weekends watching football or duck hunting, we find ourselves craving a little bit of spring fishing.
That said, I’m happy to say that there is hope for us yet.
Luckily, there is an event held every year in Missoula that helps us make it through these tough times. This epic event is known as the Fly Fishing Film Tour, and it’s being held this Friday at the Wilma!
Everybody who went last year knows how beneficial this event can be after you have been freezing your ass off and staring at an indicator for the last 3 months.
We all get to pound a few beers together, and lose ourselves in a big screen filled with shots of huge tarpon, Missouri dry fly sippers, dudes swearing at permit, and redfish being landed on 4x tippet.
It’s hard to describe the buzz in the Grizzly Hackle during their now annual FFFT pre-party. Last year, the shop was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with all types of hearty Missoula anglers awaiting a much anticipated sold out show at the Wilma.
This year promises to be even better.
It’s the first time since September that most of us will even think about fly fishing, but it’s hard not to get caught up in the excitement as the lights are turned down and the half-drunk crowd fills the legendary venue with a raucous cheer.
For details on the show, call the Grizzly Hackle at 721-8996. Tickets are also available at all of the major local fly shops, so hook yourself (and a friend) up!
Matt and I will see you there, and if you do happen to stop by the Grizzly Hackle for the party (which you have no excuses for missing), we will be premiering our first film, “Sweet Release”. It’s filmed entirely in the 406!
We will see you all there!
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Need more tales from the river? Check out Matt and Bryce’s other blogs: Skwalla Stonefly Season Countdown, Fly Fishing: The Comedy of Tragedy, and An Ode to Brown Trout, or visit the Fish It archive.
Be sure to visit the Make it Missoula fishing page.
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Matt Devlin (left) is originally from Annapolis, Maryland and learned to fool trout on the technical waters of the Gunpowder River. He has fished in Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, Maine, Michigan, Indiana, North and South Carolina, Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. He thinks about flies and fishing a whole lot.
Bryce McLean (right) was born and raised in Montana, and has been fly fishing here for almost 20 years. He first learned to fish on the Missouri River, but when he was ten, his family moved to the Bitterroot Valley. He’s been fishing the Bitterroot River ever since. This has been his second season guiding the Missoula area rivers, which he consider to be some of the best trout fisheries on planet Earth.