Hilary Hutcheson

Ambassador

 

Hilary started her fly-fishing career as a teenaged guide in West Glacier, Montana. She guided through college, then took her journalism degree to Portland, Oregon where she worked as a television news anchor and reporter. She eventually returned to Montana to guide and co-own and operate Outside Media and Trout TV for nearly a decade. Today, she’s still guiding on the Flathead River and the Middle Fork of the Salmon River and owns and runs a fly shop called Lary’s Fly & Supply in her hometown of Columbia Falls, Montana. She is an instructor at School of Trout, and Casting for Recovery, serves as a national board member of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, sits on the advisory committee for Guiding For the Future, is a climate activist with Protect Our Winters and is a contributing editor for Fly Fisherman Magazine. She is an ambassador for YETI, Orvis, Costa, Patagonia and Scientific Anglers. She loves hanging out with her three-legged yellow lab, two teen daughters, Ella and Delaney and her partner, Ebon, especially when they volunteer on the oars.

  1. Home water? Middle Fork and North Fork of the Flathead River
  2. What 2-3 lines do you use the most and why? For throwing small dry flies to to picky trout late in the summer when the fish have seen everything and are super spooky, I like the Amplitude Smooth Trout line in a 4 or 5 wt. I get a stealthy, delicate presentation, especially when casting  medium distances. I am able to put the fly where I want it without making a game-threatening disturbance. For getting larger dry flies and streamers where I want them, I prefer the Amplitude MPX. It allows me to get more line out quickly and farther, and I can present and swim streamers without sloppiness. I also use this line for nymphing.
  3. What was the watershed moment when you knew you wanted to make your living fishing?  I first started guiding in high school and at that time I didn’t expect it to be a career. Since then, I have left guiding multiple times for other careers, not because I didn’t like guiding, but because it simply didn’t occur to me that I could make a living doing it. I had gone to college and gotten a degree and I felt like if a “real job” didn’t work out, I could go back to guiding. About ten years ago I realized that I had to change my mentality and accept that guiding isn’t a fall-back, but actually the perfect career for me.
  4. If you could spend one day on the water with anyone, who would it be? My dad, always, because I didn’t start taking him on the river until a few years ago, and I want to make up for lost time.
  5. On the rocks or straight? 
 One rock in the summer, but keep it neat in the winter.
  6. If you could give one piece of angling advice to a younger version of yourself, what would it be? 
 Write everything down.
  7. What’s in the cooler? 
 My daughters want to have the YETI stocked with Peace Tea, fried chicken, Kettle Chips, popcorn and Peachy-Os. For me lately it’s been Modelo, organic sugar snap peas and dried mangoes.
  8. What are you doing when you’re not fishing? When I’m not fishing I just want to hang with my family. We’re into skiing, whitewater rafting, camping, traveling and concerts. And I like playing board games with my brother and sister.
  9. Where would you most like to fish? 
New Zealand–I’ve never been.
  10. Stealth or bright lines? 
 Either
  11. Two Truths and a Lie. 
 I have a tattoo of the 20” marker on my arm, forced on me by Kelly Galloup. 2. I learned to cook methamphetamine as a television news reporter in the big city. 3. I was a collegiate cheerleader. Go Griz.
  12. Craziest experience on the water? 
My favorite crazy time was sneaking around a misty, flooded Estonian spring creek at midnight with a stranger during the summer solstice mayfly hatch, eating herring and drinking Jager, wearing men’s XXL waders and size 14 basketball high tops, possibly Reebok Pumps.