Blog

• Annual Meeting a Success
• Guiding for the Future: 2023
• Guides and Advertising: Are You Breaking the Rules?
• Holding the Line by Example: Montana’s AIS Program
• Clark Fork River Strategic Plan: Update
• FOAM Reestablishes Flathead/Kootenai Region
• FOAM’s Newest Director, Guide-At-Large, East, Coleman Savage
• Legislative Update
• Classified Ads

FOAM’s Annual Meeting was held Friday and Saturday, March 3^rd and 4th, at the new and awesome AC Hotel in Bozeman.

This year’s meeting was an outstanding success.  This year’s meeting included vendor displays from Skwala, Simms, Cheeky, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and Trxstle Rod Carriers.

This year’s presentations included:

• Statewide Fisheries Management Plan from Eric Roberts, Fish Management Bureau Chief for Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP);
• State of the Fishery – Madison from Dr. Mike Duncan, Fisheries Biologist, Region 3;
• State of the Fishery – Bighorn from Shannon Blackburn, Fisheries Manager, Region 5;
• Bighorn River Alliance, Non-Profits and Conservation from Executive Director Anne Marie Emery;
• AIS in Montana from AIS Bureau Chief Tom Woolf;
• Modeling Brown Trout Populations – Big Hole, Beaverhead from Fisheries Biologist Matt Jaeger;
• Guiding for the Future from G4F Coordinator Russell Parks;
• FOAM Annual Report from FOAM Executive Director Mike Bias;
• Five for 2023, a presentation of Mark Raisler’s 5 things to do in 2023;
• Risk, Assessment, and Awareness for Guiding, Phil Sgamma, and;
• Discussion on the Now-Tabled Commercial River User Bill from Mike Bias.

An awesome reception, provided by Skwala, followed the presentations.  Beer was provided courtesy of Lewis & Clark Brewing, with Snacks provided courtesy of the Bissell Agency.  This was topped off with music by Chad Okrusch.

Our own Russell Parks from Missoula won this year’s raffle boat, a new NRS Slipstream 120 Fishing Raft Package.  Congratulations Russell.

We send a huge THANK YOU to all presenters, providers, raffle donors, and vendors.  Without you our Annual Meeting could not have been the success we witnessed.

Guiding for the Future, 2023!

From March 7th through the 9th, 2023, Guiding for the Future (G4F) completed its third course practicum.  This year’s G4F had 21 Participants complete the online curriculum, attend the required classroom meetings and field practicum, and completed the comprehensive exam.  A total of 383.5 hours were logged among the students to successfully complete the online portion of the G4F course, averaging 18.3 hours of online study per student.  Despite another year of low March temperatures, all participants completed all hands-on field exercises during the three-day field practicum.  With the third cycle of the program complete, over 60 students have graduated from the program and are G4F Ambassadors.  The practicum was held at the Bitterroot River Lodge right on the Bitterroot River just south of Hamilton, Montana.  G4F is a program that provides advanced levels of knowledge and skill development for professional fishing guides.

The goal of the G4F program is to enhance the stewardship of aquatic ecosystems while increasing knowledge, professionalism, and ethics of fishing guides, outfitters, and members of the fly-fishing industry.  Led by the Fishing Outfitters Association of Montana (FOAM) and guided by a volunteer steering committee of industry professionals, G4F is a new continuing education program for fishing guides and outfitters in the state of Montana and beyond.  G4F is a voluntary course of self-directed study, classroom study, fieldwork, and evaluation.  Participating outfitters and guides undergo a curriculum that strengthens competence, increases knowledge and skills, and establishes their commitment to become stewards of the rivers on which their livelihoods depend.  Successful completion of this course provides participating guides, outfitters, and fly shop staff with a set of credentials that distinguish them to outfitters, clients, other river users, and agencies.  The G4F program is presented as a hybrid learning experience with the portions of the course through self-directed study online, in class presentations, with field-portions of the practicum taught hands-on through small in-person groups.  Instructors of the G4F practicum, approved by the FOAM Board of Directors and the G4F steering committee, are all experts in their field.  A tremendous benefit of teaching the G4F program using the hybrid model allows us to deliver the G4F program for an annual budget of only $50,000.

Applications are now being accepted for G4F 2024, please direct all inquiries to the G4F website.

Holding the Line by Example: Montana’s AIS Program

While it may not feel like it, Spring has debuted in Montana, bringing improved water outlooks for many of the state’s wild trout rivers, and shared anticipation for the upcoming guide season.  For many Montana Fly-Fishing outfitters and guides, this is the time of year for booking trips, renewing licenses, and scouting rivers.  For state agencies, nonprofits, and conservation districts, this is the time to start “holding the line” against Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) – species that are, quite literally, knocking on the state’s border.

From now until the first week of May, AIS check stations will begin reopening throughout the state.  These stations and the workers that staff them, protect our rivers by requiring all watercraft (whether local or out of state) to stop and be physically inspected before entering a Montana waterbody.  As per Montana law, it is illegal to pass an open check station without stopping if towing a watercraft.

The success of these stations – from the funding they receive to remain operational, to their placement and hours of operation – is dependent on people working together to comply with their use.  The stations that have the most compliance (meaning people are not just driving by them), have higher chances of remaining funded.  Those with lower compliance may become unfunded, creating less protection for the rivers they currently work to defend.

Montana’s fishing outfitters and guides are key to the success of the Montana AIS program.  While it can be frustrating to have to stop at a station every day when your boat does not leave a particular body of water throughout the season, stopping and being inspected serves as an example to the boater behind you- a boater who may come from AIS-infested waters.  If you drive by, they will drive by.

As we approach the 2023 season and prepare for the influx of people to come, we strongly rely on the guiding community to help “hold the line” through example when it comes to AIS station compliance.  By working together, we ensure that the layers of protection we have in place to protect our valued trout waters remain intact.

-Contributed by Anne Marie Emery, Executive Director, Bighorn River Alliance

The Upper Clark Fork River continues its transformation as part of the largest Superfund site in the country.  The State of Montana has released a new strategic plan to guide the next 10+ years.  Learn more about how the plan sets remediation and restoration priorities and timelines on the mainstem of the Clark Fork.

This important update meeting will be held Tuesday, April 25^th, 6:00 – 8:00 PM, at the Powell County Community Center, 416 Cottonwood Avenue, Deer lodge, MT.  Pizza and Mountain Dew will be provided!

Meeting Flyer
Executive Summary
Strategic Plan with Appendices

The large western FOAM Region – Bitterroot, Clark Fork, Flathead, and Kootenai – was formerly two separate regions, Clark Fork/Bitterroot and Flathead/Kootenai, but consolidated years ago because of a lack of adequate representation from the Flathead, Kootenai area.  You will recall that at during our 2022 Annual Meeting due to renewed interest in representation from the Flathead/Kootenai area, FOAM members elected Mark Fuller to represent this area as a co-Director (along with Tony Reinhardt) of this large FOAM region.  We are happy to report that during this year’s Annual Meeting, FOAM members voted unanimously to reestablish the Flathead/Kootenai area as its own FOAM Region with Mark Fuller as its Director.

After the vote was held and ballots tallied at our Annual Meeting in early March, Coleman Savage was elected as FOAM’s new Guide-at-large, East Director.  Coleman is replacing outgoing director Matt Hargrave, who recently became Montana’s newest outfitter.  Congratulations and huge thank you to Matt for his year’s of service on FOAM’s Board of Directors.

Coleman grew up in rural Virginia where he learned to fly fish on the James River.  He got his start in the industry as a young man teaching casting and fly-tying classes at a local fly shop.  After graduating from high school, he packed up and moved to Montana.

A few summers on the river and winters at the ski hill went by before he enrolled at MSU to pursue an interdisciplinary BS in Riparian Ecology, Earth Science / GIS, and Business.

Coleman calls Bozeman home and spends most of his season guiding on the Yellowstone River.  He has been a FOAM member since the beginning of his guiding career and is excited to be more involved as a member of the board.  He is also a distinguished graduate of the FOAM’s Guiding for the Future program.

When he is not on the water, Coleman is spending time with friends and family, working on the next outside-the-box fly pattern, or looking for some deep tele turns.

HB 642  AN ACT REVISING EXCEPTIONS TO WATER RIGHT PERMIT REQUIREMENTS; AMENDING SECTIONS 85-2-306 AND 85-2-381, MCA; AND PROVIDING AN IMMEDIATE EFFECTIVE DATE AND A RETROACTIVE APPLICABILITY DATE [Exempt Well Bill]

INTRODUCED BY C. KNUDSEN

This was the bill that Montana Trout Unlimited’s Policy Director, Clayton Elliot termed “the worst bill [he’s] ever seen.”  FOAM testified against this bill on 22 February.  This bill was tabled in House Natural Resources Committee 29 March, 15-0.

HB 473  AN ACT PROVIDING SELENIUM STANDARDS FOR LAKE KOOCANUSA AND THE KOOTENAI RIVER; DIRECTING THE AMENDMENT OF ARM 17.30.602 TO REMOVE THE DEFINITION OF “STEADY STATE”; REPEALING ARM 17.30.632; AMENDING SECTION 75-5-310, MCA; AND PROVIDING AN IMMEDIATE EFFECTIVE DATE DATES [Relax Selenium Standards]

This bill passed House Natural Resources 20 Feb 2023, 10-5, and passed the House 27 Feb 2023, 64-34.
The Senate Natural Resources hearing was held 5 April 2023, we provided testimony opposing this bill via proxy.  Interestingly there were no proponents for this bill, all opponents.

HB 87  AN ACT GENERALLY REVISING LAWS RELATED TO LICENSING BOARDS; ESTABLISHING STANDARDS FOR APPOINTMENTS, QUALIFICATIONS, AND TERMS FOR LICENSING BOARDS; PROVIDING FOR STANDARDIZED LICENSING BOARD ORGANIZATION AND COMPENSATION; REVISING REQUIREMENTS TO REVIEW REQUESTS TO CREATE A NEW LICENSING BOARD; ADDING LICENSING PROGRAMS TO THE REVIEW REQUIRED FOR NEW LICENSING BOARDS…

FOAM attended House Business and Labor Committee meetings, and we provided testimony opposing:
Removal of board members without cause
Public members on boards (general)
Composition of Board of Outfitters
Public member qualifications
Retain packing endorsement
FOAM provided proposed amendments to Governor’s Office and DLI.

Amendments available on 6 February.  On 29 March this bill passed HB&L Committee, 10-9, which included our amendments.  This bill then passed the House on 4 April.  The bill was referred to Senate Business, Labor, & Economic Affairs on 5 April and a hearing was held on 12 April.

HB 2  This is a large budget bill for agencies, including DNRC funding

FOAM attended the public comment hearing on this bill and provided testimony supporting DP 2403 – Montana Stream Gage Network Support – requesting $1.46 million in one-time-only funds for the installation of another 64 DNRC real time stream gages over the next couple of years across Montana.

This bill passed the House, 23 Mar 2023.  This bill was transmitted to Senate Finance & Claims, and hearings were held on 5 and 6 April and passed out of this committee on 13 April, 19-0.

HB 5  Long Range Planning – this is part of a large budget bill for agencies, including FWP’s Biennial Budget

FOAM attended public comment hearing and provided testimony supporting
FWP Erosion Control
FWP Community Fish Ponds
FWP Future Fisheries
FWP Habitat Montana

Passed the House on 31 March and transmitted to the Senate.  The bill had a hearing in Senate Finance and Claims on 6 April.

HB 5  Biennial Appropriations – this is part of a large budget bill for agencies, including FWP’s Biennial budget

FOAM attended public comment hearing and provided testimony supporting
Wildlife Division,  expansion of non-game program
Fisheries Division, equipment upgrades and support instream flow leasing

Passed the House on 31 March and transmitted to the Senate.  The bill had a hearing in Senate Finance and Claims on 6 April.

Proposed Madison Study Bill  During January, Fish, Wildlife & Parks proposed a Madison Study Bill.  This draft was circulated to targeted Representatives and Senators for sponsorship.  FOAM and MTU met with Representative Ken Walsh and Senators Jeff Welborn and Pat Flowers expressing our opposition to a legislative study bill to look at recreation use on the Madison.

This proposed bill was terminated in mid-February.

HB 521   AN ACT REVISING REQUIREMENTS FOR RECREATIONAL USE ON LANDS MANAGED BY STATE AGENCIES; EXPANDING THE APPLICABILITY OF CONSERVATION LICENSES TO INCLUDE ALL GENERAL RECREATION

This bill would require users of FASs and all lands managed by the state to have a state Conservation License.

We testified in support of this bill in the House Fish and Game Committee on 17 February.  HB 521 passed out of that committee, 12-11.   The bill passed the House, 80-10, and was transmitted to the Senate.  The Senate Fish & Game Committee held a hearing on this bill on 6 April 2023.

SB 497   AN ACT REVISING LAWS RELATING TO PRESCRIPTIVE EASEMENTS; PROVIDING LIMITATIONS ON CLAIMS FOR PRESCRIPTIVE EASEMENTS

This bill would have revised portions of the Montana Stream Access Law.  We submitted opposition to this bill via email 1 Mar 23.

Soundly defeated 14 – 36, postponed indefinitely, 1 Mar23.

HB 520  AN ACT REQUIRING A STUDY ON THE EFFECTS OF PRIVATE PONDS ON THE STATE, PERMITTING, WATER RIGHTS, AND OPTIONS TO MITIGATE NEGATIVE IMPACTS, INCLUDING INVASIVE SPECIES AND THREATS TO WILD FISH AND AQUATIC RESOURCES

This is a study bill that would assess effects of private fish ponds surface waters and water rights.

This bill passed the House on 20 March and was transmitted to the Senate.  We testified in support of this bill at the Senate Natural Resources Committee on 29 March.  On 12 April, HB 520 passed out of the Senate Natural Resources Committee and will be headed to the Senate floor.

BH2 Permit available, with 6 Big Hole and 4 Beaverhead Days.
Call Chris at (406) 370-8146.