Hey Zach, can we get a few more of these?

As July winds down to a blurry end, shop Joey’s around the great state of Montana are busily restocking the crap out of Morrish’s Hopper. According to the USDA, swarms of grasshoppers will soon descend upon us like Locusts and destroy everything in their path. Now I’m starting to wonder if I ordered enough flies. No worries, our good buddy Zach Mertens at Idylwilde will surely come to the rescue if things get dire.

Did you ever dream of being a fishing guide in Alaska? Well our good buddy Joe did, and now he’s living the dream at the Copper River Lodge.

In this installment of “So You Want To Be A Fishing Guide” Joe Hyde shows his young guide crew how to clean a composting toilet. Joe is a fearless leader, he makes sure to show his crew that he’s not afraid to do the dirty work and thus ensures he will have something more important to do when it comes time to repeat the progress in August.

We’re glad to see that the security cameras in the Murray Bar are being put to good use. Bejeebus, someone got bored this winter.

You may have heard about the derailment of a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train into the Wind River just south of Thermopolis last week.  Two locomotives and four freight cars derailed on Wednesday afternoon after slamming into a boulder in the Wind River canyon.  One locomotive and one freight car slid 60 feet down the bank and were partially submerged.  BNSF estimated that 3500 to 7000 gallons of diesel fuel spilled into the river.

When you’ve got a bunch of hazmat in a blue ribbon trout stream and need a jet boat and an expert jet boat driver, who ya gonna call?  Sweetwater! Sweetwater’s jet boat and operator, Scott Schumacher were contracted by the Whitewater Rescue Institute of Missoula to help with the clean-up efforts and biological assessment.  Scott was down helping with the effort for two days — shuttling clean-up workers and biologists, placing containment booms, and removing diesel fuel from the Wind and Bighorn rivers.  With the wreck being in the canyon and having some serious whitewater to negotiate, he also got to see some wild shit, including the sinking of the other jet boat helping BNSF.  Luckily, no one was hurt (other than the jet boat driver’s pride.)  Way to go sweet co!

More at Jame’s MDCH Blog.

Our very own Lynn Donaldson talks about getting your eat on via the back roads of Montana in a recent Travel Montana campaign.

Joe Hyde come on down!  We’ve got a dozen crappy flies for you.  Now back to the fish porn.