A bunch of friends and Chi Wulff readers have been asking when we’re going to put up our portfolio site for Dry Fly Media.

It’s now up and running (though not fully fleshed out….) here – you can reach it from the Dry Fly Media site with just a click too.

The system we’re using (SmugMug) offers some really nifty export features, like the slide show in this post and the tiled photos at the top of the first sidebar to the right.  It also has a kick-ass video delivery feature that we’ll be taking advantage of shortly.

There’s also a nifty large tile box (some of our water images) up in the Dry Fly Media blog today here.

Should be adding a gallery or two a day this week to get some representative pics posted…..

Tags: Dry Fly Media

It’s finally come time to tip our hats and ride off into the Montana sunset.

(That pic is a genuine Montana sunset taken last summer from ‘West Bozeman’….)

This will be the final post here on Chi Wulff.

We’d like to thank all of those who have followed the blog over the years – this blog humbly began as Best Fly Fishing Yellowstone back in July of 2007 and morphed into Chi Wulff last April.

The nuts and bolts have been run by Jake and I here in Bozeman with great input from Missouri River Steve in Craig, Al over in the Bitterroot Valley and Jess in Missoula / Bozeman.   Jess is now busy running Fire Girl Photography and working to pay bills, Steve has moved to Florida and guiding full time in the salt and Al has started a book he’s always threatened to write.

We pushed up to nearly 30,000 visits per month during the late summer and fall last year, and have had the chance to interact with a lot of super folks from all over the country and the world over the past several years.

We’re tremendously appreciative of your interest and support and we hope we’ve been able to share a bit of Montana and the Greater Yellowstone neighborhood with you in a positive way.

Several good friends have asked why close down the site?

The answers are really pretty simple.

First, after lots of soul searching, head-scratching and consulting our respective families, Jake and I are significantly expanding a business that I’ve been peripherally involved with over the past several years.

We’ve found an entrepreneurial niche that has been performing (and will continue to perform) better and better as the economy and housing market continue to struggle.

(I don’t know if you’ve noticed, and I guess it would be great for you if you hadn’t noticed, but there’s a bit of a recession depression recession going on right now.  I’m no economist, but it seems to be a pretty safe bet that the current economic angst isn’t going away real soon….)

The project will require some travel throughout the Northwest, the Intermountain West and the Gulf Coast states – we’ll still be fishing but won’t be spending as much time around the neighborhood.

That said, when home – we’d rather fish than write about it, and dropping a few tasks from the ‘to do’ list will in fact create a little more time for fishing than during the past year, at least for me anyway.

Secondly a small media company we started a few years ago (Dry Fly Media) has matured a bit and we’re now working on some nifty film projects after a dalliance with digital publishing.  We had recently been busy cranking up a new digital magazine concept, but the promise of the other business venture far, far, far exceeds the digital publishing potentials.  Given the fact there are only so many hours in the day – we’ve both elected to gracefully bow out of the digital publishing world.

(One man’s opinion – the digital publishing tsunami isn’t far off….).

Jake and I are going to remain involved with Dry Fly Media and will be blogging on their new / updated site every week or 10 days.

We’ll probably leave the Chi Wulff site up for the month of March and then she’s gone.  We’ll be moving the blog roll and adding some other media links to the Dry Fly Media site.

Best to all of our fisher friends out there -

Mark and Jake
Bozeman

Tags: Chi Wulff, Dry Fly Media

Jake managed to relieve himself from household duties yesterday afternoon, as did I (the boss was taking a nap and watching Casablanca).

It was the last day for 2009 Montana fishing licenses to be in effect and needed to be spent at least in part on a river.  Winter still controls the upper half of the Gallatin, though the lower Madison environs have shed most of their snow and you can even imagine the earliest hint of green beginning to color the hillsides.  Greycliff access was amazingly vacant of fishers; there was only one raft rig shuttled and parked.

Fishing and catching were nice – shirtsleeve nymphing on the last day of February with temps pushing 50 is an afternoon well spent in anyone’s book.

Northbound in the Big Sky – I’d rather be fishing.

Tags: River - Madison

For our friends looking for today’s food post – effective today we’ve moved our mostly weekly Friday Feast post to it’s own blog – (perhaps unwittingly) named Friday Feast.

We’ve thrown up a a recipe for Braciole (a bit more highbrow that usual, today’s post explains why and offers a fairly simple but very good version of the recipe) today, and have moved all of the Friday Feast category posts that we’ve posted here on Chi Wulff over the past year or so to the new blog.

From this point forward over on the Friday Feast blog we’re also going to be reviewing a beer a week (Monday), a wine a week (Wednesday) and will continue to post a recipe for our outdoor-minded friends who love to eat as well.  There will also be eatery reviews and recommendations from around the neighborhood and beyond – please feel free to send in your best recommendations along with a pic if you’ve got one.

Now to something fishy….

Our globe-trotting readers are probably already aware that a little aquarium was built into a mall in Dubai…..

Yesterday it sprang a little leak….

Tags: Friday Feast

We’re damned fortunate to enjoy some of the most fisher folk favorable stream access laws in the nation here in Montana.  The nifty access we enjoy today has withstood several challenges over the years, the most recent just months ago (Mitchell Slough…).

Our friends and fishing brethren in Utah are battling one of the most significant challenges to stream access rights seen in the West in long time, and the way these changes appear to be coming about don’t pass the smell test.

The Utah Water Guardians are working very hard right now to bring to light some political shenanigans going on at the Capital in SLC – read about it here.   Updated article from yesterday’s Salt Lake Tribune here (don’t know how long the link will be active…).

You may have seen the following video on Moldy today – if not, Alexandra Morton’s revealing research on drug resistant sea live in BC’s Nootka Sound (farmed salmon) will get your dander up.  (Not trying to scrape content here – you need to see this one…..)

Nootka Lice Problems from Twyla Roscovich on Vimeo.

Tags: Fish Stories

We’ve finally upgraded to produce an updated and improved RSS feed – yesterday we moved over to FeedBurner to source our RSS feed.  Those reading the Chi Wulff feed will need to update – simply click the RSS feed icon at the top right corner of the web page….

Tags: Chi Wulff

Lower Madi at Greycliff yesterday afternoon.

Sunshine.

37 degrees and little wind.

Fishing rising to midges.

Hot damn.

Tags: Fish Stories

Before getting to our Friday Feast recipe today, two quick things of note this chilly (19) and snowy Bozeman morning.

First, back when we first starting posting the Friday Feast posts (initially on Best Fly Fishing Yellowstone and later here on ChiWulff) we had no idea of how popular the food topics would be.

If web stats are to be trusted (some are, and some aren’t…) the Friday Feast category has been one of the most read here on our blog.  Much to our surprise, we’ve even been invited of late to join a couple of foodie networks (one stateside and one from England).  Who woulda thunk it possible?

Along the way over the past several months we’ve been working on another large collaborative project with some good outdoor folks, and will be moving our food related posts to their own blog next week.  We’ll have details up early next week.

We’ll be posting at least one good recipe each week along with a review of an adult beverage or two, and probably highlighting great places for fisher folk and other outdoor enthusiasts to dine while traveling and enjoying their favorite pursuits.

(Off topic a bit, but ChiWulff will be joining the new blog / magazine group as evidenced by our new header today – we’re to be part of the Shoulda Been Here Yesterday Outdoor Network.  Much more to come.)

Secondly, a couple of emails have come in this week suggesting that our food posts have been woefully ignorant of current economic times – one friendly correspondent (Lisa L. from Houston) offered this -

My husband and I have enjoyed your food posts over the past year or so, but dammit, not everyone is eating steak and shrimp these days.  Times must be good in Montana, but lots of us are eating more beans and hamburger than the high dollar stuff.  How about some good spicy recipes that don’t bust my whole week’s budget for high dollar beef cuts or seafood?  Personally I think you’d do well to add some recommendations for inexpensive but decent wines to go with your recipes too.

It’s not the Firehole or the Madison but if your (sic) ever down this way we’ll show you where some decent redfish hang out….we fish a lot of the Texas bays from kayaks…..

Lisa – appreciate the comments and the offer.  On the new food site we’re announcing shortly we’ll be reviewing beers and wines along the way; none of our crew (save for maybe Al) are wine snobs asshats experts and lean toward good but cheap inexpensive well-valued wines.  Beer is another issue as most or our crew appears to be increasingly drawn to innovative microbrews….

And we’re slated to be in Houston the first week of March – how’s the fishing been lately????

Today’s recipe fits Lisa’s criteria well – Asian Sesame Noodles – it’s well-valued for today’s budget minded home chef, lemon squeezy easy peasy simple and highly customizable.  Really good sesame oil kicks this dish up a notch or two.

The recipe could in theory stretch to feed a dozen as a side-dish sized serving, but we’ve also had 4 hungry fisherfolk demolish this volume of food – it would probably feed 6 to 8 normal human appetites.

• 16 ounces dried Asian noodles or linguini
• ½ cup Asian sesame oil, divided
• Generous 1/3 cup or more chopped peanuts
• Generous ¼ cup minced fresh ginger
• 6 garlic cloves, minced (yep – 6, DON’T cut back here)
• ¾ cup (or more to taste) bottled or home-made teriyaki sauce
• ¼ cup fresh lime juice
• 1 tbs (or more to taste) chile-garlic sauce
• ¾ cup thinly sliced green onions
• ¾ cup thinly sliced red onion
• 2 large carrots, peeled and sliced thinly on the diagonal
• 1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced

Cook the noodles to al dente, drain, return to pot with the peanuts and 2 tbs of the oil.

Pour the rest of the oil into a skillet over medium heat; when hot first add the garlic and ginger and stir for about 20 seconds.  Next add the carrots and red peppers and stir for 20 seconds.  Then add the teriyaki sauce, lime juice and chili-garlic sauce; simmer for a minute.

Dump the onions over the noodles and pour the sauce / vegetable mixture over and mix well.

Serve warm or at room temperature with more chili-garlic sauce on the side, and mixing in a little shredded grilled chicken or pork makes it even better.

Enjoy.

Tags: Chi Wulff, Friday Feast

Tags: Culture, Books, Art

We weren’t the only ones out enjoying a bit of sun yesterday – Jake grabbed some snaps of a moose cow and her yearling calf near Specimen Creek in the Park yesterday….

Tags: Critters