Montana’s Stream Access Law, despite the kerfuffle earlier this year, remains the envy of much of the fly fishing west and the standard against which other state’s directives are measured. A bold statement? Perhaps. From the land of literary giants – Paonia, Colorado, home of the High Country News – comes a recent article on […]
Access and Public Lands
The misguided developer (North South Development, LLC) suing the fly fishermen in Virginia (Dargan Coggeshall et al) has just recently employed some slick legal maneuvering to try and turn the tables on the defendants (the good guys). From the VA.RIVERS Defense Fund blog on the 20th– In a recent interview the land developer says “they have the […]
Bozeman’s Daily Chronicle, Montana’s best ‘fiddling while Rome burns’ newspaper, had a nice piece up yesterday honoring Belgrade’s Stan Milesnick who will soon be receiving the Army’s Distinguished Service Cross for his rather astounding heroism at the Battle of the Bulge. From the article, which is well worth a read for the entire account…. According […]
The Salt Lake Tribune’s Brett Prettyman interviewed fishing and hunting rocker Ted Nugent again recently. We’d guess anytime one interviews Ted the conversation probably wanders wildly. Ted did dish on river access….. I explained the stream access debate and asked for his thoughts. He said he was somewhat familiar with the access issues across the […]
Having more or less traversed the nation from very nearly its southern to northern borders recently, She Who Must Be Obeyed and I had the opportunity to witness first hand a couple of almost dumbfounding contrasts related to rivers. The easy contrast to grasp is the fact that the northern half of the Rockies and […]
Montana TU has weighed in on FWP’s proposed changes in the boating regulations for the Clark Fork, Blackfoot and Bitterroot Rivers. We linked to an article in the Missoulian when the issue surfaced last week; the issue’s drawing a bit more attention this week. Here’s Montana TU’s spin on the issue – In recent years […]
Another sober reminder of why river access legislation matters so critically to fly fisher folk everywhere plopped into the inbox today. From the Utah Stream Access Coalition: The Utah Stream Access Coalition filed a second lawsuit today to restore public access to Utah’s rivers and streams. The suit, filed in state court in Summit County, […]
Access. Simply speaking the word ‘access’ in any Montana fly fishers’ pub these days will quell the conversation in a heartbeat. Folks are still a bit itchy about HB 309’s attempt to begin to claw back access to much of Montana’s storied waters. Unless you’ve been living under a log buried under a deep winter […]
Have a little ‘309 fatigue’? To be honest, we do too. That said, there are a couple of things you need to read today. And then we’d like to channel Forrest Gump for a few days – that’s all we’d like to say about 309 for a bit. First, a nifty editorial from yesterday’s Missoulian […]
On this ‘day after the vote’ to table HB 309, the now infamous ‘ditch bill’, a few thoughts and a suggestion. A hearty thanks and congrats to those who love and appreciate Montana’s waterways and her fly fishing legacy. Without a tremendous outpouring from every day folks from around the state and country (and a […]
Congrats to all who’ve been fighting this one. HB 309 has been tabled this afternoon. Just back in from being on the road all afternoon and evening – a few key thoughts / caveats and a suggestion to follow in the morning…… Well done.
When it comes to the fate of HB 309 these days, conjecture abounds. Fly fishers are uneasy. Ted Turner’s even being discussed again. HB 309 has been pronounced dead more than once while others foresee its emergence from committee this week after some back room wheeling and dealing, rewrites and amendments. (We’re still predicting the […]
Somewhat surprisingly we’ve been on the receiving end of an impressive amount of HB 309 oriented chatter this weekend. After our post last Friday passing on part of an interesting email from a Montana ranch hand, we were accused in a round about way of (gasp, cough, wheeze) gossiping about the topic. A quick check […]
While there’s no ‘official’ HB 309 news floating around that we have been able to capture in the past 24 hours, this interesting email came in this morning. From Rick J. in Bozeman – My friend xxxxxxxx works on the xxxxxxxxx ranch and told me last night that the ranch foremen (sic) has said more […]
Still no definitive news on the fate of HB 309. Though yesterday we did get an interesting tidbit from Montana TU’s Mark Aagenes, their man on the ground in Helena. He noted while there’s been no definitive news that he’s been able to dig up on HB 309, he’s not seen any formal amendments be […]
