Home Base / Columbia Falls, Montana
Activities / Skiing, rafting
Growing up in Montana, Hilary Hutcheson remembers the first time she went fly fishing. “I was in seventh grade, hanging out with a classmate at his grandma’s trailer on the river in West Glacier. We were messing around with his uncle’s old fly rod and started catching big cutthroat, and his grandma came out and told us to bring one in for dinner. But the most memorable part of the early fishing days, for me, was the freedom I felt floating on the river. We had a leaky inflatable kayak that was like a magic carpet to me.”
Though jobs as a reporter and news anchor for television stations in Montana and Oregon—and an eight-year-long career working in PR for outdoor brands—kept her busy, Hilary always found time to fish, honing her skills in rivers all over the world. She also helped spread the fishing gospel as a co-owner and host of Trout TV, which ran segments about everything from casting techniques to conservation.
Today, Hilary is a fly-fishing outfitter and guide at Glacier Anglers and owns and runs Lary’s Fly & Supply in her hometown of Columbia Falls, Montana. Hilary is also an award-winning filmmaker (The Drake Film Awards, Best Conservation, “Drop,” 2022), journalist, and contributing editor at Fly Fisherman magazine. “Some people don’t want to guide because they think they’ll never get to fish again,” she says. “But then they realize it’s the way to be on the water as much as they want. For me, I want guests to have their minds blown and have the best day ever so that they’ll want to protect the river. I want the river to still be here for future generations.”
Hilary is one of those rare and connected humans who are motivated only by honoring the trade and glorifying the habitat,” says JT Van Zandt, a fishing guide based in Rockport, Texas. “No self-interest enters the equation. That purity is appreciated by everything she touches.”
Hilary specializes in taking clients whitewater fly fishing on dynamic water, specifically, freestone rivers designated as Wild and Scenic. “The combination of rowing technical whitewater and fly fishing for wild and native trout between rapids perfectly blends adrenaline and tranquility,” she says. “Running Class IV and V rapids gets the heart racing, then quickly transitioning into making a controlled cast into a pocket or seam requires dialing the mind and body in a way I haven’t found anywhere else.”
Hilary’s newest film, “The Tengu Club,” premieres at the Camden Film Festival in Rockport, Maine in September. “It’s about how the West Coast’s oldest salmon fishing club, started by Japanese Americans in the 1940s, helped close the multi-generational cultural gap for me as an identity-seeking Japanese American in rural Montana.”
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