Local anglers broadcast their skills

Two local fishermen have found the perfect job. They get to travel around the country and catch trout in some of the best fishing streams and rivers in the West - and help keep the camera gear dry.

Hilary Hutcheson and Rich Birdsell are the hosts of "Trout TV," a syndicated fly-fishing TV show that began airing in February. Viewers can watch their half-hour show locally on KAJ channel 8 TV at 12:30 a.m. on Saturdays and 4:30 p.m. on Sundays.

Hutcheson is no stranger to broadcasting. Raised in Columbia Falls, she got into TV news after graduating from the University of Montana-Missoula in 2000. She worked at KAJ in Kalispell and KPAX in Missoula and anchored the news at KPTV Fox-12, in Portland, Ore., before returning to the Flathead in 2008 and joining her husband Shane's new company, Outside Media.

Hutcheson said she learned to fish with a high school friend whose grandparents lived along the Middle Fork of the Flathead River in West Glacier.

"There were a lot of cutthroats there," she said. "His grandparents used to tell us to bring back dinner."

She also worked as a river guide for Glacier Raft Co. and Glacier Anglers. The bad habits she taught herself were exposed once she began flyfishing with the experts, but she says she still has her "mean sidearm cast."

"Trout TV is meant to be entertaining while being informative," she said. "Viewers will learn about flyfishing and some great places to fish."

But since the guides that accompany Hutcheson and Birdsell have to be upfront about everything they do, "they sometimes don't take us to their secret fishing holes," she said.

Birdsell is a fifth-generation Montanan from the Fort Belknap area, but he grew up in southwest Washington. He returned to Montana in 1987 and attended the University of Montana-Missoula. By 1991, he was guiding with Glacier Raft Co., where he met Hutcheson.

Birdsell has his own guiding business now, Northern Rockies Outfitters. When he's out guiding clients or shooting footage for Trout TV, his wife Marcy, a teacher at Columbia Falls Junior High School, manages the business from their home on the Flathead River near the Pressentine Bar fishing access site.

Trout TV is the successor to the "Columbia Country: Sport Fishing the West" TV show. Bob Asbury's Sun West Productions, of Liberty Lake, Wash., produced, directed and shot the footage for Columbia Country for 10 years, and the show was broadcast on more than 40 stations across the region.

Birdsell worked with Asbury in the mid-1990s for a bowhunting show. When they reconnected several years ago, Asbury asked Birdsell to host a new flyfishing show. Hutcheson joined the cast as they canned 19 shows from the 25 field trips they made in 2010 for this year's broadcasts.

Hutcheson, whose husband and two young daughters accompany her on some trips, said the biggest rainbows she caught were during two days on the North Platte River, in Wyoming. She also recalls catching 140 cutthroats on the North Fork of the Flathead between Coal Creek and Glacier Rim.

"When we got back, the guide said we'd caught only one fish because all the others were under 10 inches," she said.

The two hosts help Asbury protect the expensive video equipment from getting wet. That includes putting condoms over the microphones. But a trip to the Elk River in British Columbia almost proved too much, Hutcheson said.

"The weather was so bad, you couldn't see your hand in front of you," she said. "Our guide, Becky Clark, rowed like heck to get us out of there."

Birdsell, who just finished shooting footage in the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming, was on his way with Asbury to fish around the Black Hills of South Dakota.

"That should prove interesting, I've never been there," he said.

Sometime this August, Birdsell and Asbury will head north to Alaska to fish for sockeye salmon and rainbow trout in the Kenai River. The area is also known for huge brown bears, but Birdsell says he's been up north and is comfortable with Alaska.

"I'll pack some bear spray or whatever the guide suggests," he said. "Most of the grizzly bears on the Kenai are too preoccupied with eating fish to bother with humans."

For more information on Trout TV, visit online at www.trouttvshow.com or the Trout TV Facebook page.