Kptv Channel 12

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.

State police arrest pickup driver in crash that caused gas leak ...

Go to Marion County jail inmates.

Last name is NOT Juarez but Santos.

I posted his arrest record with ICE hold (and a link) but the Oregonian deleted it.

My guess is they do not want to inform readers of the "WHO" of who,what, where, when how and why.

Not Politically correct enough, I guess.

This message will soon be deleted and I'll likely be banned.

The Oregonian however is going broke... and now we know why.

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