Shaun Jeszenka - interviewed by Paul Morrison 

Tell me a little about your background and how you got into fly fishing

I grew up in the little town of Bonner, Montana. The Clark Fork and Blackfoot Rivers were within easy reach of my bicycle. My grandfather was a great fisherman. I don't think that he ever turned down a request to go fishing. The first fish I caught on a fly rod was about five inches long. I was using an old fiberglass rod with a Perrine automatic fly reel - I hit the line retrieval button and zipped the little brookie right in to the tip of the rod. I've been told that when I was young, five or six years old, I would even fly fish the puddles in the street after a good rain. 

How long have you been guiding and how did you get started?

This will be my eighteenth year as a guide or outfitter in Montana. I truly started at the bottom - I started by mowing lawns at a fishing guest ranch in the early eighties. I moved on to shuttle driver once I got my driver's license. Once I got to college there was no stopping me - classes became something to do in the off season. While I try to avoid cliches, I truly believe the job chose me rather than the other way around. 

You spend the winter months in South America - tell us about some of your experiences on those rivers.

I primarily guide on the Rio Grande in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. The fish are absolutely amazing. Big browns have always been my favorite, and this is the best big brown river in the world! Watching those monster sea-trout roll in a pool at dark is one of the most awesome sights in the entire sport of fly fishing. The high winds of Tierra del Fuego make things interesting as well. You learn very quickly to park facing into the wind, so as to not get one of your doors ripped off.

Charlie Craven - interviewed by JD Miller  

Tell me a little about your background and how you got into fishing.

Well, my family had always fished and hunted. As a kid, I just didn’t have the patience to sit and watch a bobber, so I started fishing with hardware, but quickly found out that lures were expensive, so my dad got me a fly tying kit for my eighth birthday and it’s all been downhill since then! I took to tying right off the bat and became consumed by it. Flyfishing came shortly thereafter, and here we are today. 

CFB has been open for about 2 years now, but you've been involved with the Fly Fishing Industry alot longer than that. What did you do before CFB?

Well, I have been a commercial fly tyer for most of my life, starting when I was about 12, and tied flies for most of the shops in the Denver area at one time or another. For several years there I tied between three and five thousand dozen flies per year. It gave me a great chance to become a very fast and efficient fly tyer. As odd as it sounds to the average tyer, I really enjoy a big order of flies...I like to sit down and just go on auto-pilot for a few hours to unwind. Weird, I know. I was also a guide on the South Platte and Colorado Rivers for about 12 years, I have taught fly tying classes for about twenty years or so now and I worked in a few different fly shops along the way, so opening CFB was just a natural progression for me. I have always dreamed of having my own shop and now I do. It’s great fun and I am very proud of how it has turned into such a success..

Gene Hall - interviewed by JD Miller

This month’s “Rocky Mountain Profiles” interview features Cody, WY resident Gene Hall. Many of you know Gene, or at least know of him, as he is a frequent visitor to the Rocky Mountain Fly forums, where he posts under the handle “wyldgene.” Gene has been fishing for over 40 years and has guided for 16. He is a FFF certified casting instructor and avid spey caster who especially enjoys fishing big dries to native cutthroats in backcountry streams, something he learned to do at a young age while growing up in Northern Idaho.

What do you do for a full-time job?

I’m a forester by profession and have spent the last 25 years or so cruising timber, doing forest stand inventories and land exchange cruises, usually past the end of the road and along some of the nicest streams in the northern Rocky Mountains.

How often do you still guide?

I don’t do much guiding professionally anymore, probably less than a dozen days a year, filling in when the shop gets overbooked or a larger group than expected shows up, or if I’m personally requested. Guiding cuts into my fishing time.

Jeremy Gilbertson - Interviewed by Paul Morrison

Born and raised in a small farm town in northeast Montana, guide Jeremy Gilbertson of Big Sky Fly Fishers is a soft-spoken individual who has guided on the Bighorn River in south-central Montana for over seven years. His energy is readily apparent when you start talking about anything related to fly fishing. Spending a few days on the water with him would no doubt improve your fishing skills. I still recall how Jeremy kept after me for using my Colorado taut-line “high-stick” nymph technique. “Drag, drag, drag," he said. I became much more proficient at mending my line that day.

As Jeremy prepares for the upcoming guide season, he graciously sat down with me and spent a few minutes discussing his experiences and answering some questions related to guiding and fly fishing for the readers of Rocky Mountain Fly .

Tell me a little about your fishing background. Did you start out as a bait and lure guy?

I suppose that every kid fishes with the whole family a few times in their childhood. Also, I used to throw the Zebco in the pickup when I was fixing fence by the Poplar River. I'd even catch the occasional pike, but it really never excited me. I was passionate about hunting, and traditional fishing didn't hold the same allure.