It has been a busy week.

With warming weather and good dry fly fishing I’ve felt a bit constrained by my promise to write a couple articles, and getting programs ready to present to students and fly fishing clubs.

Yesterday though Jackie and I took a few hours off and left home driving upriver hoping to find rising trout and wintering wildlife. We were not disappointed.

We headed to Earthquake Lake to check on the bighorn sheep herd that winters there. I was lucky last fall to draw a bighorn sheep tag after applying for 40 years. My friend drew a tag too. He’s 60 and I’ll be 71 years old.

We teamed up to hunt bighorns calling ourselves “Team Geriatric”. We both took fine rams, the 2 biggest rams of the hunting district. We hunted several days, camping at 10,000 feet elevation running into bighorn, grizzlies and mountain goats. Stay tuned here as I will write our story soon.

Yesterday Jackie and ran into bighorn ram #14 (you will see this orange tag in his ear in photo), and his harem just below the Quake Visitors Center. They looked pretty good considering the long-cold winter.

From there we headed downstream and snowshoed into the Madison River upstream of Babbling Brook where we found a few fish rising. Check out our photo of a rainbow that fell to a #20 Scotty’s Midge. After his release he hung around for a few mug shots.

In this letter I am excited to feature conservation projects and programs that are both founded and headed up by my good friend Todd Tanner. I’ve know Todd for many years, he is a true gentleman, a passionate angler and hunter devoted to protecting and preserving our wild and native fish and wildlife.

I have worked with Todd on his award winning films, “Cold Waters”, the 2016 winner of Best Environmental Short Film Award, and “In the Heart of the Rockies” a wonderful film that premiered on The Sportsmans Channel. Make sure you watch both short videos linked here.

Todd founded Conservation Hawks a few years back. CH is " a group of passionate hunters and anglers devoted to protecting our sporting heritage and passing on a healthy natural world to our kids and grandkids. The group’s prime focus is on climate change and its motto is “Hunters and anglers defending our future”.

For the past 2 years me and my close friend and former business partner John Juracek have worked with Todd on his “School of Trout” project you can goggle to find out more. This wonderful program "brings anglings finest fly fishing experts to share their wisdom and experience”. I’m proud to be a part of Todd’s school held each October and encourage you to goggle “School of Trout” to learn more, and sign up! Space is extremely limited so check it out today and I hope to see you this October!

Thanks for reading this and I’ll look for you on a Yellowstone country river this spring.

Stay tuned weekly for more conservation news and fishing reports.