Updates on travels, adventures and news from Jess McGlothlin Media.
It was really fun to pull together this series of social media posts for fly-fishing line, leader, and tippet manufacturer Scientific Anglers. SA gear has always worked well for me, and the new saltwater lines, leaders and tippet I tested on this trip held up to queenfish, mackerel, giant trevally, barramundi, mangrove snapper and more! As always, good gear makes the difference.
Now this assignment was right up my alley. I had so much fun stepping back into my old way of life while shooting this feature for The Big Sky Journal this past spring at the Salmon Select Sale in Salmon, Idaho. The story is just hitting the streets in the Fall 2019 issue of The Big Sky Journal and, as always, it’s a treat to see images printed in a glossy magazine.
Things are beginning to feel a little autumnal around Missoula. Mornings are cooler, the sun rises later and sets earlier (rather ominous for the long winter to come) and as I sit in my little apartment typing this, a drizzly rain has started to fall. Fog is rolling over the mountains, and it’s looking like dusk at 7PM.
Winter, as they say, is coming.
In strict defiance of the grey season to come, I woke early this morning and put the drone up in the air above one of my favorite local fishing access sites. Made a few new friends at the boat ramp as guide trips rolled in to put on the water, and was admittedly caught off guard by the amount of underbrush that’s already changing color.
I’m having fun learning the ins-and-outs of the drone system, and am excited to get it on the road in a few weeks on assignment in Australia (stay tuned—it’s going to be awesome).
Nearly two years ago, I packed the bags and headed west—so far west, in fact, that I landed in the Far East. My journey to the northern island of Japan was for one specific fish: “golden” char—char that turn a unique golden color thanks to the unique environment of mighty Lake Akan. The trip was a success, 
despite missile tests from neighboring North Korea and an untimely typhoon (the underwater housing came in handy in unexpected ways while wandering through the small village in the middle of the storm!). Several golden char came to hand, as well as many healthy, wild, big rainbow trout.
Pick up the latest issue of American Angler Magazine and see what else I found in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Sometimes we go back to the beginning.
And sometimes anniversaries sneak up on us. This July marked my tenth year as a working photographer, and I had to go back to where it all started. (Ironically, it wasn’t very far away.)
You can read the full story on Chi Wulff, but here’s an excerpt:
They say a lot changes in a decade. I guess they’re right.
This past weekend I passed a funny rite of passage: ten years behind the camera. A decade ago, my dad (Mark, here on Chi Wulff) and I drove from our respective lodgings in Bozeman to Missoula, months of hard-earned cash tucked carefully in my pocket, to buy my first DSLR camera. The target was a Canon 5D Mark II; one that now, ten years later, still travels with me on large shoots as a back-up camera. At that point in time, my grocery budget was a generous $50 / month; the rest of my funds going into a camera fund.
Rather ironically, I now live in Missoula, finding myself back in Montana after living around the U.S. and abroad. Life’s funny that way.
Fortunately, my grocery budget is somewhat increased.
In July of 2009, after parting ways with what seemed at the time an unspeakable amount of money, we piled back in the truck and headed to my childhood home, Montana’s Flathead Valley, to photograph the prestigious equestrian show The Event at Rebecca Farm. (The return made even more ironic that I rode in the event nine years prior.) I hiked across…
Read the full story on Chi Wulff.
After a long Montana winter—February 2019 was one of the coldest in the Big Sky State’s history—the onX tribe has been feeling the spring itch. We’re ready to get outside, log some miles in a non-snowy environment and just generally enjoy being out without the seemingly-mandatory five layers of winter clothing. Spring is finally here, but the season took its time arriving.
A couple days spent in turkey camp, shooting images and writing a piece for onX Hunt, was the prefect reminder that at the end of the day, it’s the little things in life that matter the most. Laugher around the campfire with friends, logging miles in big, open country and crisp early mornings waking up outside.
Explore the full photo essay on onX’s website here.
This week’s assignment was an entirely new subject matter—turkey hunting. Shooting for onX Hunt, I joined a couple other members of the Missoula-based onX team and headed to north-central Montana, on the edge of the famed Missouri River Breaks, to chase some turkeys.
Once at camp, we were joined by a handful of hunt-savvy folks from around Montana and Colorado, and spent a quality couple days hunting, hiking, shed hunting, fishing for catfish and just quality time around the campfire. On all good adventures, there’s always something that goes haywire, and in this case it was one of the guy’s trucks getting stuck in the mud and a morning-long rescue operation. But it made for plenty of laughs and good-natured ribbing in camp, so all was well with the world.
The images will be coming to onX channels soon, so stay tuned.
