magazine

Fish Partner in Iceland for InsideHook

November 1, 2023 By Jess McGlothlin

Excited to see this feature on Fish Partner’s Battle Hill Lodge sea-run brown trout fishery come out in InsideHook a few weeks ago. I’ve been down in Bolivia on another shoot and haven’t had time to post this, but playing a bit of catch-up now. Big thanks to the team at Fish Parter for having me, for my editors at InsideHook for running the story, and for the awesome anglers and guides who let me shoot while they fished! (And to the guides for shooting images of me when I got into fish.)

Read the full article here. And peek at my other work for InsideHook here.

Field Ethos Journal: Tasmania’s a Devil

March 23, 2022 By Jess McGlothlin

Really chuffed to see this piece in the premiere volume of The Field Ethos Journal. I’ve been writing short, online pieces for the FE team and jumped at the chance to pen something longer for their first print issue. And what better to write about than surfing brown trout, snakes alongside awesome trout streams, and some of the coolest fishing-industry folks I’ve come across? Tasmania seems tailor-made for storytelling, and I’m keen to get back one of these days and keep exploring.

Thanks to the FE team for this ten-page feature, including a few gorgeous spreads.

Outside Bozeman: The High Life

August 5, 2020 By Jess McGlothlin

Outside Bozeman article and images by Jess McGlothlin about fly fishing the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness for Yellowstone cutthroat trout. Had a lot of fun delving through the image archives and old notebooks to write this short piece for Outside Bozeman‘s summer issue. Fly fishing the backcountry of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness a few summers ago, chasing Yellowstone cutthroat trout with Absaroka-Beartooth Outfitters, has been one of my favorite stateside fishing experiences. Combine days on horseback, a comfy backcountry camp in the perfect location, most excellent people, and stellar fishing for ambitious Yellowstone cutthroat trout, and you’ve got the recipe for something amazing.

Men’s Journal Van Tours: The $900 Pan-American GMC Safari

April 2, 2020 By Jess McGlothlin

Had no idea this Chile shoot in February with Zach Lazzari and Skylar Lamont would be the last travel for a while. Most of these assets are on hold for another client, but really excited to see this “Van Tours” feature run on Men’s Journal, talking about Zach and Shale’s epic adventure through the Americas, fishing along the way.

Zach and Shale are two of the coolest travelers I’ve had the pleasure to meet, and it was such a pleasure to be able to head down to Chile and join them for one of the final weeks of their epic trip. This pair accomplished a hell of a trip over the past couple years… give the article a read for the full story.

Here’s a quick excerpt:

With each road bump, dust puffs up to coat the van’s driver, Zach Lazzari, and his co-pilot, Shale. The 11-year-old dog serves as traveling companion, nighttime guard, curious conversationalist, and convenient icebreaker: She’s an impossibly fluffy red mutt whom Lazzari found a decade ago in a Montana animal shelter. There, in a building full of dogs needing homes, Shale was the only one who ignored Lazzari. He knew it was meant to be.

The pair have been living in Lazzari’s tattered GMC Safari van since September 2018, when his marketing automation job at a Missoula, Mont., tech company began to feel more soul-sucking, and less like a job he could tolerate. He decided it was time to revisit an old dream: take the long drive down to visit the rivers he’d grown to love since his last season working as a fly-fishing guide in Chilean Patagonia in 2016, with Shale as his traveling companion. Along the way, he’d explore new water and fish corners of the world far, far removed from most fly anglers’ purview.

Lazzari quit his job and bought the 1994 Safari, abandoned in a Missoula alley, for a grand total of $900. It took merely a month for a quick build-out of basic living quarters…

I very remember coming back to Santiago after a week pretty well removed from the world and standing, filthy and in need of a shower, in the airport and watching the news. It was the first week of March, and in the space of a few weeks the world had started a dramatic change. Now it’s the first week of April and this trip feels like a lifetime ago. I still have faith that sometime this year we’ll be traveling again, and I’m already looking forward to the next adventure with Zach, Shale, and Skylar.

Thanks for reading, folks.

Cooking in Thongs: Sea-to-Table at Kimberley Coastal Camp

January 20, 2020 By Jess McGlothlin

The U.K.’s Sidetracked Magazine is one of my favorite outlets to work with. I first met Sidetracked’s online editor Daniel Neilson, while hiking across hills and deserts in Jordan. A few months later, I penned a piece for the magazine about Per Jobs, an enterprising business man (and avid fly angler) I met while fishing in Swedish Lapland. A few months passed, and the magazine sent me to document a cattle gather at Hunewill Ranch in California, a fine few days of dust, horses, cattle, and sleeping outside in the Sierras.

And now the kind editorial staff (thanks John!) has published stories from another adventure—this time from my recent trip to Australia. Here’s an excerpt:

We nudge back through the mangrove channel, pulling up the ropes to see what we’ve caught. Things go smoothly until midway through. The thong is missing from its place on the mangroves, as is the line and – apparently – the entire trap. Tub grows quiet, watching the surrounding waters. Within a minute, he spies the languid form of a large saltwater crocodile swimming back up the slim channel, a black thong proudly in its mouth. Suddenly the boat is spinning and we give chase.

Tub leans forward, shouting, ‘Give me back my fucking thong! Come back here you bastard!’ The croc gives a swirl of its tail and sinks into the murky water.

Alex laughs, noting we’re literally up a creek without a paddle, chasing a crocodile for a thong. I giggle aloud and bring the camera down from my eye for a moment. It’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear.

As you’ll see, Kimberley Coastal Camp was easily one of the highlights of my time in Australia. Tub and Jules’ hospitality was second-to-none, and there’s something about the far-off, odd little corners of the world—far, far away from what we’ve come to understand as “reality”—that will always win my heart.

Read the full feature here on Sidetracked.

Fishing the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness

December 3, 2019 By Jess McGlothlin

It was a great pleasure to escape into the backcountry just north of Yellowstone National Park a few summers ago and spend some time riding rough country, chilling around campfires and—of course—chasing fish. The Yellowstone cutthroat are truly a special species, and hands-down one of the more fun fish I’ve chased in recent years.

I was recently able to put together a little write-up to run alongside images from the trip for Big Life Magazine. The gang at Absaroka-Beartooth Outfitters are truly top-notch; Lonny, Cameron, and the entire gang have a way of making the backcountry feel very much like home. See the rest of the story here (toggle right to view the entire feature).

Here’s a brief snippet from the piece:

Sitting around the fire, comfortably ensconced on a dusty bed of dried pine needles, I look around at my companions. Most could have readily stepped from the screen of a John Wayne movie. Cameron and Lonny sit comfortably in their camp chairs, Cameron in the midst of telling some grand ranching tale, hand gestures and all. Lonny looks remarkably at home, and it’s no wonder, really. Her family has been running sheep in these mountains for generations, and she has the stories to prove it. For her, this is as much home as anywhere.

The wranglers are a wild bunch all their own; good guys who I would want by my side at any adventure. Seasoned ranch hand Patrick also runs a small-town bar (the Grizzly Bar in Roscoe, Montana) with his wife. Tall Jacob is a third-generation Montanan who competes in rodeo events when he’s not working the family ranch or in the backcountry. And young Jeremiah brings a quick whit and good tales from the annual Miles City Bucking Horse Sale.

It’s a motley crew, but the conversation is real, flowing freely around the flickering fire. We laugh when a mouse jumps from the log behind me into my lap before scurrying off into the blackness surrounding us. Just another creature that calls this place home, and will continue to do so long after we make the long ride back to civilization.

But for the moment, we grin and laugh in the darkness, eyes flashing and the bottle of whiskey catching the firelight as it’s passed around. For the moment, the rest of the world fades away and we’re newfound friends on an adventure; breathing clean air and watching the stars wheel overhead, tucked safely in the wilderness. And perhaps that’s the odd magic of it all; we’ve all gathered to chase a fish, to stalk through high mountain creek and ply clear waters for cutthroat. Once again, angling brought together an unexpected group of people and made an improbable clan of them.

There are no moose in Bull Moose Camp. There are, however, plenty of cowboys, horses, mules, and a curious supply of rather good boxed wine.

“Wild Hokkaido” in American Angler Magazine

August 26, 2019 By Jess McGlothlin

Image of magazine article about fly fishing in Hokkaido, Japan by Jess McGlothlin in American Angler Magazine.

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.

Project Upland Magazine: Generations of Sage

March 3, 2019 By Jess McGlothlin

Montana man with sage grouse, historic photo. Sometimes in life, we’re lucky enough to randomly meet people who restore our faith in all things good. Brandon Moss is one of these people. When I headed to northeastern Montana to photograph a sage grouse hunt for onX Hunt last September, I didn’t know much about the Billings, Montana, hunter the team would be meeting in the small agricultural town of Malta. Over the next few days, I logged miles moving through the sage-covered hills, talking with Brandon about his family’s history in Montana, his Brittany spaniels and his goal to raise his three young girls in the great open spaces of the West.

Text in an article about hunting Montana sage grouse. I left the shoot feeling hopeful, fulfilled and excited for the future of Montana outdoorsmen and women. (And also with my first sharptail in the cooler ready to be breasted out and served for dinner.)

Brandon Moss, Montana sage grouse hunter, in Project Upland Magazine. Thanks to Brandon for letting me tag along, and to the guys behind Project Upland Magazine for including this feature in their premiere issue. Brandon’s family images brought the entire feature home.

Read “Generations of Sage” in Project Upland Volume 1, Issue 1.