Sponsorships are transactional. Partnerships are long-term. Genuine, authentic partnerships are collaborative, born out of mutual respect and trust.
Swing The Fly is proud and grateful for the support from our small, close-knit family of partners, so starting in 2026, we’re bringing back the Partner Highlight Series.
In this installment, we talk with Big Sky Anglers Matt Klara (MK), to discuss the History, Culture, Community, Pursuits, and Place, central to the core of this West Yellowstone, Montana fly shop.
THE HISTORY
MK: Big Sky Anglers was founded as a guiding and outfitting business in 2004 by Joe Moore. Big things happened in 2016, when Joe partnered with two other long-time local guides/shop owners, Justin Spence and Jonathan Heames, and they acquired Bud Lilly’s Trout Shop from then owners Dick Green and Barb Klesel, and, with the blessing of Bud Lilly himself, renamed the store Big Sky Anglers Trout Shop. That same year, the guys began the design and construction of a lodging facility across town, now known as The Golden Stone Inn. In 2021, Steve Hoovler, who was already working as a guide and trusted advisor at Big Sky Anglers, became the fourth partner in the operation.
Swinging flies has always been a big part of the fishing at Big Sky Anglers, going back to well before the shop doors opened in 2017. Swinging soft hackles and streamers has been a part of the fishing culture on a couple of the well-known fisheries around West Yellowstone for decades, and several members of the staff at Big Sky Anglers have been fishing the local waters with swung fly tactics with both single and 2-handed rods since the 1990s. The swung fly, while perhaps not as culturally significant as match the hatch dry fly fishing is in West Yellowstone, has certainly drawn anglers to the region for many years. Big Sky Anglers has been a torchbearer of the swung fly approach and the relatively recent Trout Spey movement since their shop doors opened, hosting Spey Clave-type events (October 10th, 2026 is this year’s “Spey Hang”) and Trout Spey schools with Simon Gawesworth, offering guided swing trips, and stocking lots of gear and flies for the game.
THE CULTURE
MK: A passion for fish, wild places, and adventure under the Big Sky is what unites the Big Sky Anglers family. We are an eclectic, dedicated, knowledgeable, hard-working, fun-loving band of passionate anglers who find joy in all aspects of angling, including fishing and tying the swung fly.
The process, and joy of learning and then teaching is something that every member of the staff brings up when asked, “Why?”. Enjoying incredible surroundings and unique geology, experiencing unique flora and fauna, participating in local culture, and doing it all in chosen solitude or in the company of friends and loved ones; that’s what completes their angling experience and keeps their passion strong. Bud Lilly called this “The Total Experience,” and our team is most definitely carrying on with his legacy.”
The COMMUNITY
MK: It is impossible to talk about shop culture without community. One of the things that makes the Big Sky Anglers community so fun to be a part of is that the owners, managers, and veteran guides, while all very knowledgeable and experienced in their own right, also all come from diverse backgrounds, places, and have different focuses and passions within the overarching umbrella of “angling”. When the topic of swinging flies and Spey casting comes up, the gang often points to Justin and me, even though there are plenty of other up-and-coming Spey Nerds in the shop. Justin and I have been swinging 2-handed rods together on the rivers around West Yellowstone and beyond since we first guided and lived together back in 2000. The memories, stories, and shenanigans could probably fill a very strange book!
It really is a great group of people that have come together here, despite some of us having slightly anti-social tendencies (laughs). It’s so great to see the same folks coming to events like our Spey Hang or the big Wretched Mess Fest year after year, and running into them in the Park [Yellowstone] or at the grocery store in town and sharing a laugh or a fly or two. There are some really passionate and experienced anglers around here that love casting 2-handed rods, swinging flies, and sharing what they know with others, too. Justin Spence, of course, and Chris Daniel [Big Sky Anglers], Bucky McCormick [Blue Ribbon Flies], Alice Owsley [Riverside Anglers], Mike Loebl [Madison River Outfitters], Rick Wollum [Angler’s West Fly Shop], JD Love… I’m probably going to screw up and forget to mention someone. Kurt Kruger, too, one of our sales reps who really helped us get the first Trout Spey Days event off the ground back in 2017. That was where we all really started to see that there was a cool Spey community around here, and it’s just kind of flowed on from there.
THE PURSUITS
MK: Trout fishing is the name of the game around West Yellowstone. This is Swing The Fly, and so, if Trout Spey and swinging flies for trout is your game, then you should definitely come by.
Justin Spence and I both started out in Spey fishing through the lens of migratory trout in the fall here about 25 years ago, and fell in love with the cast and fishing attractor wet flies and streamers. But we are so fortunate to have such a long season and such diverse fisheries here around West Yellowstone that we naturally started wondering about swinging flies at other times of year and in other situations. Trout are cool because they are living and feeding actively, and often aggressively when we are fishing for them. For the swung fly angler, that means being able to or needing to scale up or down with their gear, flies, and presentations to meet the situation head on. Where the steelheader might talk about triggering a response by fishing smaller or bigger flies dressed in lighter or darker colors, shallower or deeper in response to water conditions, the trout Spey angler has the opportunity to go well beyond that and think about flies and swung presentations that imitate what the fish are actively feeding on – hatching mayflies or caddis for instance, or a skittering, egg laying stonefly, or one of the many small baitfish we have in our rivers. Each year we have found new and different games to play with modern Spey gear, and it has really been both fun and challenging to approach our fisheries in new ways and share what we are learning with folks who come here who enjoy swinging flies.
Over the course of a season fishing around West Yellowstone, an angler can target rainbow, brown, brook, and three subspecies of native cutthroat trout, as well as Arctic grayling and mountain whitefish on the swung fly. Some of these may be migratory/lake run fish, and others will be year-round residents of moving water. Because the area boasts a wide range of rivers ranging from small to rather large by most standards, as well as fish that range from small to “get the net”, and many unique swing fishing situations, Big Sky Anglers stocks a wide range of swing and Spey gear.
We are in trout country, so we do carry a small selection of our favorite steelhead gear, but our Spey focus is primarily on the trout-sized gear, from 1-weight up to 5-weight, from a number of brands and price points. Because our fisheries are so diverse, we make sure to carry a wide range of light Spey lines, including Scandi and Skagit options as well as the appropriate leaders, sink tips, tippets, swivels, tippet rings, and flies so that folks can fish their flies anywhere from the surface to the bottom. We carry some really neat flies from the fly companies, as well as a number of our own staff’s patterns that we get tied just for us. Because there are a lot of choices, and new product comes out every year, we try really hard to take the time to work with our customers, get to know how and where they want to fish, and then help them really understand which rods, lines, etc. are going to pair together and allow them to have the most enjoyable possible experience on the water. We all have our favorite rods and lines to fish, but we also want to make sure that folks walk out of the shop with what is going to become THEIR favorite rod and line to fish with. We compile our Trout Spey Rod Review every year, which looks at all the rods we carry, discusses each one and its best intended uses, and lists line pairings that we have tested and that work for various presentation and casting styles. That knowledge has trickled down through our whole staff at this point. Our younger shop staff are really getting into the nitty gritty of trout Spey now too and are borrowing demo rods after work to go swing kits that are in the review. They come back with great stories and questions that really show they are getting it.
The goal is to be fishy and knowledgeable, without any attitude or judgment. Stop in and say hi if you’ve in West Yellowstone, or shoot us a call or email from afar if you are looking for gear advice, a guide, a spot in the next Trout Spey school, or some casting tips. And, for those looking for something a little more international, Big Sky Anglers also hosts and curates unique angling travel adventures for appreciators of the swung fly (and everyone else, too) to Patagonia, including for large brown, rainbow, and brook trout and sea trout (sea-run browns).
THE PLACE
MK: Our home waters are plentiful in all directions from the shop in West Yellowstone, and include waters in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, including Yellowstone National Park. To the trout angler, the area is almost mystical in its scope and allure. Each year, folks make the pilgrimage for the first or fiftieth time. One lifetime is not enough to explore and learn all of the rivers, streams, spring creeks, lakes, and ponds within a two-hour drive of West Yellowstone. Expand that driving range to three hours, and ten lifetimes might not be enough!
An entire shelf of books has been written about fly fishing in Yellowstone Country, and the names of rivers loom large in the lexicon and culture of American and International fly fishing. To fish even one is a dream for many, yet Big Sky Anglers staff, friends, and customers often fish several in a single week. These waters, and many others in the area, offer such a diversity of angling over the course of a week or a season that it is hard to describe adequately. The same waters that are celebrated in the literature for their incredible and challenging dry fly and nymph fishing also present diverse and unique opportunities and challenges to the swung fly angler. There are small, medium-sized, and large rivers to swing. Float or wade one of them, and you will discover juicy runs, bouncy riffles, deep pools, canyon water, pocket water, and technical flat water to search. You might choose to work a streamer down deep to start, but you might also encounter one of the prolific insect hatches that happen through the season and choose to work a tiny, hatch-matching wet fly on a floating line. And, while your flies swing through that perfect run, take some time to look around because you might experience one of Yellowstone Country’s true wonders, like a geyser erupting in the distance, or a massive bison grazing along the riverside, maybe an osprey fishing for keeps, or the big sky stretching out forever before you.”
Swing The Fly encourages anyone interested in learning more connect with their local expertise while they’re in/near West Yellowstone. For more details on how to find and contact Big Sky Anglers check out the Recommended Spey Fly Shops and Recommended Guides & Outfitters pages.