DARBY — Stevensville resident Andy Carlson can be recognized for creating a staple fly, the Purple Haze.
Watch the full video below:
However, his impact reaches far beyond the tip of his rod, as he helped revitalize the Bitterroot River.
Plus, the Bitterroot angling fixture has just reached 50 years guiding.
"I was fascinated with moving water in grade school. Watching the water flow. Watching how it moves," Carlson said, noting he grew up in Gary, Indiana, learning to fish on the Great Lakes with his father.
"Joined the Navy because I was going to be drafted like so many others during the Vietnam War. We ran supplies up and down the Perfume River. Before I was discharged, I started a movement for a democratic military, which morphed into Vietnam veterans against the war. Joined up with the Panthers. Did some political work with the commune in San Francisco," Carlson said of his younger years, saying they fueled his desire to stand up for his beliefs on and off the water.
In the 1970s, Carlson moved to Nederland, Colorado, reconnected with fishing, and even got the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation involved when water near his home was polluted.
"I started flipping the fly in my cabin in Colorado. There was a little stream in front of the cabin. And one morning I woke up, and the creek was a color of coffee. Which also turned me on to political activity with water conservation," Carlson explained.
"Then I moved to Montana, and I fell in with the fly fishing crowd kind of simultaneously. Sort of tying flies at a local shop that had just gotten going," Carlson said.
When he noticed how dry the Bitteroot River got, Carlson felt compelled to make a change.
"Down where I live it was a mess. It was all dry gravel. It was 11 cubic feet per second. Right now we're floating in 450. I actually have some letters from the Fish and Game that said because the river is going to dry up why don't you guys go harvest all of the fish. And they'd get pitchforks out there," Carlson detailed.
"I hooked up with the conservation group, Ravalli Fish and Wildlife. I became head of the Fish Committee," Carlson said.
"We owned 5,000 acre feet of water from Painted Rocks Reservoir. Between 1956 and 1979 they used that water once. We took it to the next step. Bonneville Power Administration was controlled by the Northwest Power Planning Council, who we met with and presented our case for more water. It took about seven, eight years of meetings back and forth. So, now we've got 18,000 acre feet, which amounts to not a hell of a lot, but it's enough to breathe life into the river when it's stressed out," he explained.
Raising the water level wasn't the end of Carlson's advocacy for a healthy ecosystem. He wanted to bring wild trout to the river.
"We took over the Trout Unlimited chapter, to demand some regulatory work for the Bitterroot. They granted us some special regulatory relief of dropping it from a 10-fish limit to a three-fish limit, which in my book is still too much," Carlson said.
"The concept of creating a wild trout fishery, which means, number one, eliminating the stocking. So, we did that. It was probably six or seven years where we rebuilt the fishery," Carlson said.
"The stocking stopped in 1979. Before that, they stocked it every year. Nine out of ten of those fish die because they don't know how to make a living," Carlson said, noting the difficulty he's noticed stocked fish have in finding food and surviving.
Carlson has now reached 50 years guiding. In that time, he created the Purple Haze fly in New Zealand.
"Did a lot of diving in the ocean and also in the rivers. Purple dominates the water column all the way to the bottom. And what they see on the bottom is all purple. And so I started adapting my fly tying. Purple for trout. Purple for tarpon. Purple for bonefish. Purple for, oh, just about any kind of fish you can think of," Carlson explained.
As an educator who stands up for the environment, Carlson says his legacy is one built on respect for others, wildlife, and natural resources. One people can read about in early editions of the Trout Line newsletter.
"It’s up to you guys to keep the ball rolling, to keep educating, to keep telling people the importance of a wild fishery, of a wild river. It's a consciousness, collectivity, which is quietude, being at one with our resources that surround us," Carlson said.
