Dave Delisi, President

dave.delisi@lctu.org

Attracted by the world-class Big Hole River, Dave Delisi and his wife Carol moved to Melrose, MT in 2000.  After five years of small town living along a Blue Ribbon trout stream, they moved to a place in the Ruby Valley with enough elbow room for their two horses, two labs, and five chickens. While in Melrose, Dave's passion for flyfishing became something of an addiction, as he spent nearly 300 days on the water in 2002.  Rain and snow, he learned, ensure a solitary fishing excursion.  It is his passion and deep commitment to conservation that led Dave to join LCTU in 2007 and to become our Vice President this year.  Dave's passion for fishing marries well with his career as he toils happily in the shop as an employee of Sweetgrass Rods in Twin Bridges.  When not working, you can find Dave caring for the animals on his place, gardening (both hops and garlic grow really well at 6200 feet!), hiking with Carol, or plying the waters of the halcyonic Ruby River in search of intrepid finny prey.

 

John Dillon, Board Member

John grew up fishing, hiking, and skiing around the Intermountain West. He learned to fly fish as a young teen on the Upper Provo River near Woodland, Utah. Upon graduating from college with a B.A. in Political Science, John served in the Peace Corps in Morocco in the 1980s. He has a M.S. in Environmental Studies at the University of Montana and is working to complete a doctorate in American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona. His studies focus on western water policy, watershed restoration, and tribal self-governance. From 2005 to 2008, John worked as Klamath Resource Specialist for the Hoopa Valley Tribe to protect and restore Pacific salmon and steelhead fisheries in the Trinity-Klamath watershed. He has worked with various non-profits including the Clark Fork Pend Oreille Coalition, Greenpeace, the Bureau of Land Management, and Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

 

 

John Eisenbarth, Board Member

John (Ike), a native of Nevada, has spent 3 decades fly fishing. While living in the Southeast as owner of his own lodge, fly shop and guide service he found the time to work on several environmental issues. He is the founder of a Trout Unlimited Chapter in Alabama and became an active member and conclave worker for Federation of Fly Fishers for several years. He worked over 5 years with his local TU chapter and State Fish and Game Dept., addressing habitat issues on Alabama’s only Trout River on the relicensing of the Lewis Smith Dam, a Southern Company Hydro Electric Project. The last 6 years, John has lived in Southwestern Montana where he makes his home with his wife E. When not guiding John can be found tying flies, working in his garden and talking about fly fishing, or, more likely you will find him on the Jefferson, Ruby or any of dozen other rivers found within a few miles of his home doing some personal Montana Time. John sometimes spends Winter months in the Southeast guiding for land locked Stripe Bass or the Gulf Coast for Specks and Reds, when he isn’t at a fishing show. When lost, John will be located fishing California’s Feather River, Nevada’s Truckee and any stream in Montana.

 

Bill Fraser, Vice President

Bill grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and spent part of his early youth fishing and hunting with his family in Patagonia, the Andes and on the Argentine frontier with Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil. The region’s vast landscapes, pristine wildernesses and contact with native communities instilled in him an early sense of respect for the land and the diverse peoples that used and occupied it. Bill finished High School in Princeton, New Jersey in 1969 following a move to the U.S. with his family in 1962. The experiences of his youth in both Argentina and the U.S. eventually led him to seek an education in a wildlife-related field. In 1973 he received a B.S. degree from Utah State University in Wildlife Management, and in 1989 a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in Ecology. In conjunction with these degrees, Bill was offered opportunities to work in Alaska, Colorado, and Antarctica. Research in Antarctica became Bill’s career, and in 2000 he and his wife, Donna, formed Polar Oceans Research Group, a private, non-profit research organization based in Sheridan, Montana. The organization’s work focuses on climate change and its impacts on Southern Ocean ecosystems. Its primary operational region is the marine environment of the Western Antarctic Peninsula, which is located about 1000 kilometers south of Argentina. Bill currently spends 3-5 months a year in Antarctica, and is restoring an old ranch homestead when back in Montana. He is an active member of the LCTU and also represents TU as a member of the Ruby River Watershed Council. A focal and exciting project for both organizations is the reintroduction of threatened Arctic Grayling to the upper reaches of the Ruby River.

Donna Fraser, Secretary/Treasurer

Bio is pending

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tom Forwood , Board Member

 

Tom makes his home in the Ruby Valley with his loving wife, Alice. Tom ties the finest flies you have ever seen...truly rivaling the best flies on the planet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jerry Kustich, Board Member

Jerry grew up in Western New York on an island in the Niagara River. He regularly fished the polluted shoreline of the river that flowed near his home, and eventually became a conservationist because of that experience.  After earning a degree in chemistry from Niagara University in the late sixties, he took a teaching position at a Catholic high school in Salt Lake City in 1969.  The road West led to trout and, inevitably, fly-fishing.  In the early seventies, Jerry decided to become a life-long fishing bum.  In the following decades, from Utah to Idaho to Montana, his goal was realized.  In 1984, an ideal position came open at Winston Rods in Twin Bridges, Montana which has allowed Jerry to fish the rivers of his dreams ever since.  

Until his recent resignation, Jerry worked for the Winston Rod Company for over twenty-one years; the last thirteen years spent building bamboo rods with the renowned and eminent bamboo craftsman, Glenn Brackett.  An avid conservationist and former secretary on the state board of directors for Montana Trout Unlimited, Jerry is always active on resource issues around the Big Sky State.  In addition to writing and illustrating a weekly nature column for a major Montana newspaper, he has published several articles, as well as co-authored ‘Fly Fishing For Great Lakes Steelhead: An Advanced Look At An Emerging Fishery’ with his brother Rick.  His acclaimed collection of stories and essays, ‘At the River's Edge’, chronicles many lessons learned on the life-long journey of a devoted fly angler.  Jerry's latest release, ‘A Wisp in the Wind’, offers a behind-the-scenes look into the Winston bamboo shop, along with other related fishing stories.  He and his wife Debra make their home in Twin Bridges, Montana.      

 

Greg Lilly, Board Member

Greg Lilly grew up in a family owned flyfishing business (Bud Lilly’s Trout Shop) in West Yellowstone, Montana. He worked his way through college as a guide for his father and after graduation he joined Bud as a partner in The Trout Shop. For the next ten years Greg and Bud expanded their business to include one of the finest guided fishing services in the Rocky Mountain West and a successful mail order operation. In 1981 Greg sold his interest in the Trout Shop in order to pursue other business interests. Two and a half years away from the fly fishing industry convinced Greg that pursuing a career in fly fishing was a pretty fair way to spend the rest of his working life! Greg and a partner opened the River’s Edge in Bozeman, Montana in 1983 and quickly established this shop as one of the top retail fly fishing shops and outfitting businesses in the country. After six years with The River’s Edge, Greg sold out to his partner and decided it would be interesting to work with fishermen where they live rather than at their destinations. He opened a fly fishing shop in Orange County, California and ran that for five years. In 1993, after closing the California shop, Greg took a job as director of Marketing for the R.L. Winston Rod Company and moved back to Montana. After two years in the manufacturing end of fly fishing Greg decided once again that his real love lay in helping anglers enjoy the terrific fishing Montana has to offer. He and his wife, Janet, opened Healing Waters Fly Fishing Lodge and for the last 12 years have worked to make Healing Waters one of the more acclaimed lodges in the Rockies.

 

 

Will Murray, Board Member

Will worked for a local environmental engineering and natural resource company, conducting natural resource inventories and designing/building stream restorations. He holds a B.S. degree in Range Management from Humboldt State University, with Minors in Botany and Geography. Will came to the Ruby Valley in Southwest Montana in 2003, having been transferred from Harlowton, Montana by his former employer, the Natural Resources Conservation Service. For Will, it was like landing in a sportsman’s Eden, “I’m an avid bowhunter, but the fishing was so good in Southwest Montana, I only spent a handful of days in the field hunting. All of the rest of my free time was spent with a rod in my hand on the river”. Will picked up flyfishing as soon as he moved to the Ruby Valley, and gained some local notoriety as ‘The Fishing Guy’ after logging over 200 days on the local rivers with a fly rod in his hand. Joining Trout Unlimited was a natural move for him as he became involved in the many issues confronting the anglers and sportsmen/women of the southwest portion of Montana, first as a Range Conservationist for the NRCS and budding flyfisherman, and then as the President of the Lewis & Clark Chapter TU of Southwest Montana. Will was elected President of the Chapter in December of 2005 and worked with a core group of active members in reworking the Chapter and building the LCTU website as a way of bringing news of the area and Chapter events to a larger geographic area. Will currently has his home in Twin Bridges, but lives at the river (the fishing is still good!).

 

 

 

Jim Shirk, Board Member

Jim retired in 2004 and moved to Montana near Twin Bridges. He acquired a B.S. degree in Art Education from Kutztown University and spent the next 34 years with the Carlisle Area School District. Jim grew up along the the famous Penns Creek in central Pennsylvania where he learned to fly fish. His father gave him a copy of "Trout Flies - Naturals and Imitations" by Charles M. Wetzel, which became his fly fishing bible and opened the door to stream side entomology and fly tying. While at Carlisle he became involved with TU and was able to take advantage of the famous Letort, Yellow Breeches, and the Big Spring rivers whenever he had a spare moment to wet a line. Moving to Montana was a DREAM come TRUE. It is his desire to not only fish the rivers, but to paint and draw their every mood.