BY KAREN BOSSICK

Get a look at fly fishing on Russia’s Kola Peninsula and other wild rivers when the Hemingway Chapter of Trout Unlimited presents its annual International Fly Fishing Festival on May 20.

The films will start at 7 p.m. Friday, May 20, at The Argyros in Ketchum. Tickets are $17, available at The Argyros box office or online at https://hemingwaytu.org.

The International Fly-Fishing Festival is considered the world’s leading fly-fishing film festival—a place to start salivating about the summer fishing season, much as the Warren Miller films get skiers stoked for winter. This year’s films include:

• Caddis Magic, by Capture Adventure Media: a film about the hope that new techniques will yield success, that bugs will hatch and trout will rise.
• A Fly-fishing Refugee, by Brian Kelly: the story of Mariusz Wroblewski and the discovery of the true reason wild rivers figure so prominently in the pursuit of freedom.
• Four Weeks of Daylight, by Fly Fishing Nation: This exploration to Russia’s Kola Peninsula offers an inside look at the Lumbovka and Kachkovka rivers.
• Home Water, by Ryley Leboe, follows a professional skier and lifelong outdoorsman as he travels back to his childhood home in search of trophy rainbows.

Proceeds from the event support local efforts by the Hemingway Chapter of Trout Unlimited chapter to improve fishing in the Wood River Valley.

The chapter, which has more than 600 members, has been instrumental in fish rescues, monitoring and maintaining public access trails, planting willows along riverbanks to expand spawning grounds, lobbying for action to improve river health and providing educational outreach to kindergartners through adults.

“While fishing is important to those of us who are part of the chapter, Trout Unlimited Hemingway chapter is not just a fishing club,” said chapter board member Amanda Bauman, a fly-fishing guide for Silver Creek Outfitters and a teacher at the Sun Valley Community School.

 Last year the Big Wood River saw its lowest flows since 1931, and Hemingway Chapter volunteers helped save a record 22,983 fish at risk of dying when side channels off the Big Wood River dried up, said Patti Lousen, vice president of the Hemingway Trout Unlimited.

“For the first time in memory, the Big Wood River did not have enough water to reach the Glendale Diversion, resulting in the river being dried up below the Diversion 45 Canal for a period of time,” said Fish Rescue coordinator Ed Northen.

 Learn more about the chapter by visiting the Chapter’s website at https://www.hemingwaytu.org