This blog entry has many topics. Enter Frontier Packaging, Inc located in Seattle, Washington. Providing excellent products with hard work and dedication merits a Montana fishing get-away. Add, a small corporate meeting at a comfortable lodge. Last ingredient, the Bitterroot River and trout fishing. The result is a successful corporate retreat that was also casual and fun.
Wapiti Waters has fished with company personnel from Frontier Packaging before, but this June a larger group came to the Bitterroot and stayed at the Chief Joseph Guest Ranch in Darby, Montana. The ranch is historic, beautiful, well-managed and, to top it all off, located south of Darby near the banks of the upper Bitterroot River.
Frontier Packaging was established in 1985 and is a Seattle-based manufacturer and distributor of quality packaging materials throughout Alaska, the Pacific Northwest and beyond. They specialize in providing innovative and efficient packaging solutions to the Northwest region’s internationally-renowned seafood, food, beverage, and agriculture industries. Visit their website to learn more about them – www.FrontierPackaging.com.
Now, when you are staying at Chief Joseph Ranch near the Bitterroot, you have to fish. Not only was the retreat successful, so was the fishing. See the slideshow below for photos.
Laurie is holding the trout she caught on the upper Bitterroot. The Bitterroot has been bank full, but it dropped just enough for Keith and his family and friends to have a few good days of fishing and floating on the Bitterroot.
Laurie just happened to be in the boat with the camera. Thanks Laurie, we love the photos. See the slideshow below for a few more photos.
Currently working for National Institute of Health (NIH) as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Anthony (Tony) Fauci was on a visit to Hamilton, Montana. The Division of Intramural Research (DIR) is a branch of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and more than 20% of DIR’s research is conducted in western Montana at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) in Hamilton.
When Tony came to visit, he also got to fish. Marshall Bloom, associate director of RML, knows Jack and set up an afternoon of fishing. Everyone needs a break and Marshall wanted Tony to see what is in the lab’s backyard. Tony knows that the beautiful Bitterroot is part of the draw for RML’s talented scientists. In fact he told the JCI that “over the last 20–25 years, the potential liabilities of the physical separation between RML and Bethesda have morphed into assets, where the beauty of western Montana and the collegial working environment couple with state-of-the-art facilities to make RML highly attractive to world-class researchers and an integral part of the DIR.”
Read more about Tony Fauci at the Director’s Page on the NIAID website. He is a personal hero of mine for his contributions to the understanding of how HIV destroys the body’s defenses leading to the progression to AIDS and that is just one aspect of his work. You can learn more by visiting Anthony Fauci’s biography on Wikipedia.com.
The Bitterroot River was up due to run-off so they fished the Big Hole for a few days and then went over to the Missouri. It pays to be flexible. Beautiful scenery, great food in Wise River at the Wise River Club, nice lodging and food in Craig Montana and they caught fish. Not too many photos were taken but you get the idea.
Jack guided with the raft on the Big Hole and drift boat on the Missouri to optimize where they could catch fish. He hadn’t seen Phil in quite a few years and has always enjoyed fishing and spending time with him. It was a pleasure to see him again and meet his good friend Mike (pictured to the left in a photo from Phil’s iphone).
See a few more photos from Jack’s camera in the slideshow below.
Jack took me, Merle, fishing the other day. When we have time, we try to get out and fish together. I don’t row the boat except in slower pike water — there are too many hazards and I am just not skilled enough yet. So, when Jack fishes, we pull over and wade fish. On this day, we had plenty of opportunities, plenty of hatches, plenty of fish and maybe a little too much “W” (wind). At the end of the day, we were really glad we braved the cold temperatures and fished the beautiful middle Bitterroot. After all, it is our “backyard.”
