Ice fishing in Northwest Montana will be featured on three episodes of “Tom Gruenwald Outdoors” that will be broadcast beginning Wednesday.

The shows detail fishing expeditions on Lupine Lake and Rogers Lake in February 2015. The new shows mark the second year in a row Gruenwald has fished and filmed in Northwest Montana.

“It was literally a lifelong dream of mine to fish in Montana, and our experience there was everything I dreamed it would be,” said Gruenwald, whose program is now in its fourth season on the Sportsman Channel, Canada’s Wild Television Network and in the Midwest on Midco Sports Network. “If you’re looking for great fishing and a great community, you can’t do better than Kalispell.”

Gruenwald first came to fish the lakes around Kalispell during the winter of 2014. The results of that trip were highlighted in a trio of episodes during the third season of “Tom Gruenwald Outdoors” that aired last winter.

After experiencing great fishing for diverse species including kokanee salmon and lake trout, Gruenwald hatched the plan for a return trip — this time to fish a Montana backcountry lake accessible only by helicopter.

Gruenwald and the Kalispell Convention and Visitor Bureau sponsored a national sweepstakes, with the winner joining Gruenwald and his producer on the trip.

Nancy Suthers and her boyfriend, James Fenton, of Monroe, Wisconsin, won the drawing and came along for the shoot.

Two episodes were shot on Lupine Lake, a pristine high-mountain lake approximately 20 miles west of Kalispell known for its great cutthroat trout fishing. Two Bear Air of Whitefish provided helicopter support for the trip.

An additional episode of the series was shot on Rogers Lake, where Gruenwald successfully fished for Arctic grayling — the so-called “sailfish of the north.”

The 2015 episodes of “Tom Gruenwald Outdoors” featuring Northwest Montana will premiere on the Sportsman Channel on Nov. 11 and 18 and Dec. 23 at 11:30 a.m. Mountain Standard Time.

Each episode will be rebroadcast on the subsequent Sunday at 8:30 a.m. and then the next Monday at 1:30 a.m. Visit www.thesportsmanchannel.com/get for a channel finder in your community. Check local listings since air times may change.

The return of “Tom Gruenwald Outdoors” to Kalispell gives another boost to the city as a destination for winter travel, said Diane Medler, director of the Kalispell Convention and Visitor Bureau.

“People around the country are starting to recognize Kalispell as a perfect base camp for the best that Montana has to offer,” Medler said. “In winter, we have endless ice fishing opportunities as well as two ski areas, the region’s biggest pond hockey tournament, dog sledding — name your interest and you can do it here. With Glacier National Park and Flathead Lake right at our doorstep, there’s something for literally every season.”

Gruenwald agreed, noting that one of his favorite parts of fishing in Montana was coming back to civilization in the evenings.

“For a town the size of Kalispell there are some really good places to eat, lots of fun things to do and see for the whole family,” he said. “I’m an ice fishing guy, but even I get cold. It’s nice to know that I can come back to town and enjoy a great meal and sit by a warm fire and meet interesting people.”