Nothing compares to the quiet serenity of flyfishing.  

As the boat lazily drifts along the river, line sunk beneath the surface, conversation tends to ebb and flow. For Ryan Johnston, it’s the perfect moment to have a heart-to-heart with kids who’ve had a rough start in life.  

Last spring, he opened a new chapter of his nonprofit, Cast Hope, in the Flathead Valley, a program that provides free fishing trips, gear and outdoor recreational opportunities to underserved youth. 

“Fishing has the ability to take these little moments in a child’s life, or even an adult’s life, and become these learning moments,” Johnston said.  

The mentorship program teaches kids more than how to cast a line. They are shown how to apply themselves, taught how to push through when life gets tough. Trust builds with each fishing trip, and conversation starts to open up.  

“All of a sudden, you're not talking fishing. You're talking life in the boat,” Johnston said. “A drift boat is a very intimate space.” 

His idea to start Cast Hope began as a monthly fishing trip on the Sacramento River in California. Johnston recalled attending a church service in Chico, California, where the pastor spoke about using a personal gift to change your community.  

“It just really sat with me,” he said. 

Inspired by the sermon, he decided to donate one fly fishing trip a month to an underserved youth. Word quickly spread through his church, and it wasn’t long before he started booking trips over the next several months. 

He recalled fishing with one junior high student, whose father recently passed away. The boy's uncle wanted to fill the gap as a male role model and tagged along on the trip. Reeling in his second catch of the day, the kid turned around and smiled. 

“This is the coolest thing I've ever done. I want to start fly fishing with you,” Johnston recalled him saying. “I want this to become our thing.”  

Johnston knew in that moment he needed a bigger program. He drafted the business model for Cast Hope as a graduate student at California State University, Chico. A month after graduation, he applied for a nonprofit status and officially founded the program in March 2009.  

Today, Cast Hope operates across five regions in California, Nevada, Idaho and Montana, with 1,000 enrolled kids as of 2025. 

“It’s gone from a simple vision of taking 50 kids fishing to now a whole pile of kids across five regions,” Johnston said.  

Running a nonprofit is one of three fishing hats Johnston wears.  

He works full time as a fishing guide in Montana, through an outfit called Bigfork Anglers, and in California, and has authored three published books. Twenty years spent with strangers in a boat are bound to bubble up a good story or two.  

The collection of short stories was inspired by his dad, who encouraged him to write after Johnston spent an evening entertaining a group of clients. 

“There's something there,” Johnston recalled his father saying in 2010. "When you get to my age, all the details of what happened are going to start getting fuzzy. I think you should start writing some of those down.”   

But it was hard to find the time to write. The next decade was spent navigating his new role of fatherhood, running a nonprofit and working as a fishing guide. He managed to write a chapter or two whenever he escaped to a coffee shop to focus on work, but struggled to commit to edits.  

But then the Covid pandemic hit, and Johnston found himself with nothing but time on his hands.  

“I went from full-time guiding, running a nonprofit on the side, to having nothing to do,” he said.  

He spent a month rewriting his first draft and hired an editor to fine tune the finishing touches. On Jan. 15, 2022, his first book, “A Reel Job: Short Stories and Thoughts from the River,” hit the shelves.  

“I had to overcome some negative voices in my head,” Johnston said. “I had English teachers in high school and professors in college, multiple people who said I wasn't good at writing.”  

But his inbox began to flood with readers from around the world, all praising his work and asking when the next novel was coming out. Nine months after publishing his first novel, Johnston received 400 to 500 messages on social media.  

“I was like, maybe there is actually something here,” Johnston said.  

Over the next four years, he wrote two more books, “Reelly: Unbelievable Fly Fishing Guide Stories” which was published in 2024, and “Reel Salty,” which just came out in late January. 

“God's given me a really vivid memory,” Johnston said. “I can go back into that space and close my eyes and it's like a movie. I can see it, I can feel it, I can smell it.” 

Fishing is a lifelong passion of his, inspired by the same man who encouraged him to write. In San Diego, Johnston and his dad hopped around local ponds, casting for blue gill. At 7 years old, his dad took him on his first saltwater trip.  

He and his family spent two weeks every summer visiting his grandfather in Star Valley, Wyoming. They enjoyed a break from congested California traffic and soaked in the scenic views of the Rocky Mountains. Johnston first learned how to fly fish on the south fork of the Snake River, 40 minutes from where his grandfather lived. 

“It’s kind of poetic,” he said. “The first place I casted a fly would end up creating a career for me and also a career for an underserved kid, 20 years later.” 

Reporter Hannah Shields can be reached at 758-4439 or [email protected].

    Ryan Johnston poses with a tarpon he caught while fly fishing in Puerto Rico in 2025. (Courtesy of Ryan Johnston)
  

    Ryan Johnston, founder of Cast Hope, poses with a kid on Rogers Lake in Montana during one of the program's free fishing trips for underserved youth. (Courtesy of Ryan Johnston)
  

    Local fishing guide and founder of Cast Hope Ryan Johnston authored three books full of short stories inspired during his time as a fly fishing guide. (Courtesy of Ryan Johnston)
  

  

    (Left to right) Ryan Johnston is with his daughters, Maggie, 15, and Ava, 12, and wife Bonnie on a road trip to Lake Louise, Canada, in 2025. (Courtesy of Ryan Johnston)
  

    Ryan Johnston is a local author, fishing guide and founder of Cast Hope, a nonprofit program that provides free fishing trips to underserved youth. (Courtesy of Ryan Johnston)