In a small, repurposed house on Bridge Street, a stone's throw from where the Swan River bleeds into Bigfork Bay, and where pine needles accumulate on the eaves in the fall, is Bigfork's fly-fishing sanctuary. In the center of the Bigfork Anglers Fly Shop are hundreds of flies: dainty dry flies made from muskrat and elk and calf hair, silicone legs, nymphs and droppers and neon bobbers.  

On the periphery are the quirky additions that tourists looking for a pair of sunglasses or maps miss. There's the drum set tucked away in the back corner where fishing guides are known to riff in the dead of winter when the fishing is slow. Or there's the high-top table where old timers tie flies and swap stories from the river, and guides kick back after a long day with clients.  

Fly fishers approach their sport with a passion that often borders on obsession. Life consists of the mesmerizing flow of the trout stream and the meditative cast of the fly rod in the early morning and late evening when the light is soft and the fish are biting. But away from the river, and the solitude it promises, these anglers need a place to gather, to be with others who share their single-minded compulsion, to pass their local knowledge on to the next generation.  

For generations, fly shops have served this purpose, and Bigfork Angler's owner Jason Lanier works to keep this tradition alive in the Flathead Valley.  

"The saving grace of the small fly-fishing storefronts is that when you go into the big stores, the folks there aren't going to be able to help you and give you any local knowledge or spots to go. They're really not going to be able to break down these techniques and offer the types of information that these guys in the shop can," Lanier said. "My oldest boy works here, and most of the guys are people who come through the shop as employees or guides. They're very passionate about fly fishing, and they spend a lot of time on the water here, and so you're getting local, unique knowledge coming into a fly shop." 

Since 2008, Bigfork Anglers has served fly fishers of all skill levels, providing gear and instruction, and this year the outfit was named winner of three Best of Bigfork categories: Best Fishing Charter, Best Outdoor Gear and Best Water Sports Shop.  

Every fly fisher, regardless of age, goes through similar stages, Lanier said. His skin is tanned from years on the river, and he speaks about the sport with a precision earned through decades of discipline.  

"First, you just want to learn, then you just want to catch fish, and then you want to catch big fish, and then lots of fish. When you've finally graduated through that whole process, at some point you find your method," he said. 

As is the case with many who dedicate their lives to the craft, Lanier's passion was handed down through the generations. His grandfather taught his father, who likewise taught him the art of reading streams and fish in the desert mountain country of Southern California. There were rattlesnakes and stinging nettle, but not many people, and gin-clear wild trout streams where Lanier first learned to cast.  

His family spent time in Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada, fishing the Owens River for steelhead. But it was through childhood summers spent with his retired grand folks, travelling the country in their fifth wheel, that Lanier was indoctrinated into the legendary fly-fishing rivers and streams of the Rocky Mountains. He fished Rock Creek east of Missoula and the Madison and Yellowstone rivers, along with countless other small streams throughout the West. It was the early 1980s, Lanier was in elementary school and he never escaped from fly fishing's orbit. 

Drawn to the rivers of Montana, Lanier moved to the Flathead Valley in 1995, where he guided for Lakestream Fly Shop and Stumptown Anglers in Whitefish. He obtained his guiding license in 1998 and started guiding independently in the valley for several years before moving to Missoula to complete his college education.  

In Missoula, the fly-fishing Eden romanticized by Norman Maclean in "A River Runs Through It," Lanier guided for several shops and outfitters for 10 years before he started to question his future in fishing. But his wife, Karina, a Bigfork local, encouraged him to think about opening a fly shop. 

"She's the one that lit the fire for me to do the shop. I was kind of reluctant, honestly, at the beginning, and she's like, 'What the heck? Go for it!' She definitely encouraged me and pushed me to actually do it. She deserves some credit for sure," Lanier said.  

It was at that time, in the spring of 2008, that the building at 405 Bridge Street became available, and the Laniers went all in on Bigfork Anglers.  

In retrospect, it couldn't have been a worse time to open a business catered toward tourism and leisure activities. Bigfork was even sleepier in those days, Lanier said, and the web (Lanier still refers to the internet as the web, an indication of a man who spends more time on the river than in digital spaces) was still in its infancy. In the depths of an economic recession, Lanier had to lean heavily on the repeat clients he had guided for years in Missoula to carry the young shop through its first five years.  

But, buoyed by a customer base whose devotion to the sport borders on obsessive, Bigfork Anglers continued to grow. The shop maintains a sizable staff of around 10 guides, many of whom worked in the shop before becoming guides themselves. Some grew up in the Flathead Valley, and all are devotees of the waters of Northwest Montana.  

At its core, the Bigfork Anglers will always be about fly fishing, Lanier said, but in recent years the shop has expanded its services to include fishing charters on Flathead Lake and Wild Horse Island tours. The Flathead Valley isn't a fly-fishing destination in the same way Missoula or Yellowstone are, so it draws more beginner anglers who are eager to get their feet wet in a variety of disciplines, and expanding beyond fly fishing has allowed Bigfork Anglers to provide that. 

Bigfork Anglers has also been involved with Cast Hope, a nonprofit founded by local guide Ryan Johnston that provides opportunities for youth to learn how to fly fish. For the past two years, the shop has hosted the International Fly Fishing Film tour, with the proceeds from the event benefitting Cast Hope. 

The event is important to Lanier, who sees the fly-fishing community come together on a regular basis in his shop. There are retired firefighters and local bus drivers who pick up shifts at the shop in the summer just to be somewhere they can talk about fishing. They rub shoulders with the young up-and-comers, teenagers who dream about guiding someday and work the counter for pro deals to finance their gear.  

Lanier's three children are all fly fishers now. When they were young, they fought over the best spot in the boat or the best rod and wanted to always be the one to catch the fish. They get to fish in the Montana rivers Lanier spent his own childhood exploring, and he gets to teach them about the waters he's spent decades observing. It's the way the craft is passed along, from person to person, from generation to generation, and it's the dedication that has sustained his fly shop for 18 years now.  

Reporter Elsa Ericksen can be reached at 406-758-4459 or [email protected]. If you value local journalism, pledge your support at dailyinterlake.com/support.

    Bigfork Anglers Fly Shop won three Best of Bigfork Categories in 2026. (Elsa Ericksen/Daily Inter Lake)