Mike Lum

Mike Lum has been guiding the Madison River for a long time. Since 1994 to be exact, in his rookie year of professional guiding. Hailing from Minot, ND, Mike spent his formative flyfishing years on Colorado rivers and streams before heading north to Montana in 1991 to try and pull off two more years of college. Needless to say the trout rivers and elk meadows of southwestern, MT didn’t make this easy.

In addition to being a great guide, Mike also excels as a professional photographer and chef. When not on the water or with a camera in hand, Mike enjoys tying flies, cooking, and hunting. Mike considers fly fishing to be "both an escape and release that’s an opportunity to learn deeply. Learn about our personal and individual connection to the natural world and our place in it. Learn about ourselves and how we handle frustration, anxiety, success and failure. It is a chance for us to unwind and reconnect to a place of inner peace and solitude as well as a mirror to reflect back to us our ability or lack thereof for living in the moment."

Over the course of many years of guiding, Mike has come to appreciate what it takes to lead people to what it is they truly desire. He has mastered many different ways of teaching each core concept of fly fishing from casting to presentation and everything in between. In Mike's words, he has "(mostly) let go of the gauge of the success of any outing as being number and size of fish caught." As a reflection of Mike, one of his favorite quotes is from Henry David Thoreau: “Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not the fish they are after.”