Customizing the Outdoor Experience

SEELEY LAKE – Seeley Lake resident Juan de Santa Anna is known in the valley for his photography – portraits, weddings, group events, landscapes. He said he is passionate about photography but he is just as passionate about fly fishing. His wife Randi de Santa Anna includes among her passions hiking, wildflowers and just being out in nature. Together they have found a way to infuse their passions into their employment. The result is Four Season Forays.

Four Season Forays offers day and half-day fly-fishing trips, family floats and wildflower hikes. In the colder seasons the de Santa Annas offer ice fishing, snowshoeing trips, off-trail cross country ski outings and basic animal tracking. Personalized photography lessons are available any season.

To clarify what differentiates their business from other outfitting businesses in the area, Juan said, "The word is custom. We really want to focus on customized outdoor experiences."

The de Santa Annas offered some examples. They can create a special outing for a family or group that includes children, parents and grandparents, some of whom want to fish while others prefer to hike or just take pictures. They can arrange an outdoor experience tailored to a disabled person or a wheelchair user or an out-of-state visitor eager to experience the woods but timid about being in the "wilderness." The hiking or fishing can be as long or as short, as concentrated or as relaxed as the client desires. Photography lessons can consist of nudging a beginner out of auto mode or teaching an advanced photographer how to compensate for challenging shoot conditions. As a bonus, Juan speaks fluent Spanish, should that be helpful to clients.

Juan also offers photo floats where he will travel alongside a group and photo-document their trip. He said he once did a photo float with five fathers taking their five 13-year-old daughters on a fly fishing trip – using five different boats.

Though 2017 will be their first full year as Four Season Forays, the de Santa Annas have years of extensive experience in their chosen areas. Juan has been fly fishing for more than 35 years, including 20 years teaching the skill to juvenile delinquents on wilderness fishing trips. He is not only a professional photographer in his own right, he was also an instructor at the Rocky Mountain School of Photography.

Randi has a degree in ethnobotany, survived a New England winter in a teepee, spent two decades living in a remote cabin adjacent to the Trinity Alps Wilderness in northern California and worked as a wilderness guide.

The de Santa Annas each have made sure their skills transfer to Montana criteria. Randi has attained Master Naturalist Certification through the Montana Natural History Center. Keeping the certification current requires a yearly commitment to 40 hours of volunteer service and eight hours of continuing education. She fulfills the volunteer requirement by working in the University of Montana Herbarium and by assisting Andrea Stephens of Swan Valley Connections with wetland walks for school children.

Juan has completed the Montana Fishing Guide School course, a seven-day course which consists of on-the-water sessions on different Montana rivers during the day and relevant lectures in the evening. Additionally, a fly fishing guide must be endorsed by a licensed outfitter.

Randi said, "Through the gracious kindness of Tom Parker, we are both endorsed and permitted under his Buck Creek Guide Service, Inc."

According to the de Santa Annas, because it embraces their passions, their personal goal in any foray is to introduce, educate and generate appreciation for the outdoors.

Randi said, "I want people to walk away with a deeper understanding of the wilderness, of ecology, of plants, of just being calm on the trail."

Juan teaches that catch-and-release fishing has an ethical component; freeing a fish that swims away injured defeats the purpose of the release. Juan explains the right kind of hooks to use and the proper way to disengage the hook.

If a client wants to take home a fish or two to eat, Juan said he is okay with that but his own preference is for catch-and-release fishing. He said, "For me, the tug is the drug. Just knowing that you fooled one of those critters. You know, fish have very small brains but they outsmart us all the time."

Randi added, "I have learned from Juan that being a fisherman requires a three-dimensional knowledge – of the underwater landscape, the above water landscape, the way the water moves, knowledge of the underside of a bank, of oxygen, of rocks and ripples, where you're casting to and why."

Randi said in her younger days she was an avid environmental activist, attending sit-ins and strikes. Now she sees more value personally in approaching her goals with a more positive mindset.

She said, "I think it's really important for people to care about the environment. If people grow to love the environment more because they went fishing with Juan or hiking with me, that's a positive thing. That's an organic change."

Randi has spent a good deal of time creating an online presence for the couple's endeavors. Aside from a Facebook page and a website (fourseasonforays.com), she also maintains I Hike to Write (ihiketowrite.com), a blog presently focused on introducing spring wildflowers as they appear in the forests.

Juan continues to schedule portrait photography sittings and to photograph weddings and other events along with selling his landscapes and other photographs. His work can be accessed at juansphotography.com.