The luckiest man in America

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Journal Writer

IDAHO FALLS - Luca Adelfio's office is a 16-year-old Nissan truck with a broken fuel gage and no air conditioning. The job title listed on his business card is “luckiest guy in America.”

The top officials at Trout Unlimited were brainstorming for a way to survey many of their organization's numerous river restoration projects throughout the country. Somehow, an intern got the job that made him the envy of every angler - fly fishing more than half of the country's top 100 rivers, and visiting TU projects along the way.

You can track the 23-year-old angling intern's progress and read his fishing blog at www.tu.org.

Adelfio made a recent stop in Idaho Falls to join TU members on a trip to survey completed and ongoing projects along the Little Lost River in the Lost River Range in Central Idaho. He also took some time to venture to the waterway's headwaters to “measure success” - fly fishing in TU parlance.

Adelfio has “measured success” at three top 100 Gem State rivers - the Henry's Fork, the South Fork and Silver Creek.  “We were looking around, and we had all sorts of ideas on what to put on his business card - blogger, ambassador. We said (forget it). He's the luckiest guy in America,” said T Grand, secretary for the TU National Chapter. “He's got a fisheries background. He was chapter secretary for the National Capitol Chapter at age 16. He's the real deal.”

The fishing component of Adelfio's job was included to draw interest to TU's work and lure anglers to the TU Web site. He's heard some people have joined TU after reading his blog.

He caught his biggest fish, a 22-inch brown trout, in the Bighorn River near Billings.

“In my mind, it's kind of the benchmark for tailwater fisheries,” Adelfio said of the Bighorn, included on TU's top 100 list. “I was most surprised by the Ozarks. There were times when we were catching fish on every cast. The Driftless was fun in Wisconsin. At Black Canyon of the Gunnison River (near Montrose, Colo.), I caught all brown trout. It used to be a great rainbow fishery, but whirling disease has hit it hard.”

Adelfio has added 12,000 miles to his truck's odometer since embarking on his adventure at the beginning of the summer.

“Idaho to me is kind of on the way to and from the Pacific Northwest,” Adelfio said. “I'm excited to be back in the Rockies. It's my favorite place to fish.”

He got behind on his blogging in Pennsylvania after someone broke into his truck and stole his computer. TU quickly sent him a replacement laptop.

He camps out most of the time - except when he needs a motel's Internet connection to update the blog - and he prepares his own meals on a Coleman stove and a portable grill.

Adelfio graduated from Colorado College in biology a year and a half ago and has worked at restoring bull trout habitat for the U.S. Forest Service in Missoula, Mont. He calls Big Sky, Mont., home and plans to return to the ski patrol at Moonlight Basin after completing his current assignment.

John O'Connell covers Pocatello city government and edits the Great Outdoors section for the Journal. He can be reached by calling 239-3128 or by e-mail at joconnell@journalnet.com.

By John O'Connell

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