Gary Borger is one of the world’s foremost fly fishing educators. He has been a fly fisher since 1955 and has taught classes and lectured internationally on all aspects of fly fishing for trout and salmon. A free-lance writer and photographer, Gary is also a Contributing Editor for Fly Fisherman Magazine, Editor at Large for the Virtual Fly Shop, and Fly Fishing Columnist for North American Fisherman. He has written eight best-selling books on fly fishing: “Nymphing,” “Naturals,” “The Borger Color System,” “Designing Trout Flies,” “Presentation,”  ”Fishing the Film,” “Reading Waters,” and “Long Flies.” Gary also pioneered video instruction with his release of “Nymphing” in 1982 and is a designer of fly rods and reels, clothing and many other innovative angling products and fly designs. He is internationally recognized for his conservation efforts and is a founding board member of Trout Unlimited, the Federation of Fly Fishers, and many other organizations. It is our pleasure to share Gary’s words with you.

Fd: When did you start fly-fishing? Can you tell us your memories from those days?
GB: I started reading about fly fishing when I was 10, and I received a fly tying kit for my 11th Christmas. I tied flies all winter and began fishing the next spring. I caught my first trout a month or so before my 12th birthday.
I have many memories of the early years. Here are a couple of stories that come from that first step into fly fishing. This first story is from my book, Fly Gear. (2013—in preparation for the press later this year). Published by Tomorrow River Press, Wausau, Wisconsin.
A Reel in the Sand
My father, Billy, was a roofing contractor who worked long, hard, hot hours, and rarely had the opportunity to fish. None-the-less, he had acquired a South Bend glass fly rod and automatic reel equipped with a green Cortland 333, level fly line. The end of the line had been fitted with a wire-eye leader connector. The eye was equipped with a barbed stem that stabbed into the core of the line. The “leader” was a 7-foot piece of six-pound mono. It was certainly not the outfit of a serious fly fisher, but dad was not a fly fisher in even the remotest sense; he was a bait fisherman, and wielded the rod to drift worms, grubs, and perhaps a minnow for trout on the occasional rainy spring day when roofing was not possible. The rod was off limits to us kids, and don’t ask.
But I had the fly fishing bug and wanted to cast that rod so bad. I had not read anything about casting. In fact, I had never even seen anyone do it. I had only seen magazine photos of anglers fighting fish on their fly rods, mostly at the base of waterfalls, and I had read stories on the magic of fly fishing. I just had to get that rod somehow. He kept it in a glass-fronted gun cabinet, where the well-used Winchester 30-30 stood next to his 16 gauge Remington pump shotgun. The cabinet was not locked, and I would get the rod out and examine it at every secret chance I got. Then came the day when the temptation was just too great. I pulled the rod out of the cabinet and shot out the back door before my mother knew what I was doing. Running around the side of the house I cut through the neighbor’s pine plantation, and ran to the river full speed. It was a fine spring day, and the stream flowed clear and bright, dancing down over the gravels, sweeping into the depths of our swimming hole. I cast and fussed with the rod, slopping line around like some wounded hippo in his last death throes. I was fly casting!
As always happens in such entangling situations, the line wound tightly around the rod tip, and I had to stop and untangle it. It was then that the incident occurred. I plopped the reel down into the sand and fussed about with the line. Finally it was free, and I got back to my wild-eyed thrashing. Leaves flew, the water foamed. I was not really fishing, I was just trying out the rod, getting a good feel for what this fly fishing thing was all about.  Soon enough, I remembered the stern warning from my father about not touching his fishing rod. It made me just a bit nervous, so I decided to get the rod back, and none would be the wiser. I depressed the lever on the automatic reel, and was greeted with the most horrifying, grinding sound that this now terrified young boy had ever heard. I examined the reel. It was full of sand. Grains of the silicone offender had worked into the edges of the spool, and were scratching and scraping with great zeal.

Snatching the line, I stripped it back through the guides and wound it in my hand. I headed home, rod and offended reel gripped far too firmly in my other hand. At the house, I returned the rod to the gun cabinet, and headed up to my room to clean the reel. It didn’t look too hard; after all there was a screw on the side that held it all together.  When the screw came loose, I set it on the small chest of drawers that my dad had built for me, and which also served as my little workbench. Carefully I pried the side plate off the reel. There was a loud, metallic twang as the reel’s mainspring jumped out and flew across my bedroom. Not being privy to the exact construction technology of an automatic reel, I had taken out the wrong screw and unleashed this hideous monster into an unsuspecting world. My world. Which was now filled with all sorts of terrifying thoughts concerning loud angry voices, a sore backside, and an empty stomach to sleep on.
What was I going to do? I certainly wasn’t going to confess if there was any chance of somehow redeeming the situation. I set about pulling the rest of the reel apart and cleaning it thoroughly. As I did, I also looked very carefully at the spring housing and tried to figure out how in blaze’s name I was going to get the totally unruly, long, flat strip of spring steel rewound and forced back into its rightful place in the reel.  I worked on the spring for at least two hours, getting it nearly in, only to have it leap jubilantly free, time after time. As the afternoon crept on, the terror in my gut grew proportionally. If I didn’t get that spring back in the reel, I was really going to get it. Then, suddenly, it snapped into place, as if it had tired of toying with me and just wanted to rest a bit. I tightened the retaining screw on the side plate, tested the reel to make certain that the spring did indeed work, and then ever so quietly and carefully snuck downstairs and returned the reel to its place on the rod.
Never again did I take dad’s rod out for a “test run.” Life is too short for two experiences like that one. That next Christmas I asked my mom and dad for a fly tying kit, and the following spring I began fly fishing with some old gear that I cobbled together. Gear that did not include an automatic reel. This next story is from my book, Fishing the Film, 2010. Published by Tomorrow River Press, Wausau, Wisconsin.
THE HILL COUNTRY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA is a delightful land of high rolling hills and broad valleys threaded by watercourses varying in size from spring brooks to mighty rivers. I grew up there, fishing for anything and everything that would take a worm or grub. At age four I was fishing in the mud puddles in front of my parents’ home. By six I was roaming the countryside in search of new places to fish and new species to catch. It didn’t take me long to fall in love with the trout: tiny brookies from forested headwaters, newly planted rainbows under the bridge by the golf course, and the occasional hold-over brown of a more robust size; all fell prey to my spinning rod. I searched them out on foot, on horseback, and occasionally by riding on the cross-bar of a friend’s bike. By age ten I clearly understood the way of a trout on worms and spinning lures. But then something entirely new and totally captivating came into my life.That something was the lure and lore of fly fishing. My father’s various outdoor magazines held stories by Al McClane, Ted Trueblood, Joe Brooks, and the young Ernest Schwiebert. Their appeal was instant, and the more I read, the more I knew that I had to learn how to fly fish.
My fly fishing really started with fly tying. I asked for and received a fly tying kit for my 11th Christmas. Had I been bold enough to use those early creations, I’m sure that the fish would have died of laughter or fright. But those first flies are long since gone, cut apart to retrieve the precious hooks for a second, third, and many subsequent tries at getting my imitations to look like those in the Family Circle’s Guide to Trout Flies.I had no one to teach me either tying or fishing. My father’s South Bend glass fly rod was his minnow and worm fishing tool. The bright green, level plastic line was wound on an automatic reel. It was a formidable looking piece of equipment and strictly off-limits to us kids. But what thrill is there in childhood if one doesn’t disobey a parent on occasion? I’d sneak it out and “practice” my thrashing from time to time. By the start of fishing season in the spring after my 11th Christmas, I had my own cheap outfit cobbled together from several sources. Not great equipment, not even good equipment, but it was equipment, and it allowed me to begin.
In my mind, I was already a fly fisherman, and a serious one. I had passable flies (just barely), but I knew nothing experiential about using them—I only knew what I had read, which included nothing on casting, and very little on technique. Basically I was on my own. In some ways that was good, because I thought outside the box without ever knowing there was a box. On the other hand, I also discovered a level of frustration I had not known in my fishing experiences past. I couldn’t catch a thing—or rather I should say that I could catch chubs like gang-busters, but could catch nothing else. 
I had no idea that fishing a dry fly in the cold waters of early spring was a fool’s enterprise. I just did what the magazine articles told me to do. But then there came a piece on the wet fly, and I was off into the world of the subsurface. I still caught zip when it came to trout, and ironically, it seemed that I also caught fewer chubs. I was vexed.
But then, one evening in later spring, just a few weeks before my 12th birthday, I found success. It was a time when the wild flowers were showing their blooms, and I was fishing a spot where the river divided around an island. I saw a trout rise along the far bank, not more than 30 feet from me. I cast (or more like slopped) the size 10, Leadwing Coachman wet fly down-and-across stream, just above the rise, and let it swing. I was instantly fast to a ten-inch rainbow that immediately jumped. The whole scene was made even sweeter by the fact that a friend’s father was fishing just downstream and witnessed the whole event. His shouted compliment of “a job well done,” not only straightened my shoulders, but firmly secured my self-imagined role as a fly fisher. As deft as I was at landing trout with a spinning rod, I seemed all thumbs with the fly gear. Through a combination of stripping, backing up, and holding the line in my teeth, I was able to wrestle the flopping fish up onto the gravel. It was immediately dispatched and cleaned and went onto a forked stick for transport back home. It was my first trout on a fly, and it made as fine a dinner as I can remember.
That first trout was a trout of the film. To this day I have no idea what it was eating, and whether it was taking something just under the film, out of the film, or off of the film, but nothing spawns success like success, and I began stalking rising fish with a passion. Forget the dry fly, I had found a lethal weapon for those rising stockers. A wet fly—usually the Leadwing Coachman—swung or stripped just under the surface and over the rise point took them quite regularly. Don’t get me wrong, I love to nymph along the bottom, or feel a heavy trout grab a big streamer being stripped on a sink-tip line, but fishing the film will always hold a special fascination for me. And in the soft days of spring, when the flowers are just coming into full bloom, and the fish start to look up, you may well find me swinging a wet fly, reliving those early childhood days of delight in the discovery of the mysteries of fishing the film.

Fd: How was it that you became interested in entomology and fly-tying? What kind of information did you have in those times?
GB: I became interested in fly fishing and fly tying when I was about 10 years old (1954). This interest came from reading stories by Al McClane, Joe Brooks, Ted Trueblood, the young Ernest Schwiebert, and others. I was already a trout fisherman, using bait and a variety of lures, and fly fishing just seemed like such an exciting way to catch fish.Basically all I had for information was what I read in the magazines. Each month, Field and Stream, Outdoor Life, and Sports Afield would have an article on fly fishing or fly tying, I read them all. It was a bit of a wildly mixed information stream, but it was enough to hold my intense interest and help me get started.
My first book was the Family Circle Guide to Trout Flies and How to Tie Them. It came with the fly tying kit, and was the best part of the kit. Although the tying instructions were very minimal, the pictures of the flies were wonderful, and I used my imagination in developing the techniques to tie them.

Fd: What were your first steps working in the fly-fishing industry?GB: In the winter of 1972/73, I wrote and article on making a fly tying bobbin and sent it to Field and Stream Magazine. They published it later that summer, and that began an earnest writing career that continues to this day.
That same spring (1973) I was asked to give a ½ day presentation of fly fishing as a local sports show. A representative from Fenwick was there and sat in on the talks. A couple of weeks later, Fenwick called me and asked me to become the Midwest Director of the Fenwick Fly Fishing Schools, which were starting that same spring on a national basis. I worked with them until they company was sold in about 1985. Because of the writing and fly fishing schools, I was asked to speak to clubs, at fly fishing shows, and other places.
After my first book (Nymphing, 1979. Published by Stackpole Press, Harrisburg, PA) I received many more offers to write and speak.

Fd: You have taught, written and lectured on all aspects of fly-fishing. What do you think are the key steps in becoming a good fly-fisherman?
GB: This is a very large topic, but perhaps I can simplify it a bit by simply listing the top 10 requirements.
1. Casting ability.2. Understanding the biology of the fish and its food organisms.3. Reading waters not just to find fish but to plan the best approach, cast, fly selection, and so on.4. Understanding fly construction and how that construction will affect the behavior of the fly when fished with a variety of techniques.5. Understanding the need to play the role of the angler as predator and hunt and stalk fish.6. Knowing a wide variety of angling tactics and the circumstances under which they give the best results.7. Be willing to fish for a wide variety of species.8. An eager willingness to learn, to try new things, and to expand one’s fishing experiences.9. A solid knowledge of fishing equipment and how to use best use it.10. An undying passion for fishing.

Fd: An oldie, but still a very interesting subject, how was it to work as a consultant on Robert Redford’s film “A River Runs Through It”?
GB: Jason, of course did much more work on the movie than I did. He was the casting double for Brad Pitt (Paul) and Crain Scheffer (Norman), helped with scene scouting, worked as a Production Assistant, and other things. I was simply a consultant that talked with the second unit director of photography about filming fishing and filming fish underwater. Everyone was very cordial and interested because they wanted the movie to be as authentic as it could be. 

Fd: You have visited many places because of fly-fishing.
A) Which are your favorite spots and species?
It’s very hard to pick one or even several “favorite” places because I really enjoy so many venues and fishing for many species.Still, I began fly fishing for trout, and indeed, I think that trout and salmon still hold the number one place in my angling interest. Trout because they eat so many different food items—from size 28 midges to 4 inch long mice and large baitfish. In addition, they occur is so many places around the world, from streams to lakes to the ocean. Salmon are great because they fight so well and have the same general shape and look as trout. They also behave much as trout do when taking the fly.I’ve fished many places, and rather than list places, I like to talk about my favorite way of fishing. If I can, I prefer to hunt and stalk individual fish. So, New Zealand is one of my favorite places to do this, but I love to do it for the big rainbows in Alaska, the trout in the spring creeks of the US and the Patagonia, and the chalk streams of England, and in the lake edges of Tasmania. But even so, all fishing is great fun, and I enjoy all aspects of it. 
B) What kind of waters are your favorites?This is hard question because ever water type has its own peculiarities, all of which test the fly fisher in different ways. Spring creeks challenge the anglers’ ability to spot fish and cast accurately without being seen. Lakes are a challenge because the fish can change depth so quickly, feeding inshore one minute and then moving to feed 10 feet down over sunken weeds the next. Small streams are fun because they require very precise casting and relatively short distances. Medium sized streams offer the angler a host of possibilities and require careful analysis on a continual basis. Huge rivers are exciting because they can hold large fish and because they can require long precise casts. Flats are wonderful because the cruising fish often come on very quickly and require quick casting action without spooking the incoming fish. 
C) You have lectured on many techniques. When you go out fishing, is there a particular one that you enjoy the most?I can only say that I enjoy all the tactics. Perhaps the best answer is “the one that is catching fish.” When chasing king salmon, for example, dry flies are total useless, while knowing how to dribble an egg down into the fish’s face can be stunning successful. On the other hand, when the big rainbows of the Henry’s Fork are sipping Pale Moring Duns off the surface film, all the best nymphing tactics in the world are useless. I gain satisfaction in being able to determine the right tactic and applying it successfully under any and all angling conditions.
D) Can you tell us any funny story you recall from your trips?
This is an article I published from an experience I had in 1982 in New Zealand:
Learning to Drive on the Left. By Gary Borger. Ben Franklin said “Experience is a dear teacher, but a fool learns no other way.” But sometimes, we have no choice except to learn under the stern hand of experience…
The year was 1982 and it was my first trip to the Antipodes—the South Island of New Zealand, to be more precise. I had been corresponding with Mike Allen about the great fishing and the great country and the great people, and I was more than primed to go. So when Air New Zealand graced me with a ticket that allowed me to share stories of that lovely land in my writings, I was on the plane before the dust settled. You know the saying, “You can have this seat when you pry it out of my cold dead fingers.”  The country and the people were no less astounding than I had heard, but the fishing was off the charts. Mike cautioned me against casting to the “little” 20-inchers. Oh, but it was hard to pass them by at first, but after a week, I too considered them “little.” But be on notice, New Zealand rivers are not overflowing with fish. A river has a limited potential; it may, for instance, hold 1,000, 1-pound fish or 1, 1000-pound fish. So when one hits a “double-digit” river (every fish over 10 pounds) the beasts are a bit spread out. It requires a lot of walking and a lot of looking. But that’s the thrill of it—fishing in NZ is really hunting, with the fly rod as the weapon of choice.
At the end of the first week, Mike suggested we fly into the top end of a river that he knew got very little pressure. We were sure to find plenty of fish in the smallish to large sizes. And so we scouted the local air services and found one that knew the area well and could put us right where we wanted to be. I was amazed. Just think, an airstrip in the middle of nowhere. Wrong. Well, maybe partially right. A stump-filled field with high grass perched at the edge of a very tall cliff. Alaskan bush pilots could take lessons from these guys. 
As Mike and I prepared to climb down the cliff, the pilot called out, “See you right here at 7pm, mates,” and he was gone. We descended by hanging onto the scrubby trees and brush and by taking some severe chances, but, OH, what a day it was. The first cast put the climb back up the cliff totally out of mind. And the casts that followed did nothing to draw our attention back there either. The big boys were on the fin, and every pool had one or two of them out and looking. Browns and Bows to nearly 30 inches, with plenty of the two-footers mixed in.
At 6pm, weary from the long walk, the hot day, and the arm wrestling with wild trout, we turned reluctantly back toward the “landing strip.” Now the cliff was firmly in mind, and we groaned inwardly at the prospect of ascending it with the rods and gear in our teeth to free up our hands for the mad scramble. But climbing was not in our future—that is, not in Mike’s future. About half way back to the cliff, Mike suddenly fell to the ground in agony. His legs drew up to his chest and his back arched, curving him into a fetal position in an instant. I was more than a little startled. He did not respond to my almost-panic edged questions, but simply rolled around groaning and moaning like death warmed over. Finally he relax a bit and smiled weakly, “Wow,” he said, “that was some back spasm.” We had been walking over very uneven terrain all day, and as Mike explained, he sometimes got back pains after a day like that. I was really relieved. After a minute or so, we set off again. I had the major share of the gear, and wondered if I had been “Tom Sawyered” into the job.
But, no, as we approached the cliff, Mike suddenly dropped to the ground as if pole-axed. The performance was a repeat of Act 1, but it didn’t let up as soon, and when it did the pain was merely unbearable. He couldn’t walk, much less climb the cliff. I bundled him in all the spare clothing we had, and helped him get comfortable. Then, I climbed the cliff with the rest of the gear in my teeth. To tell the truth, I don’t remember too much about the climb because I was so worried about Mike. I just climbed.
The pilot came in right on schedule, and when I explained what was going on, he told me to climb back down and stay with Mike, and he would send someone to get us. It was a fast descent without gear and with the push or urgency behind me. We could do nothing but wait.
And then I heard the faint chop of an engine. It swiftly became chop, chop, chop, and I knew the pilot had sent a chopper to take us out. It was not a med-evac unit that came in however, but the owner of the sheep station at the bottom of the river. Ian Sargenson put the bird down right next to me and yelled, “Get in.” It was a two-place chopper, so I had to strap in and then wrestle Mike in and onto my lap where I could hold him partially dangling out the door. Although in his 60’s at the time, Ian was strong and bright, and he knew how to get us down river fast. It was perhaps the most adventuresome chopper ride I’ve ever had. It was certainly fast. Our pilot was waiting for us at the airstrip at “Sarg’s” place, and we bundled Mike into the plane and shot back to town. By this time, it was 1 am, and I was a bit disoriented. Mike and I were whisked to the local “surgery,” where the doctor examined him carefully. “I think he’s passing a kidney stone,” he told me, “but I have to be certain.” “I’ll have to send him to the hospital.” I was greatly relieved until the ambulance pulled up and they loaded Mike for the 40-mile ride to the hospital. As they closed the rear doors, I yelled, “Toss me your car keys.”
Light blinking, the ambulance rushed out of the parking lot and headed off—on the wrong side of the road! But no, it was the right side; I mean the left side, which in NZ is the right side. I jumped into the driver’s seat and discovered that they had moved the steering wheel to the passenger side. “What the…” By the time I got it all straightened out, the car started, the seat belt in place, and figured out how to shift with my left hand, the blinking lights of the emergency transport were no more. I pointed the car in the right direction and jammed the accelerator to the floor boards. Now mind, I usually drive that way anyhow, but I do so on the right, right side of the road and shift with my coordinated right, right hand. All I can say is that I didn’t accidentally shift into reverse, but that gear box got a good testing that night. And there were a couple of panicked moments when other drivers tried to avoid me as I careened wildly after the wildly careening ambulance. Mind you, the panic was mutual.  But about half way there, it suddenly all clicked, and I knew I was meant for survival. I tore along in confidence and actually passed a couple of cars as I stayed close behind the flashing lights that tried to leave me in the darkness. Never again would driving on the left feel foreign, but neither would I ever forget the fire in which my skills had been born and tested.
And Mike, well, we go him “in hospital” and had the X-ray done. It was indeed a kidney stone, and he went to sleep in the bliss of a healthy dose of morphine. Me, I was graciously allowed to sleep in an empty room in the convent next door. Mike went home the next day, and I went fishing, driving like a wild man on the left side of the road.
E) Any risky situation you have been into?This story is from my book, Reading Waters, 2011. Published by Tomorrow River Press, Wausau, Wisconsin.One summer on Alaska’s Moraine, Ray Beedle and I headed downstream from our landing at Crosswinds Lake. As we waded into the top of the first pool, I looked back and up through the rapids we’d walked around, and knew I’d have to go back. The big rainbows were in the top of the pool, but I knew they’d be in the rapids, too, and I wanted to pry them out. As I waded in at the lower end of the rapids, I heard loud splashing, like someone running in shallow water. I turned and looked to my right. Here came a big brown bear, running full tilt through a shallow back channel, straight at me and less than a hundred feet away. I waded into the rapids right now without regard to a possible swim. Suddenly the bear dove into the water feet first and came up with a big sockeye, turned, and hauled it up into the bushes to eat.
With my adrenaline peaking, I fished the rapids like a wild man. The secret pool behind every boulder held a big rainbow. The majority jumped off or otherwise escaped from the barbless hook because I had to play them hard. There was no wading after them in the rapids, and they were too big to just haul in. But, what a ride—scared to death by a big Alaskan brown bear and brought back to life by big Alaskan rainbows.

Fd: Which spots and species are in your bucket list?
GB: The bucket list is practically unending; certainly more places than there will time in my life to fish them all. Still, I’d like to fish Iceland for the big browns and char, Scotland for it’s big browns, Ireland for its great lake fishing, an untold number of places in new Zealand (I have fished many places there, but there are still so many more), northern Norway for the big char, South American rivers for Dorado, Croatia’s spring creeks, and so much more.

Fd: Being a key figure in the fly-fishing world, have you got a particular aim or message to give out to the global fly-fishing community?
GB: Fly Fishers are more conscious of, and conscientious about, our aquatic resources. We need to be because success in the sport requires us to be. But we also need to be as political as we can be in caring for our resources. We need to constantly be on the alert for things that would destroy or harm our rivers and lakes and their watersheds. We need to care for our resources so that they can continue strong and undamaged into the future. This may mean writing letters, voting, discussing problems with those in positions of political influence, and so on. 

Fd: What are your thoughts on the amount of information on fly-fishing available today on the internet?
GB: I love the Internet because of the amount of information that is available. Still, It’s all in bits and pieces, and if one is not willing to really dig and search, it’s hard to put together large hunks of information in any cohesive form. Books will always have a place because they do put huge hunks of information into a solid logic stream that makes information acquisition not only easier but more cohesive.
In addition, video clips on YouTube allow the anglers to access specific skills—sometimes well done, sometimes not well done. Again, these can be really useful, but not as good as an entire DVD on a specific topic. A DVD can show the relationship between many different bits of information. 

Fd: Do you consider it important to know about fly-fishing history? Why?
GB: Yes, I do consider the history of fly fishing to be important because it teaches us about the evolution of all aspects of our sport. The origins of terminology often help us understand the reasoning behind the development of flies, tackle, and tactics. This understanding, in turn, helps us to see where flies, tackle, and tactics can be improved, modified, and evolved.
For example, understanding the origins of the Spey line designs lead first to Weight Forward Spey lines with different head lengths, then to Scandi designs. Realizing the need to modify these lines to solve problems for which they were not designed lead to the development of the Skagit Spey lines. 

Fd: How do you envision the future of this sport?
GB: Fly fishing will always be a small sport because of the investment of time needed to become proficient. Even so, there are ways the sport could be expanded. For example, bass fishing tournaments for fly rods only, fly casting and fly tying tournaments at the high school and college level, and fly casting as an Olympic demonstration sport. However, there are many in the sport that do not want it to increase in size. True, if fly fishers only fished for trout and salmon, the sport could become overcrowded, but if the sport is promoted for all species, then it could grow many times its current size.

Fd: As a final point, what does fly-fishing mean to you? 
GB: As I noted earlier, fly fishing has been a passion for me from childhood. I love the environs of rivers and streams, lakes and ocean flats. I have always been fascinated by the actual catching of fish. But perhaps more than anything, I love the problem solving aspect of the sport. Knowing what the fish are feeding on, being able to construct a reasonable artificial facsimile of the natural, knowing precisely how to approach the fish without spooking it, and then using the best tactic for successfully fishing the artificial is a truly satisfying experience. I also love the fact that there is a continual stream of new ideas and new developments springing up. These may be as simple as tippet rings or as complex as nanotechnology in rod development. They may be nothing more than the addition of a bead head to a nymph or as complex and time-consuming as the development of genetic hackle. All these stimulate the imagination and stir desires to experiment with them. Often times they improve our ability to catch fish. I also enjoy travelling for new angling adventures and meeting other fly fishers around the world. It’s a wonderful fraternity of shared experiences and an opportunity to learn new ways to fly fish.


Thank you very much, Gary!