When I started my very first job as a young kid, I thought working at an outdoors store would be fun. I got a job at a small fly shop near my home and my hobby/addiction was started. I started tying flies for the owner and after tying several flies for bass and having immediate success I was hooked. The shop had a pond out back and a stream beside it where I practiced to improve my skills. When I caught my first sizeable smallmouth bass on a fly rod, I started chasing this wonderful gamefish almost exclusively during the warm Ohio summers. After years of honing my skills and getting some good lessons along the way, I went to guide school in Montana on the Bighorn River. I went to work the same year in Alaska where I lived and guided for almost three years. During the long winters I was commercially tying flies and stocking my guide boxes for the next season. From guiding in the last frontier, I made some great friends and met people from all over the world. It is an experience that changed my life and a memory I will treasure forever. Even though I had some of the best fishing right out my back door, I still missed chasing smallmouth and steelhead back home. I returned to my roots to finish my college degree, but that has not kept me from spending most, if not all, of my free time either on the water or on the vise. If I am not throwing streamers and poppers for smallmouth, I am either tying up new fly creations or following steelhead runs. I also mix in building a fly rod or two to add to my gear arsenal. For the past fifteen years, fly fishing has been my world and without it I do not know where I would be today. I am thankful for being able to be part of such a rewarding hobby and I am honored to be part of the CATCH Fly Design Team.
