A little about me . . . By all accounts I started fishing at age three with my grandpa on the New Jersey shore for snapper blues and fluke. I must have been infected then because it has been more than forty years that I’ve been passionate about fish and the water. Growing up north of New York city, I was fortunate to live in an area that offered great bass and trout fishing all within range of my bicycle. At age eleven I “started” fly fishing by spooling my spinning reel with half of a double taper fly line my buddy PJ and I split. Thankfully, my Dad pitied me enough to purchase me a Cortland glass fly rod combo. I was immediately hooked and have been passionate about fly fishing ever since. Following college, I moved to Cape Cod, MA, worked for the Orvis company and began guiding for striped bass and bluefish on the flats of Cape Cod. It was during the off-seasons that my love affair with the Keys really began. I got engaged while wading a flat off Marathon (luckily my wife loves to fish too) and was married the following year at sunset in almost the same location. After one too many New England winters my wife and I decided to pull the trigger and move to Islamorada. That was twenty years ago and what can I say, I’m living the dream.
Fishing with me . . . This may be too much for some but it’s said after a lifetime spent outdoors: I fully believe in the power Nature has to put us closer to our Creator. For me, the outdoors has always been my place of solace and a place where I feel God the most. Fly fishing is nothing more than a vehicle to get me there, and I am incredibly fortunate to be able to share the opportunity to do it with others. The point of fishing for me is about having the entire experience nourish the soul; a time for reflection and perspective and for looking at the world with a child’s eyes, while laughing and catching fish at the same time. If that sounds good to you, let’s go fishing! But having said that, I have had customers who have used my intellectual property without consent (photos), have gotten angry at me for not being able to hold onto fish boatside for a photo (you try to hold onto a 100 pound tarpon) and even a request to kill bonefish to make jewelry out of. So if your fishing interests and goals are limited to your Instagram feed, your Facebook Live Stream, a glossy photo for your office desk, a bucket list species to check off, or the otoliths (ear bones) of a bonefish (or any fish for that matter) to make a necklace with, please do me the courtesy of choosing another guide.
