Well, my family had always fished and hunted.  As a kid, I just didn’t have the patience to sit and watch a bobber, so I started fishing with hardware, but quickly found out that lures were expensive, so my dad got me a fly tying kit for my eighth birthday and it’s all been downhill since then!  I took to tying right off the bat and became consumed by it.  Flyfishing came shortly thereafter, and here we are today. 

CFB has been open for about 2 years now, but you've been involved with the Fly Fishing Industry alot longer than that.  What did you do before CFB?

Well, I have been a commercial fly tyer for most of my life, starting when I was about 12, and tied flies for most of the shops in the Denver area at one time or another.  For several years there I tied between three and five thousand dozen flies per year.  It gave me a great chance to become a very fast and efficient fly tyer.  As odd as it sounds to the average tyer, I really enjoy a big order of flies...I like to sit down and just go on auto-pilot for a few hours to unwind.  Weird, I know. I was also a guide on the South Platte and Colorado Rivers for about 12 years, I have taught fly tying classes for about twenty years or so now and I worked in a few different fly shops along the way, so opening CFB was just a natural progression for me.  I have always dreamed of having my own shop and now I do. It’s great fun and I am very proud of how it has turned into such a success..

You're a pretty well known fly designer, especially in Colorado where you're flies are very effective.  How do you approach "designing" a new fly?  Do you sit down at the vise with the intention of creating something new or you take a problem solving approach after time on the water?  

The best answer to this would be a combination of the two.  I can’t really sit down and contrive some new pattern off the top of my head without a real purpose in mind, but there are lots of happy accidents when you are a commercial tyer.    Looking at materials and working with a huge variety of patterns allows you to meld pieces of this and parts of that into a new fly.  I love tough hatches and new problems to solve at the bench.  I remember when mysis shrimp started coming out of Reudi dam several years ago and the excitement of an entirely *new* bug...it was great fun because you have such a clean slate to start from with no preconceived notions to fall into.  I really try to keep that in mind with all my new stuff now.  The influx of new synthetic materials helps too, as you can add these new twists in so many applications and end up with a better, more durable fly.  I really enjoy playing with new stuff after all these years of Prince Nymphs and Hare’s Ears.    It burns me up that there are so many contrived patterns out there in the world these days that have never seen the water.  I make sure to fish all my patterns extensively before putting them in public view.  I think that is something that all tiers should do.  Making a new twist on an old pattern does not make you a fly designer.  Innovation does..

You tie "backwards" [meaning you are right hand dominant but tie with your left hand] You also teach all of your new tying students this technique.  Why is that? 

I honestly believe, and now KNOW, that there are lots of advantages to tying with your non-dominant hand.  After teaching classes for so many years it finally dawned on me why students would have such a tough time placing wings and legs on flies...They were doing it with their weak hand!  I introduced the off-hand idea in my classes about ten years ago and have had great success with it.  It allows the tyer to use their dominant hand to place materials and do the precise work, while leaving the weak hand the sole task of wrapping and maneuvering the thread.  Separating the bobbin hand and the scissor hand makes life much easier too.  It’s really hard to convince other experienced tiers of this, as once you have started to tie, it is nearly impossible to make the switch to the other hand, but with a beginner from the get-go it pays off handsomely..

You still do alot of commercial fly tying even with all of the stuff you have going on; which means you have to be extremely efficient at the tying bench.  What tips can you share with our readers that are looking to improve their efficiency at the vise?  (Example: Being able to sit down and tie 9 Copper Johns in one evening instead of 6) 

Man, tying efficiently starts at the very beginning.  You must master all tying techniques fully before you can start worrying about tying quickly.  Tying efficiently to me means that you have no miss-steps in the tying process, not having to go back and re-tie something in, or add additional dubbing, or forgetting pieces.    I would say tying both quickly and efficiently come from EXPERIENCE at the vise.  I can tell you all kinds of things about setting up your materials and prepping them ahead of time and counting out hooks and other BS, but the real secret to tying efficiently is tying well to begin with.  When you can’t measure by eyeball and tie everything in with the first shot perfectly, all the material prep in the world isn’t going to help you.  The way to be able to tie 9 CJs instead of six is to sit down and tie the crap out of them first...like a hundred of them, then when you need to refill the gaps in your box you are very familiar with the pattern and can knock them out smoothly and quickly.  Practice...that is the secret to becoming a good, efficient tier...practice.     That and “Don’t ever put your scissors down on the table and always keep a short length of thread between the bobbin and the hook.”  Now you know.

What's the number one fly tying mistake the average person makes and how do they correct it? 

This is going to fit into my previous answer a bit, but the number one mistake I see tiers doing is giving up on a pattern or technique, saying it is too hard and never putting the time into learning how to tie or do it.  If you never try, you are never going to get it.  You have to try, just like your Momma told you when you were a kid.  Owning a vise and some materials do not make you a fly tier...you actually have to put some effort into it to be good.    Another favorite line of mine is “the fish don’t care” which translates into “I don’t care”...I really like that one.  If you are going to do it, you might as well do it right.

What are your favorite materials to tie with and why? 

Hooboy! I really like tying materials, so picking a favorite is tough.  Hungarian Partridge, CDC, Foam, a nice piece of deer or elk hair...I love them all...there is so much potential in good materials, I really hate to limit myself to a single favorite.  I always have beaver dubbing, good hackle in brown, grizzly and medium dun, elk hair, deer hair and some partridge and peacock herl laying around on my bench...oh, hell, I have EVERYTHING laying on my bench.

Where is your favorite place to fish in the Rocky Mountains and why?

This is another tough one.  I am not all that picky about fishing spots.  I love the challenge of a new river.  I have probably fished the South Platte a thousand days in my life and I still like it up there, but the mystery of a new river really gets my juices flowing.  A couple years back I resolved to fish more new water just for the sake of mixing it up a little and I have had more fun then ever before.  I really like to float fish on the Colorado and Eagle, and just did a great float on the Arkansas this weekend.  Gore Creek, the Big T, the Frying Pan...I love them all.  I get questions like this all the time...if you only had one place/one fly/one rod to fish what would it be???  If I only had one choice I would probably stay home a lot.

What is your favorite guide story from your days on the South Platte?

I can think of a few...one day on the Colorado I was coming back to the truck to get lunch together.  The bank was lined with willows so I had to go through the river to get back upstream and when I got back up to the campground where we were parked I popped out of the willows and there were two lovely young ladies sunbathing topless.  That was a nice surprise.   Beautiful scenery is not overrated. Another time, I had a good repeat client out and it was just one of those days that screamed “STREAMERS!!”.  He had never fished them before so his casting was a little rough.  I think I had to hide in the bushes while he calmed down at the start but it turned into a great day with literally over a hundred fish chasing down his bugger.  He was having such a great time he didn’t want to stop for lunch and just fished right on through for about eight hours.  We had a great trip and all seemed fine until he called me about a week later and told me that his fish greed had resulted in a torn rotator cuff!  Too much of a good thing.   My favorite day was when I had two great guys from Atlanta out here in on the Platte below Trumbull.  The water was up and the fishing was on fire.  We caught so many fish and they had such a great time it really made the job well worth it.  It’s nice when you have good guys out and have the right conditions to really make their trip...sometimes the planets line up just right.   I really don’t miss guiding much these days as I, like everyone else, have had more than my share of days with clients who just aren’t any fun and don’t want to listen.  I just got tired of being treated like the help.  The trips with real anglers who were out to learn something and maybe catch a few fish were always my favorites.  Guiding is too much like babysitting for me to do on an everyday basis.  The shop keeps me plenty busy and I still enjoy getting out with a few select buddies and puttin’ a hurt on ‘em, so I try to keep a little something for myself these days.