Nov
11
This meeting will take place online using the Zoom platform.
Join Zoom Meeting- https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84380116107
Matt Klara, of Big Sky Anglers in West Yellowstone, MT will show us tying techniques and discuss fishing streamers on spey and conventional fly rods.
Matt is originally from Rome, New York. He was introduced to fly fishing and fly tying by his parents at a very young age and began his fishing life on the Madison River in the early 1980s. He spent the summers of his youth living in an RV with his folks at Campfire Lodge, between Hebgen and Quake Lake. The fishing bug bit Matt hard, and he continued the family tradition through his late teens and early 20s – living in campgrounds, fishing, and eventually working at fly shops and guiding throughout southwest Montana and Yellowstone National Park.
These days, Matt lives in Helena with his wife and son, but still makes frequent trips to West Yellowstone throughout the year for fun, shop events, and to lead Trout Spey guide trips in the Park. He is our go-to source for technical information regarding all things Spey, a reliable source for Missouri River fishing reports, and one of our in-house stillwater fishing fans. His travels and broad experience on the water make him a great resource for saltwater flats, inshore, and bluewater fishing, as well as west coast steelhead and salmon.
Matt’s journey into Spey casting and fishing began with trout back in 2000, thrashing around with a borrowed 14 ft 9wt rod and an old Rio Windcutter line on the Madison River just outside of West Yellowstone. His technique and understanding of two-handed casting and fishing have come a long way since then, to say the least, and so has the equipment available for trout Spey. At one point he left Montana for Oregon, where for 7 years, nearly all of his fishing was done with two-handed rods. Matt moved back “home” to Montana in 2015 but still enjoys swinging the two-hander. He has also become keenly interested in incorporating Spey principles into everyday trout angling situations with single-hand flyrods, dry flies, nymphs, wets, and streamers.
In an era of overused clichés, he is truly an observant and innovative fly tier, and an all-around angler who is proficient with conventional tackle as well as the fly. A passionate student of angling history as well as aquatic and riparian ecosystems, Matt also holds an engineering job specializing in stream restoration and is a contributor on www.sexyloops.com and other fishing related blogs.
If you ever have questions for Matt, he can be reach via email at [email protected]