Like many employees at The Fly Shop, we found Ryan as he had come up momentarily for air between a long succession of amazingly unique and fascinating life experiences (and he was only 27 that year!) Born and raised in Alaska, Ryan showed up for work in a well-worn woolen shirt, Carhartts, and a pair of battered sorels. Our kind of guy.

Ryan’s “misspent” youth interspersed a wide variety of experience – from vagabonding around rock, ice and mountain climbing ranges in North America and Europe, four years of college in Scotland, holding a “real” job in Alaska politics, and, of course, fishing and guiding every piece of flowing water of consequence in his home state. It was with this nomadic resume as backup that we found Ryan, in 2004, in the uber-remote highlands of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.

A few short years later, Ryan was managing our entire Kamchatka operation, making us look good for hiring him; selling trips, guiding anglers on all our river programs, planning and leading our annual exploratory floats down unknown rivers, coordinating the day-to-day of successfully operating fishing camps in an unforgiving environment, and learning Russian (well, sorta)..

Back home during the off-season, Ryan combines his passion for far-flung fishing with an equal fervor to protect the wild places that support it. He has been intimately and actively involved with the Pebble Mine controversy from the time it first appeared on the radar; escorting film crews into the vast Bristol Bay landscape to document the potential for catastrophe; traveling the country, putting on slide shows that plea for sanity; and working as a liaison between various and other concerned parties.

With what little time he has left over, he seems always to be traveling, searching for the elusive holy grail that is steelhead on the swung fly – from legendary BC watersheds, weekend jam sessions plying the hallowed winter waters of the California and Oregon coasts, or countless days spent exploring our home waters, the exquisite Klamath and Trinity Rivers.

Finally, lest you think all this too smarmy, let me also point out that Ryan is a driver of legendary ineptitude - with vehicles steered with wheels, or tillers, he is to be given a wide berth. Rejoice that you are not responsible for his insurance premiums. To be fair, he is not totally without mechanical ability…he has the fearlessness of an eight-year-old when it comes to working with computers – tirelessly explaining to the rest of us how to accomplish routine procedures.

Ryan has traveled the globe familiarizing himself with the full gamut of The Fly Shop’s international destinations; he can help you decide between bonefish in Belize, or sea run browns in the uttermost regions of Tierra del Fuego. But if Kamchatka is your quest, you’ll want to rest up, eat a full lunch, get pen and paper ready…and give Ryan a call. He has experienced the Peninsula from the inside out, over many years, and can’t wait to share his enthusiasm for this Lost World of rainbow trout with you.

> ryan@theflyshop.com

> Ryan's blog