Mike is one of the rising stars on our team and is currently one of our top guides at Pyramid Lake and all the surrounding streams and rivers. Mike was ready to join us on our exploratory trip to the Pantanal in 2020 to help teach a couple of our Amazon guides how to row a raft on tight moving water like Mikes home water, the Truckee River. Although our new trip was put on hold, Mike is ready and waiting for the opportunity when we can go.  Mike’s story is fun to read and says a lot about his passion for the outdoors.

Mike was born in Livermore California in 1982 and moved to Reno Nevada at age 5. From an early age Mike was spending time in the outdoors hunting, fishing, skiing and riding horses. He got his first fly rod when he was 13 and started tying flies soon after. Mike was an accomplished skier and after high school he accepted an offer from a college in Colorado to join the Ski Team. Mike spent the next two years studying Biology in school and eventually took a job working on a ranch there. Soon Mike once again relocated to Reno to continue his studies and changed his major to Equine Science. Mike was introduced to the working side of fly fishing after meeting Tahoe Fly Shop owner Victor Babbitt in a duck blind. In 2007 Mike took a job at Tahoe Fly Fishing Outfitters as a fly-fishing guide. Mike spent the next 8 years taking people fishing around the Reno Tahoe area, all the while honing his own skills and keeping up with new technology in the fly-fishing world. Mike left the fly shop to take a few chances on his own as an independent guide and a key member to our team in 2017.