Fly Fishing Guide
My name is John Byron and I’ve been fly fishing for 50 years now In fact, I’ve been with Fly Fishing Outfitters since 1993 and was part of the original group of guides that started FFO.
I’m actually from New Jersey but have been working as a guide in the Vail Valley for 26 years now. In this time, I’ve guided over 1,500 trips with FFO.
I guide because I enjoy teaching people how to fly fish. I first got started with fly fishing when I was fishing puddles as an infant! I love to guide, as I love fishing and I get to be on the river every day. Plus, FFO guided trips have the most seasoned guides in the Valley, so it’s a pleasure to guide with them.
The best part of sharing my knowledge and experience with others is the reward I get from watching a happy client who now loves fishing as well. The Vail Valley is a particularly good place to fly fish thanks to its 100 miles of floatable river within 1 hour.
I would recommend its rivers to someone who hasn’t fly-fished, mainly because of the combination of slow easy drifts with expert water to challenge the client. Having said that, my favorite river is Eagle River because of the great number of large hungry rainbows it has!
My favorite fly is anything that floats but I’m partial to the patriot dry fly because of the explosive strikes from large trout.
As a guide, I like to let clients learn at their own pace. As I like to say, you never have a bad day fishing: you either catch or you learn!
