| PAT EHLERS - Guide and owner of “The Fly Fishers” fly shop in Milwaukee, WI Becoming a Better Predator |
| MIKE MERCER - travel expert for “The Fly Shop” in Redding, California My Approach to Spring Creeks Fly Tying-Enhance Your Fly Fishing Experience |
| A devoted family man, Mike Mercer has worked for The Fly Shop in Redding, California for over 25 years; first as a young guide, then a retail store manager, and now as a travel expert. Having fished throughout the American West, Alaska, Chile, Christmas Island, the Bahamas, Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Kamchatka,(Russia), Argentina, and Canada, Mike has humbled more than his share of fish. |
| In 1978, an 18-year old Mike Mercer became the first employee of The Fly Shop, at that time a rag-tag, one-room, hole-in-the-wall with a few hundred flies and a couple rod outfits for sale. In no time he came into his own as a fly fishing and fly tying prodigy, spinning out tips and flies for the waves of California anglers streaming through the shop on their way to NorCal’s famous trout waters. As he began to guide on Hat Creek and Fall River, his reputation as a revered and highly skilled angler grew. People sought out Mike’s advice because it was the best you could get. |
| In his twenties, Mike began to publish an ever-expanding number of fly patterns. His “Poxyback” mayfly and stonefly nymphs, “Z-wing” caddis series, as well as myriad dry fly, sculpin, leech and mouse patterns quickly became standard trout-getters all over the West, and later abroad. His particular genius with flies lies in innovation, in “seeing” with the mind what will work, and then realizing it in the vise. |
| As a writer, Mike has a natural, easy-to-understand style, and a generation of fly anglers grew up on Mike’s regular articles in Fly Fisherman and throughout the fly fishing press. His love of fly tying culminated in the 2005 best-selling book, “Creative Fly Tying”, in which Mike guides the reader through his most famous patterns, as well as his approach to creating new patterns. |
| For much of the 80’s and 90’s Mike was The Fly Shop’s retail store manager, overseeing the first boom years of the shop as the national catalog business grew exponentially. During this period, Mike also began to make annual pilgrimages to Alaska, fishing and exploring the deepest corners of the most far-out waters. In those days the fly fishing travel community was very small, everyone knew everyone, and Mike Mercer’s calm, joyous, ethical approach helped solidify many of the partnerships with Alaskan outfitters that The Fly Shop proudly maintains today. |
| In the late 90’s, Mike began to travel more extensively and further afield - to Chile, Argentina, Tierra Del Fuego, Kamchatka, New Zealand and all around the tropical salt water world. His in-shop focus today is to share his incredible wealth of fly fishing knowledge and first-hand experience with our customers, as they plan their own fly fishing adventures. Like all of our travel specialists, Mike stays up-to-the-minute with all our destinations but keeps a special area of extra-expertise: There’s no one that knows more about Alaska and Chile, period. And he is one of our most objective and valued judges when it comes to honing in on new or overlooked fishing destinations around the world. |
| A standing room only lecturer at fly-fishing shows, Mercer has been a fly designer for Umpqua Feather Merchants for quite some time; with 40 patterns in the company's 2006 product catalog. He has had articles published in nearly every flyfishing magazine on the newsstand. But, it was only in August of 2005 that Mike came out with his first, long-awaited book. Published by Wild River Press, Creative Fly Tying details the history, the thought process behind, and tying instructions for a dozen of his patterns; including the Glasstail Caddis Pupa, the Copper Bead Micro Z-Wing Caddis, and the Gold Bead Biot Epoxy Golden Stone Nymph. |
| This book is currently only available in spiral bound, hard back. It can be purchased through the Fly Shop, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and quite a few fly shops. Suggested retail is $39.95 for the standard edition. There are still two other editions not generally available in bookstores; requiring you to contact the publisher or The Fly Shop. A $200 limited edition, signed, with a numbered forward page and contained in a leather slipcase. There is also an ultimate edition for $700. The book is the same as the limited edition, but the buyer also receives a shadow boxed fly plate approximately 15" x 25" with a photograph of the author and one each of the 12 patterns discussed in the book, all tied by Mike Mercer himself. |
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