Johnny King

Jonny King is a lifelong fly tyer and fly fisherman from New York City. His flies have been featured in all of the major fly fishing magazines, including Fly Fisherman, American Angler, and Fly Tyer, as well as many foreign publications, and he served as a staff writer for Fly Fishing In Saltwater for many years. He also penned one of the chapters for Fleye Design, by his close friend and mentor Bob Popovics. Jonny is a regular presence at fly tying shows and fly shops, where he gives demonstrations on both fresh and saltwater patterns. His flies are commercially available through Fulling Mill. When not waving a fly rod, Jonny is an intellectual property lawyer and professional jazz pianist, who has toured the world with various different bands.

Willy Goldsmith Ph.D

Willy is ASGA’s Executive Director. A lifelong angler with a background in fisheries science, He spent the past two years working in fishery management in Washington, DC, first as a Sea Grant Knauss Fellow with Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) and more recently at the Lenfest Ocean Program. Willy holds a doctorate in Marine Science from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at William and Mary.

Bob Popovics

Bob Popovics is the founder of the Atlantic Salmon Saltwater Fly Rodders, advisory member of TFO rods, a member of the Renzetti Legacy Tying Team, associated with Tibor Reels and a Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame and Catskill Fly Fishing Museum Hall of Fame inductee. Though he has refined his fishing techniques and casting skills by traveling around the world, Bob is perhaps best known as a designer of flies (or ”fleyes,” as they’re called) and as a teacher.

Brita Fordice

Brita Fordice is a native of Washington State,learned to fly fish at the age of 8, taught herself to tie flies at the age of 10. Spending summers and weekends at her family house on the Stillaguamish river fed her desire to explore new fishing water. After a few years in Idaho and Alaska she returned to Seattle in 2005 to begin guiding and working in a fly shop just north of the city. Brita has hosted fishing trips and traveled all over the world, with Christmas Island being her favorite fishing destination.

Brita is a recognized fly tying innovator, and is a virtual encyclopedia when it comes to recognizing and procuring tying materials for both classic and modern flies.  Fishing Puget Sound beaches and rivers for steelhead are her passion these days.  She shares her work time between guiding and research and development for RIO Products, where she designs flies for wholesale production and retail sale.

Steve Ramirez

Steve Ramirez is an award winning outdoor and conservation author who lives and writes in the Texas Hill Country. Steve’s first book, Casting Forward - Fishing Tales from the Texas Hill Country, was featured in the film Mending the Line starring Brian Cox and Sinqua Walls. His second book, Casting Onward – Fishing Adventures in Search of America’s Native Gamefish has received critical acclaim as an important work of outdoor adventure and conservation literature.

Steve currently writes the Seasonable Angler column for Fly Fisherman Magazine and his work has appeared in various journals including, Fly Fisherman, Trout Magazine, The Flyfish Journal, American Angler, Tail Magazine, Hallowed Waters Journal, Under Wild Skies, and many more.

Steve serves as the Ambassador for Texas for the American Museum of Fly-Fishing, is a Life Member of Trout Unlimited, and a contributing member of the Nature Conservancy and Audubon. As a certified Master Naturalist, Steve is passionately involved in promoting the restoration and conservation of the watersheds, rivers, wetlands, and shorelines of North America and beyond. He is an avid outdoor adventure traveler who has explored four continents, but who always seems to return home to the spring fed Hill Country streams of Texas.

Ted Williams

Ted Williams detests baseball, but is as obsessed with fishing as was the “real” (or, as he much prefers, “late”) Ted Williams. “I know outdoor writers burn themselves out fast with bile and cheap booze” he says, “but it’s somewhat discouraging when my readers meet me in person and still think I’m the frozen ballplayer.”

The surviving Ted writes rare books about fish and wildlife. He also writes articles and blogs about fish and wildlife for low-paying national publications. Ted has received the annual Conservation Achievement (“Connie”) Award from the National Wildlife Federation, the Federal Wildlife Officers Association Award from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Earthwrite Award from Sierra Magazine, the Aldo Leopold Award from the Federation of Fly Fishers, the Conservationist of the Year Award from the Coastal Conservation Association of New York, the top conservation award (“Jade of Chiefs”) from Outdoor Writers Association of America, and the Nautilus Award for his recent rare book “Earth Almanac.”

Williams graduated Colby College with a BA in English and Boston University School of Public Communication with an M.S. in Journalism. He lives in central Massachusetts with Governor Benning Wentworth II (his Brittany) and Donna (his wife).

Gunnar Brammer

Gunnar Brammer has been tying professionally since 2015 and specializes in predator fly design along with fly tying demonstration. Brammer is a St. Croix Rods Pro, HMH Vises Pro, Hedron Inc. Tying Team Member, Deer Creek Pro, FlymenFishingCo Ambassador, and a Friend of Ahrex Hooks. He was recently featured in Fly Tyer Magazine – “The Creative Streamers of Gunnar Brammer” and is a frequent guest writer for the Flymen Blog. Gunnar continues to buff out his YouTube channel with meticulous step by step fly tying instructions and fly fishing related content geared towards the diehard streamer junkie! Gunnar currently resides in Duluth, MN.

Mark Sedotti

Mark Sedotti was Fly Casting Columnist for Saltwater Fly Fishing Magazine. He has performed countless fly casting demos at fly casting, fly fishing, and sportsmen’s club events as well as at The Fly Fishing Show, ISE San Mateo, and FFF conclaves nationwide. A well known fly tyer, he started the now world wide Big Streamer - Big Trout craze when he brought his Sedotti's Slammer bunker fly series to Michigan and Arkansas at the start of the millenium.

James Prosek

Artist, writer, naturalist, and Yale graduate James Prosek published his first book at nineteen years of age, Trout: an Illustrated History (Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), which featured seventy of his watercolor paintings of the trout of North America. Prosek's work has been shown at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, NY, Gerald Peters Gallery, NY and Santa Fe, The Royal Academy of Arts in London, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, The Yale Center for British Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, with solo exhibitions at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, CT, The Addison Gallery of American Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The New Britain Museum of American Art, The Buffalo Bill Center of the West, The North Carolina Museum of Art and the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC among others.

Chris Wood

Chris is President and CEO of Trout Unlimited. Prior to joining TU in 2001, Chris Wood served as the senior policy and communications advisor to the Chief of the U.S. Forest Service where he helped protect 58 million acres of publicly owned land. Chris began his career as a temporary employee with the Forest Service in Idaho and also worked for the Fish and Wildlife program of the Bureau of Land Management. He is the author and co-author of numerous papers and articles and three books including, Watershed Restoration: Principles and Practices (AFS 1997), From Conquest to Conservation: Our Public Land Legacy (Island Press, 2003), and My Healthy Stream: A handbook for streamside owners (Trout Unlimited and Aldo Leopold Foundation, 2013).

Jason Taylor

Former restaurateur Jason Taylor grew up in rural Virginia, fishing the Chesapeake Bay, its tributaries, and any farm pond or creek he could find. Jason’s flies employ a variety of both classic and modern techniques in an effort to find harmony within the vast assortment of materials available to today's fly tier. He also enjoys helping other tiers and fishermen, as he believes that aspect of the sport is as important as any other. Greatly influenced by Bob Popovics, David Nelson and others, he ties most of his flies late at night after working as a professional waiter. Jason serves on the Pro Staff for Tuffleye, Regal Vises and Partridge Hooks. He enjoys stalking trout with dry flies, chasing stripers in the surf and exploring urban fisheries near his home in Philadelphia.

Capt. Abbie Schuster

Martha’s Vineyard-based guide and yoga instructor Abbie Schuster is the owner/proprietor of Kismet Outfitters. A lifelong fly angler, Abbie grew up fishing on Martha's Vineyard as well as the rivers and small creeks of Maine, Connecticut and New Hampshire. Having attended the University of Montana fueled her passion for fly fishing, and she began guiding professionally in 2011. To Abbie there is nothing better than giving the gift of fly fishing to a client. Her goal is to have every client leave with lifelong memories, a stronger passion for fly fishing and conservation and a greater understanding about the sport.

Heather Hodson

Heather Hodson is founder of United Women on the Fly and committed to building an inclusive community that educates, provides resources, encourages and connects anglers from around the world. Her passion for getting anyone involved in fly fishing and enthusiasm to think outside the box is infectious.

United Women on the Fly (UWOTF) is committed to building an inclusive community that educates, provides resources, encourages, and connects anglers from all backgrounds into the sport of fly fishing. We will foster a sense of belonging by centering, valuing and amplifying the voices, perspectives and styles of women. UWOTF acknowledges that our events and photos shared take place on traditional, unceded Indigenous lands.

Jen Ripple

Jen is the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of DUN Magazine. In addition to her work at DUN, she writes the Fly Fishing Women’s Buyer’s Guide for Outside Magazine and the Women’s Best Of column for Gray’s Sporting Journal, among others. She is a member of the Executive Board of Directors for Fly Fishers International, member of the Board of Directors for the Professional Outdoor Media Association, member of the Executive Board of Directors for the Harpeth River Conservancy, member of the Advisory Committee for the TU Service Partnership and a former member of the Board of Directors for the American Fly Fishing Trade Association. She has been named Southerner of the Year by Southern Living Magazine and is considered one of the top women changing the sport of fly fishing.

Ken Ekelund

Ken has been an avid fly tyer and fly fisherman for over twenty years, spending most of that time roaming the beaches of New York, New Jersey and Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Although his main focus is catching trophy striped bass, he has caught multiple species on the fly - false albacore, redfish and tarpon being at the top of that list. Tying for Ken connects him to his quarry, it gives him the opportunity to improve his skills and share what he’s learned along the way. He believes every bare hook in the vise has the potential to be memorable. When not tying or chasing fish with a fly rod he is a father, husband & "lab dad," as well as a network security engineer for a large telecom firm.

Capt. Merritt White

A native of Eastern Long Island, New York, Merritt comes from a long line of hunters and fishermen. He is a 1989 graduate of St. Lawrence University with a B.S. degree in Biology and Environmental Science. Merritt is a fully insured and U.S. Coast Guard licensed fishing guide. He has been guiding professionally on Long Island for over twenty years. In the spring and summer, Merritt fishes the shallow waters of Shinnecock, Peconic and Gardiner’s Bays in search of bluefish and striped bass. During the fall, Merritt guides in Montauk, seeking the fabled North East “grand slam”: bluefish, false albacore and striped bass. Captain Merritt White is a patient, fun loving guide who is eager to share his fishing knowledge and experience with novice and expert anglers alike.

Capt. Gene Quigley

Capt. Gene is a USCG licensed Captain. Raised on the Jersey Shore, Gene has been fishing the inshore & offshore waters for over 40 years. He specializes in catching trophy Striped Bass and Tuna on top water lures, jigs and fly tackle and runs our 36 Yellowfin and 41 Valhalla. Gene is a noted author, seminar speaker and has been featured on many TV shows. He was voted Saltwater Sportsman Magazine's "Top 50 Captains worldwide" and one of Field & Stream Magazines "Top 100 Guides in North America". Gene serves on the board of directors for the American Saltwater Guides Association and sits on the national pro staff for many of the fishing industries top brands.

Captain John McMurray

John is the President of ASGA and the owner and operator of One More Cast charters. John was also the first Executive Director of the Coastal Conservation Association New York, the Director of Grants Programs at the Norcross Wildlife Foundation, and a well-known and widely-published writer, specializing in fisheries conservation issues.

Jamie Howard / HowardFilms

Jamie Howard founded HowardFilms with the mission of “entertaining, informing and connecting with an audience in new and unexpected ways.”

Today, HowardFilms is honored to have Chasing Silver become a part of the IGFA Hall of Fame and is featured in its theater in Dania Beach, Florida. And for many Northeast saltwater anglers, Running the Coast has become the definitive film on the annual striped bass migration from Chesapeake Bay to the upper reaches on Maine.

Capt. David Blinken

Captain David Blinken started fly fishing at the age of six and started tying flies seriously in his 20s. Twenty-five years ago he started North Flats Guiding and has been a full time fly fishing guide on the east end of Long Island, NY ever since. David chose a lifestyle that he lives and breaths every day. As he puts it: “Fly-fishing is a passion and a lifestyle not just a job.” His enthusiasm for all things fishing is contagious. Just ask anyone on his lengthy list of regular clients. David's photographs and articles appear in numerous publications, and he continues to be one of the true innovators of saltwater flies.