Do you remeber when you got started fly fishing?

Mike is a lifelong hands-on builder and fly fisherman who refuses to accept “good enough.” As The Frugal Fly Rodder, he develops high-performance tapered furled leaders, designs specialized tools, and shares practical knowledge built on decades of real-world experience. His philosophy is simple: understand the fundamentals, improve the system, and let performance speak for itself.

At my age… I still haven’t grown up with, and hope I never will.

My dad left school after the eighth grade. Money was tight, and I learned early that if I wanted something, I would have to figure out how to get it myself.

In the early 1960s, soda came in glass bottles with a two-cent deposit. I had a rusty red wagon and a plan. I walked the neighborhood looking for discarded bottles. Twenty to thirty a day wasn’t unusual. The two local parks were gold mines after a weekend.

At first, the bottle money bought candy.

Then it bought outdoor magazines.

That one issue changed everything.

Inside was a photo of men catching big fish on fly rods. I didn’t know what fly fishing really was — but I knew I wanted to do that.

I asked my parents for a fly rod outfit from the local hardware store. It was about nineteen dollars. The answer was no. There wasn’t money for that.

So the wagon became something different.

It stopped being a way to buy candy.

It became capital I saved to buy my first fly fishing outfit.

It took time. It took discipline. It took going without.

But I eventually walked into that small-town hardware store with enough coins to pay for my first fly rod outfit.

I didn’t know how to cast.

The first time I tried, I didn’t even use the rod properly. I held coils of line in one hand and threw them out over the creek because I didn’t know any better. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t technical.

But it was determined.

Eventually, something pulled back.

Not a trophy. Not the giant fish from the magazine. Just proof. That first fish taught me something I’ve carried my entire life: Effort connects.

That lesson shaped more than my fishing. It shaped how I approach everything.

I’ve spent my life building, fixing, and improving things. I don’t accept “that’s how it’s always been done” as a final answer. I want to know why something works. And if it can work better, I’ll figure out how.

That mindset led me into decades of hands-on work. It led me into designing tools. It led me into developing my own systems. And eventually, it led me back to fly fishing — not just as a hobby, but as a builder and innovator.

Today, I’m known as The Frugal Fly Rodder.

I design and build my own gear. I’ve spent years developing high-tech tapered furled leaders and the machines to produce them. I teach what I learn. I share what works. I’m not here to chase trends. I’m here to improve function.

But underneath all of it — the leaders, the tools, the videos — is still that kid with a red wagon.

Still willing to work for what I want.
Still willing to figure it out.
Still learning.

If you’re here, you’re probably wired the same way.

Welcome to the journey.