Garrett Lesko
Garrett fell in love with fly fishing during the summer after his freshman year of high school. He went camping with a few friends out at Odell Lake, Oregon. While he was there fishing for kokanee he had a friend that brought his fly rod long with him. He casted it a few times, never caught a fish. But later the same friend that brought the fly rod went out in his float tube and caught a monster rainbow trout. That sparked a fire in Garrett. That summer he found an old Thompson fly tying kit in the garage and set off to the local fly shop for a beginners kit. After that the rest is history. Garrett self taught himself everything he knows about fly tying. Using books, the internet, videos, and the constant picking of fellow fly tyer’s brains he has amassed a great deal of knowledge that rivals most tyers twice his age. With a passion to learn and to teach his skill he has attended multiple fly tying expos and shows in Washington and Oregon, the biggest being the NW Expo that is in March every year in Albany, Oregon. He has also done demos and shared his knowledge of deer hair work and warm water fishing with local fly fishing club and project healing waters chapters. He now has tyed flies for people going all over the world from Argentina to Mongolia to Christmas Island to Alaska to Montana and would love to tie more and share his knowledge with anyone who wants to learn. Please Reach out to him if you host a club or group that would like to learn more about a myriad of fly fishing and fly tying topics.
Garren Wood
Garren started tying flies over 30 years ago by watching his father prepare for fishing trips as he tied flies at the kitchen table while watching with his two brothers. Garren first started tying dry flies for the rivers in Northern Idaho. In order to purchase additional fly tying materials he sold flies to friends and high school teachers. In college he became more involved with fly tying. Garren met Joe Ayre in Pocatello, who taught me how to tie woven body flies. Joe also introduced me to the FFF and the Fly Tying Expos they host. He started attending and tying at the Southeast Fly Tying Expo in the late 1990s and learning from a lot of great tiers. While at college he tied flies for shops and guides in West Yellowstone and professors who enjoyed fly fishing.
After moving to Oregon in 2002, he met Al Brunell. Through the years, Al taught him the craft of tying steelhead flies. Garren helped Al with his commercial orders and assisted Al with chairing the Northwest Fly Tyers Expo (www.nwexpo.com).
