Board Member Profiles

Mark Riley, President

Greetings, I’m Mark Riley, Treasurer of Boulder Flycasters. I was born just outside NYC but we soon moved to Tulsa, OK where I spent the next 21 years. I grew up fishing with a Zebco rod and reel on the lakes of Oklahoma. I earned my undergraduate degree in accounting at Tulsa University and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. I spent most of my career in New England (Connecticut and Boston) working in software development management. I’ve been flyfishing for about 12 years, learning on the streams of New England. I retired early from the corporate world and we moved to Boulder in 2004. I’m married to Candice Kasai, an eight grade math teacher at Platt Middle School in Boulder and we have no kids.

I’ve been the Treasurer of BFC for four years and I’m on the Board of Directors.

My favorite fishing trip to date was not really a fishing trip at all trip at all — casting to Tigerfish on the Zambezi River in Zambia while viewing elephants, crocs, hippos, storks, cranes, etc was the experience of a lifetime. Around the Rockies, I love the Bighorn River and near home, I enjoy fishing Rocky Mountain National Park.

Besides fishing, I enjoy doing charitable work, skiing, scuba diving, reading, hiking, bicycling and I travel frequently.

Dave Clark, Vice President

Hi, I am Dave Clark, Membership Chairman of Boulder Flycasters.  I am recently retired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration after 36 years with the Federal Government, including 5 years with the US Naval Oceanographic Office as a Marine Geophysicist and 31 years with the National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder as Assistant Director.  I am currently a visiting scientist with NGDC and am involved with establishing a World Data System for a major international scientific organization.  I have been married to Marian Clark (who also is retired, fly fishes and has a passion for Middle Eastern dance) for 34 years and we have a daughter.

Fishing has been a way of life for me for over 50 years.  My first experience was fishing for bluegills with bread and a bobber and soon graduated to fishing with my Dad on his boat on the Chesapeake Bay.   We fished for Hardheads (Atlantic Croaker), Sea Trout (Speckled Trout) and Rock fish (Striped Bass).  I graduated to serious fresh water fishing for Largemouth Bass during my elementary, junior and high school days.  While at college at the University of Maryland, I got my first fly rod and began searching the foothills of the Appalachians for trout streams.  My fly fishing began in earnest when I moved to Colorado, but I have only gotten serious about it in the last 7 years.

Besides fishing, working with Boulder Flycasters and Colorado Trout Unlimited, I like reading (especially cosmology, quantum mechanics and string theory), camping, traveling (international especially) and taking road trips around the good old US.  I have also been known to play a computer game once and awhile.

Tim D’Avis, Treasurer

My early fishing days were in Montana on small streams with a bamboo, fiberglass or collapsible steel rod and hoppers.    By my mid 20s I was busy with my career and then a family and gave up fishing until retiring from IBM in 2001.  Golf was going to be my main retirement hobby, but my desire far exceeded my ability and I turned to fly fishing.  Fishing, hiking, camping and family are now my main focus areas.    I’m married with three grown children and a brand new granddaughter.

 

Larry Quilling, Youth Programs

Hi, I’m Larry Quilling, president of Boulder Flycasters, a Colorado Trout Unlimited Chapter. I believe we are all stewards of our watershed and I am committed to conserving, protecting and restoring our resource at every opportunity. Please feel free to contact me anytime if you are interested in meeting other fly fisherman, finding out new places to go, or to volunteer for restoration and youth projects. Here is my contact & bio information: Larry Quilling Seagate Technologies Sr. Director, New Product Programs Age:52 Married, twenty five years to Jennifer, a near Boulder native. Jennifer is the Restorative Justice Coordinator for the Boulder County Sheriff’s Department. Three Children: Aaron, Nathan & Chelsea. Aaron just returned from a 5 month tour of New Zealand after graduating from CU last spring. (click here to see Aaron’s incedible New Zealand blog) Nathan is a student at CCD and finishing his requirements for EMT certification. Chelsea is a freshman at Gonzaga in Spokane and a member of the varsity crew rowing team. I have been fishing since I can remember but only picked up fly-fishing twenty years ago. (only!!) My favorite destination is the Firehole River in Yellowstone where I meet a unique group of friends to fishing opening weekend every Memorial Day holiday. (click here to see our Ancient & Honorable Order of the Flavilinea blog)

Paul Prentiss, Programs

I’ve been fly fishing and tying flies for more than 50 years.

After a variety of jobs I went back to school in the late 1960′s and embarked on a 30-year career with a Fortune 500 company in Financial Services (8 years) and then Information Technology (22 years). I retired in 2001.

I’ve lived in Boulder, Colorado since 1964. Its where I met my wife and raised a family. Now I have 4 grandchildren.

The majority of my time is invested in promoting the sport of fly fishing and working on environmental programs. I work for Front Range Anglers, one of the premier fly shops in Colorado, on promotional and educational endeavors. I’ve been a member of TU for 25 years and have been on the Board of the Boulder Flycasters since retirement. I’m also on the Board of Directors for Colorado Trout Unlimited. As time permits, I do some free lance writing and photography for various fishing publications.

Occasionally, I put together Fly fishing destination programs for salt and fresh water trips.

Beyond the aforementioned commitments my objective is to be on the water at least 150 days a year chasing anything that swims.

Ken Iwamasa Programs

Author of the book Iwamasa Flies, ( 1987)  the Introduction by Dave Whitlock; contributor to the book Stoneflies by Swisher and Richards, “Trout, Mayfly and the Angler” by Fred Arbona Jr. a

nd  “Fly Tyer’s Almanac by Dave Whitlock.

Ken is the originator of more than twenty fly unique fly patterns and has published many articles in Fly Fisherman magazine, Fly Tyer Magazine in the US and published articles in Tight Loops magazine and Fly Fisherman Magazine Japan Edition, and La Fourmi, published in France.

He appears in many books written by authors such as John Gierach, Ted Rosenbauer, and John Randolph, Ted Leeson, Todd Hosman and others.              .

Ken Iwamasa was co-curator of the Confluence: International trout fly exhibition, former executive director and writer for Fly Fisherman magazine Japan Edition, one of the original Orvis fly fishing school instructors and guide, and he has given numerous presentations to TU and FFF chapters throughout Colorado and the US since 1976.

He has fly fished in many fresh and salt waters of the world.  And he has worked to establish eco- tourism ( fly fishing tourism) in Mongolia  and works with Peter Mullett, to promote fly fishing for taimen in the Darhat Valley, Mongolia since 1999. Please read his article “The Taimen of the Darhat Valley – Mongolia” in the Sept 2007 issue of Fly Fisherman magazine.

He is a life-time member of Trout Unlimited and is currently a professor of art at the University of Colorado, in Boulder, and he has shown is creative art work nationally and internationally as well.  Ken is serving as a BFC Board Member at Large this year and heads our committee for the Boulder Creek Watershed Mapping Project.

Chad Pettrone

I have been a Boulder Flycaster member since I first moved to Boulder about 5 years ago.  Born in the Chicagoland area in 1980, I moved west for less people, cheaper adventures, and the dream of starting a business.  My reason for joining the BFC was a mix between a passion for catch and release, and also a selfish need to learn how to fly fish for trout.

I learned fly fishing in Illinois and Wisconsin.  I worked for a sporting goods store in High School and started fly fishing for panfish, then graduated to bass fishing, and finally got my diploma in pike fishing.   By the time I got done with college in 2002, I had a bachelors in business with a major in catching fish.

When I moved to Colorado in 2004, I imagined that I was going to catch big trout all day long…like the trout that you see in the magazines – two handed big jaws.  I figured out very quickly that I couldn’t fly fish.  I would try with the fly rod for a couple hours, and maybe get lucky and catch one small fish.  Then I’d switch over to my ultra-light spinning reel and take my frustrations out on the fish with Rapala treble hooks and Mepps spinners - for a quick 4 or 5 fish slaying (always released).  Never did I catch a fish that looked like the ones in the magazines.  So, I kept fishing for trout, because there isn’t much else to choose from, and each time I was on the water I would find a fisherman to ask what he / she was using.  I learned to use more than one fly from a stranger on the Poudre;  I learned to use an indicator from a guy on Clear Creek; but my best lesson was from a fisherman on the Blue who showed me that the proper amount of weight on a nymph rig is just as important as the proper fly.   Proper weight was my missing link, after that day, and still today, I will experimented with weight before changing flies.  I have been grateful to learn from others, especially strangers, and I am now giving back as a fly fishing guide – enjoying every minute.

I catch bigger fish than I did when I first started, but compared to what I thought Colorado fishing was going to be when I moved here, and what I know now – Colorado needs help…the world of fishing needs help.  Unless you know the secret spots, or go to catch and release big fish water – it’s difficult to find a fish in the 18+ inch range.  I look back at old pictures from Boulder Creek, before Barker Reservoir, and there is a picture of a guy holding a stringer of 10 fish, all two feet long.  Colorado’s big fish river habitat  is limited to flows, controlled by dams, controlled by people who know that water can be sold for money, but don’t necessarily recognize that fishing makes money too.  If we had the water of yester-year, and the ethics of catch and release from today, we could bring back and enjoy the wild trout fisheries that once existed.

Yes, its the old battle of water.  Can we find a solution better than a dam?  How can we have free flowing rivers that breed big healthy fish, and also enough water for people to enjoy a hot shower, or a dip in the pool?

Thanks for learning about me, and my opinion,

ChadPettrone@yahoo.com

Feel free to contact me if you would like some help catching trout.