On the latest episode (#30) of the Fly Fisherman Loop to Loop podcast, Ross Purnell, Editor/Publisher of Fly Fisherman Magazine, sits down with Mayfly Outdoors CEO Jeff Wagner in the spacious Montrose, Colorado, headquarters for Ross, Abel, Renzetti, Dyna-King, Airflo and several other brands. A true native of Sidney, Nebraska, Wagner grew up fishing the area's small spring creeks for trout as well as the area's numerous warm-water fisheries for bass, walleye, pike and other species, and he was mentored there by some folks he considers to be among the unsung heroes of fly fishing, guys like Monte Malzahn and Wayne Nelson. Wagner's first fly fishing combo was a 9' 5 wt. St. Johns combo from Cabela's, and he fished local lakes and ponds with poppers for bluegills and bass.

"During the week, especially in the summer, when I wanted to fish, we had a little pond in town that had carp; but otherwise, I would spend a ton of time tying flies and casting," Wagner explained about how he got his start. "I think that's really where I learned to cast, actually was out in our cul-de-sac, wishing I was fishing somewhere and couldn't be at 14 or 15 years old, and I'd spend hours out there beating up fly lines on asphalt, casting and tying flies. It was super windy and, honestly, that's where I learned to cast," Wagner admitted.

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Not surprisingly, Mayfly Outdoors CEO Jeff Wagner got his start at Cabela's, where he worked for about 15 years, during two different stints, and he worked in retail, first as an associate and later as a product specialist where he was tested on every area of the store. Eventually, he moved to customer service where he handled a hundred calls a day. While Wagner benefitted early on by having access to all of Cabela's fishing merchandise and resources, there was another unique part of the company's business that captured his imagination. "I've always been a fish nerd. Super nerdy. Aquariums, keeping fish, netting fish and all that. My undergrad was in Fisheries, but even before that started, I worked with a guy named Rob Zimmerman at Cabela's – we were building retail stores pretty quickly – and he was the one in charge of putting the aquariums in all the retail stores, so I helped do a fair amount of that, managed some of the aquariums, built the aquariums' life-support systems and installed a bunch of aquariums."

Wagner left Sidney for a while, finished up a Biology degree, went on to work for the National Park Service doing native fisheries restoration, worked as a guide and helped start a fly fishing shop, got married, and eventually he found himself back in Sidney working for Cabela's again in merchandise financial planning. He was doing inventory planning and sales planning for a variety of categories and finally became a divisional planning manager. "I helped do a lot of things internally," he explained, "nerdy business stuff, doing ERP [Enterprise Resource Planning] system implementation , activity based cost implementation, demand forecasting and all sorts of other stuff. I loved it!"

According to Wagner, Cabela's not only influenced his fly fishing career but also had a bigger influence on fly fishing than people realize. "They helped in making it accessible," he said, "through the catalog business at the time, and they also did a lot for small businesses in the fishing industry (for example, our fly rod blanks were coming from G. Loomis when they were going through some tough times), and I remember the Cabela's team helped smaller businesses get started. That was a belief of the Cabela's Family and they were kind of an incubator for that…"

Wagner has been obsessed with casting ever since he purchased his first Cabela's fly rod. "I started casting early on. I was probably about 18-19 years old when I learned about the Federation of Fly Fishers (now Fly Fishers International) and their Certified Instructor program," Wagner began, "and to me that was a way to pour myself into some kind of an end goal and learn about casting, and that was really a very pivotal thing for me in learning and meeting people in fly fishing. Guys like Tim [Rajeff] were part of that program. I'm definitely introverted, but when it came to a thing like that, I reached out…it was a really cool way to meet those guys. We'd go and just nerd-out casting. I remember going to the International Sportsmens Exhibition, early 2000s, and they had a casting competition called 'The Best of the West,' and it was a distance competition, and it was so cool."

"For about 4 hours the fly fishing pond would be lined with guys like Mel Krieger, Tim and Steve Rajeff, Rick Hartman and Bruce Richards, just watching everyone cast for distance [using consumer gear]… It's really where a lot of innovation came from…it was all about, 'What's my tracking doing? What's the rod doing? What's the line speed doing? When do I haul? What's the acceleration? What's an acceleration phase look like? What is the max rod load?' All these different things. So, I started pursuing the Certified Instructor program and then the Master's Certified Instructor program, and all along the way meeting those guys and spending time with them and teaching classes… Still today, I love the science behind fly casting. I still love the Mel Krieger mantra: 'Fly casting is the essence of fly fishing.' I believe it is. What defines fly fishing is the casting component, truly."

Wagner had the following to say about his background and development as a fly fisher and his leadership role at Mayfly Outdoors: "Coming up the way that I did in fly fishing and meeting all of those people, to me the history, the legacy behind all of it is such a critical element of what it is and something that we need to protect. With Mayfly having brands like Airflo that's been around for over 40 years and having Renzetti as part of it… We look at it truly as being a steward of a historic thing within fly fishing. Of course, there's many elements to having a business like that. We want to sell vices and make sure that they're out there. It also adds a manufacturing component, because they're very good at Swiss-style machining, small parts that they do, but even bigger than that to me it's about, 'How do we honor the legacy that they built and the business that they built and the reputation that they built, so that 15, 20, 30, 40 years from now Renzetti is still alive and that legacy is still living on,' and then we try to do that with all of the brands that we have because they all have this historical element to them, whether it's Renzetti or Dyna-King, Ross or Abel. We're not looking to be a massive collection of brands, but premium, legacy fly fishing brands are something that we hold pretty dear, and we want to make sure we're good stewards of those brands and make sure we can keep them alive and keep the history behind it moving forward."

"It's a fly fishing business in a small town, and we try to make sure we bring forward an ethos and culture, as much as we can, of fishing," Wagner stated, providing further insight to what makes the Mayfly Outdoors' team so special, "and the crew here works incredibly hard and is incredibly dedicated… At Mayfly, we're a B Corp, and I only bring that up because, part of the way we look at business is what's called a 'triple bottom line' – people, profit and planet. …You can't do anything in business without some kind of profitability. You have to be able to make money in order to support things. But the other part of that is people and planet. Obviously, this business can't be profitable, can't be making the things we do, without people. The people here are the number one part of the business that keeps it alive. And then, also the planet side of it, the conservation of it. And that's not just something we say – you see it in everything that we do. That's a big part of the reels that we come out with when we do a Native Series; it's a big part of what people don't see…as a percentage of revenue, we probably give more to conservation than any other brand."

This info-packed podcast continues as Wagner fields all Purnell's questions on a variety of new products and Mayfly initiatives, from the launch of the amazing new Ross Cimarron Creek Reel, which has "open source" pawls you can 3D print at home; to how the company manages to anodize reels in Colorado; to on-going collabs with unbelieveably gifted fish artists Derek DeYoung, Andrea Larko and Casey Underwood; to aluminum and fly line recycling; to a sidebar on Airflo's TPU material fly lines, line weight and tactical taper choices; and finally to a new project with Abel Reels, Derek DeYoung and Benchmade – all to benefit Project Healing Waters. You won't to miss a moment of what Mayfly has planned!

"I think that Jeff Wagner just might be the first fly fisherman that I've met from the state of Nebraska, but what a pleasure it was to visit with him, learn about his deep fly fishing roots and his amazing journey to Mayfly," said Fly Fisherman's Purnell. "We have a lot in common – not the least of which is we're both fish nerds at heart – and it was wonderful to visit with him at the amazing Mayfly Outdoors complex and to take a deep dive on fly fishing gear and the mechanics and magic of fly casting. You can bet I'm looking forward to making a return trip to Southwest Colorado in the near future!

Available on Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, and at FlyFisherman.com the latest episode of Fly Fisherman Loop to Loop podcast is a must-listen for fly fishing enthusiasts of all levels who want to stay informed.

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