BIO

As well as being a kayak fly fishing guide, Rickey Noel Mitchell is a fly fishing and fly tying instructor, professional fly tier, free lance photographer and writer. This career began over fifteen years ago, when Rickey was a struggling artist. Sculpting wildlife out of wood wasn¹t exactly paying the bills, so he starting carving bass lures to supplement the income. Wanting to add feathers and synthetics, (rubber legs, flashibou, krystal flash) to his custom carved lures to give them action, he took a fly tying class. The first time he tied a flie that looked like what it was supposed to, it was like a revelation. Instead of a few weeks that it took to complete a carved duck decoy, he could tie a fly in a few minutes and by hand. One fire had gone out and another had been lit. Tying flies fulfilled the creative desires that wood carving had previously done.

As a struggling wildlife artist, Rickey went out in nature camera in hand, to get photos for reference for his carvings. Now a days he does the same for his flies, observing and photographing insects, forage fish, small animals and the bigger fish that eat them.

After paddling a gauntlet of water craft Rickey discovered the best craft for getting within casting or shooting distance of any of the creatures mentioned was a kayak. An article in Outdoor Life Magazine about a couple that fish out of kayaks in Florida lit another fire. The couple used conventional gear, he wanted to fly fish. It was a long search for the right kayak, it ended on a fishing trip to South Padre Island, Texas. On the flats around South Padre, he saw fly fishermen fishing from their kayaks while they were standing and to get from A to Z, they were poling them. The kayak in question was the Wilderness System Ride. The search was over. Shortly after returning home he purchased his first WS Ride; for Rickey that was the beginning of combining two passions. Three years were spent experimenting and developing paddling, fishing, casting and rigging techniques for fly fishing from a kayak. What took place during that span of time, inspired a book and this web page called Paddle And Flies.