About
Todd Spire
*Please note - Bookings for 2024 are currently closed.
Founder
Fly Fishing Guide & Instructor
New York State Licensed Fishing Guide # 7768
A lifelong fisherman, Todd relocated to the Catskills in 2008 and has been fishing Esopus Creek ever since. Todd offers fly fishing instruction for beginners as well as advanced casting techniques to experienced anglers. Skilled in dry and wet fly presentations he also specializes in tight-line nymphing in the traditional Catskill style. He is a board member of the Ashokan-Pepacton Chapter of Trout Unlimited, and previously served as its Secretary for several years. His photography has been featured in Eastern Fly Fishing Magazine and won the Orvis 2017 Fly Fishing Photo Contest. In 2012, he wrote a column for the Poughkeepsie Journal entitled Healthy Rivers about issues surrounding post Hurricane Irene clean-up and the future of protecting cold water trout fisheries. The turbidity that followed Irene inspired the design of his fly, The New American, a modernized hybrid of a traditional Pheasant Tail with Gordon Hill’s popular fly, the Nymphomaniac. The New American is included alongside several classic Catskill patterns in the Jerry Bartlett Angling Collection in Phoenica, NY. Since founding Esopus Creel in 2017 he has been featured in The New York Times, Edible Magazine, DVEIGHT, And North and Escape Brooklyn.
Todd is also the Events and Program Coordinator for the Catskill Fly Fishing Center & Museum in Livingston Manor, NY.
“To the souls who will commune with me on the river this coming year… We will share in a ceremony. Of the art. Of admiration. Of being both small and mighty in the face of nature. We will share awe. We will wade in the same water that once graced the sky, and is on a journey back to the sea. A universe from which it will be reborn. As we all are, in the face of water. Please join me for fly fishing in the Catskills. You will see, or hear, or learn, or touch something amazing. Probably all of those things… and likely a wild rainbow trout will make the list.”
-Todd Spire
*Please note - Bookings for 2024 are currently closed.