One day, on Lake Ray Hubbard, my dad and I were fishing with John Varner and Mike Oser. While heading to a different spot, when Mike pulled out his fly box. My first thought was, "wow!"

Well, I decided I would ask him where he bought all these flies. When I asked, he kind of chuckled and said, "Man, I tied those myself." I mean my jaw dropped because it was the first time I had ever met a "fly tier".

So, we got to talking and next thing I knew, I had a package waiting for me when I home.  I saw that it was from Mike and ran to my computer and sent him an email to thank him. Of course, I ripped the sucker open.  I didn't expect to find my first fly tying vise or material so I could give it a try.  I went right to work.

I tied Clousers, Wooly Boogers and some weird things I just made up. Well, after a few weeks of practicing I started to get it down. Now I was tying Clousers, Wooly Boogers, Crappie Jigs, Sea Ducers and a few little Nymphs.  At that point, I was just emailing pictures of my flies. Then while at school I was checking my email and saw one from my dad with the subject "Future Business Man?" I was thinking it was another joke because he always sends me funny emails.  But when I clicked on it, it said "Flies-By-Night flies."  I new he wanted to make a business out of this fly tying thing.

I thought it was a little crazy. I mean, a 13 year old boy having his own business?  When he got home that day, he explained to me how all this would work. I would get a  website, have a logo designed, one product to start out with, proper pricing and so on. I thought about it for a day or two and it just clicked in my head that I had to do this. So not long after, I had a website, one product, a logo, proper pricing and I was set.

I had my little T.V. tray (now a desk), a vise, material and everything else I needed. About one week went by with no orders and I was getting worried. Then, one Sunday night I got three orders.  The next day I got two orders. From then on I had an average of two to five orders every other day which was heaven to me. Thinking in my head that I had just took a hobby of mine and turned into a business in a mater of weeks, I was amazed. I could not believe what I had done.

I have to give most of the credit to Mike Oser and my Dad. Also, my grandfather "Pops" for coming up with the company name. A year had passed and I had decided to make some changes. I got an offer from Jay Don Reeve with the company Finny Tribe. He wanted to sell my flies on his website! This was huge for me and still is. I was so excited, I was running around the house. It made my whole month just thinking that someone wanted to sell my flies!

After that I was in the new paper which was huge for Flies-By-Night. I was the happiest kid. I had a wonderful hobby that was now a business! A few months later my dad and I were discussing that for 2009 I needed to make some changes, like new website, new flies and some other little things. So, all and all, Flies-By-Night is a great thing in my life, besides family. I have to say thanks to my wonderful father, Brad, the FAMOUS Mike Oser, the incredible Joe Dearman the great John Varner, and all other supporters of Flies-By-Night! Thank you so much!