The Story of How We
Went...Wild on the Fly

The story really began over 40 years ago when a fishing obsessed Colorado teenager learned to tie his first fly, a brown bivisible. With that revelation he traded in his trusty spinning rod for an old cane fly rod of his dad's and never looked back.

Over the next four decades Wild On The Fly founder Joseph Daniel would become a photographer, writer, graphic designer, publisher, direct marketer, filmmaker and web site developer. These avocations would earn him a living, if not exactly fame and fortune, but more important they would eventually coalesce together into the effort that would become Wild On The Fly.

In 1998, the Daniel Publishing Company was producing custom magazines for corporations, exploring the emerging dot-com phenomenon in the outdoor arena, and publishing bundled direct-mail offers and mini-directories into specific consumer markets. One of those was fly fishing.

The Fly Shop in Redding, California was one of Daniel's first clients in the program and owner Mike Michalak and he quickly became good friends. They both shared not only a deep love of fly fishing but also a keen interest in pushing the envelope marketing-wise.

Around that same time Daniel was pitching the LL Bean company on the concept of a customer-based outdoor lifestyle magazine centered around fly fishing and wingshooting, and he showed his idea to Michalak. In the end LL Bean didn't bite, but Michalak did, and The Fly Shop's popular "magalogs" (a graphic hybrid between magazine and travel catalog) were born, and continue to this day.

After several issues Daniel tried to convince Michalak to expand the promotion beyond just the destinations served by The Fly Shop. Michalak preferred to stay focused...
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The overexcited bug above is Wild Fly, our title card mascot for all of the Wild On The Fly video productions. Wild Fly resides quietly in our new logo until the action gets hot, then he lights up with the unbridled enthusiasm of the piscatorially possessed. Watch any of our videos and at the end of each you’ll be treated to Wild Fly on the hunt for big fish. And, if you share that same passion about fly fishing get a little Wild Fly for your next angling adventure.