Greetings! I’m Matt Chapple and welcome to cnyflyfish.com. I started this website in 1995 because of my passion for fly fishing.
I grew up in Syracuse New York and fly fishing has been a part of my life since I can remember. My uncle started to teach me fly casting on his pond in Ithaca, NY when I was eleven years old.
Shortly after I began learning to fly cast my grandfather started to take me on fishing trips. We fished for brook trout in the southern Adirondacks in small streams, lakes and beaver ponds. He taught me how to swing a wet fly so it would travel under alder bushes, over boulders and through pocket water and He also started to teach me how to present dry flies.
My grandfather also began to teach me about fly tying. My grandfather’s fly tying was mostly simple wet flies and streamers used to fish for brook trout. He suggested to me trying an ant for brook trout and the first fly I remember conceiving and tying was a red ant. It was just red yarn wrapped in two sections and black thread. I thought it looked cool and I used it to fish for brookies and remember catching brook trout on the fly.
As I gained experience my father and grandfather started to take me to bigger water. My father took me to Tug Hill Plateau north of Syracuse New York and around the Syracuse area to fish a variety of streams for browns, rainbows and brook trout.
As a child and through my teen years I fished exclusively dry flies and wet flies without added weight to the leader as I continued to learn how to cast and present flies.
Through my teen years I continued to fly fish for trout around the Syracuse area and in the Tug Hill Plateau gaining experience with dry fly presentation and wet fly swinging.
My family moved to the Utica area in 1985 while I was still in high school and I began to explore the West Canada Creek and other local streams, where I learned more about Mayfly, Caddisfly, and Stone fly hatches. The West Canada has a variety of hatches of both Caddis flies and Mayflies and a nice population of stoneflies.
I attended college at SUNY Cortland where I obtained a BS in Biology/Chemistry in 1990. After graduating from college I began to experiment with “no indicator” nymphing techniques and streamer fishing for lake run Rainbow Trout, Brown Trout, and landlocked Atlantic Salmon in the Finger Lakes tributary systems.
In the early 90’s I began to explore the Lake Ontario tributary system, fly fishing the Salmon River and many other tributaries of the eastern basin targeting Steelhead mainly. I also enjoy Spey style-casting techniques paired with the swinging style of presentation. This has become my favorite way to catch steelhead.
My scientific background has helped me in my fly-fishing endeavors. I am very interested in entomology and ecology and the life cycles of Trout, Salmon, and their food. Over the years I have tried many different fly patterns on the rivers and streams throughout New York attempting to discover new ones that catch fish.
Fly-fishing has been such an enjoyable part of my life that I thought it would be fun to teach and help others to enjoy this wonderful sport. So in 1995, I obtained a license to guide in New York along with a boats and canoes license, which enables me to take anglers out to the streams and rivers and introduce them to some of New York’s trout and salmon inhabited waterways.