David Gourong

Fishing has always been a part of my life. I was born in 1972, in Alsace, France. I started with coarse fishing when I was 11 years old and it’s only when I moved to Norway in 1999 that I made my real first cast with a fly rod and tied my first flies.
Living by the Oslo fjord at that time, I was fly fishing mostly for sea trout, cod and pollack in winter time. And when the ice had melted my cast was for pike, salmon, brown trout, grayling, sea bass and mackerel.
Then I moved in Cornwall, southwest of England. Where I played with sea bass, pollack and mackerel for a year.
Since 2010, I live in France with my family, Isabelle and our son Jules, in the southwest of the country outside of Toulouse.

I became an active member of the “Club Français des Pêcheurs à la Mouche” Toulouse’s section and today I go around different fly fishing clubs in my region to give fly tying demos and courses especially on predator flies.

Today my flies are eaten (or try to be) most of the time by Mike the pike and due to my location, a new fish came in my playground, its name is Large Mouth Bass. This fish remembers me when the late René Grégroire - from RG France - showed me a texan hook with an interchangeable strip of rabbit during on one of our show trips to the USA in 2005. Since there, I have seen different flies tied in a weedless way, but nothing that really pleased me for my flies. After many attempts to improve René’s fly, with different hooks and materials, I came across with titanium wire some years ago and that had a huge impact on my tying.

I have tied my own fishing flies for all those species over the years but, what I like the most is creating a fully dressed salmon fly or a fly that will be framed. I’ll put all my skills and perfectionism in those flies. I just love playing with those beautiful feathers and materials to create those complicated patterns. I feel really gratifying when the fly is finished and this feeling has no price.

Over the years, I have been invited to tie flies at different shows around the world and I’m very proud and look forward to be able to come and share my skills at the Giro in diversi club di pesca a mosca nella mia regione per dare dimostrazioni di fly tying e corsi specialmente sulle mosche dei predatori. this year again. On the show I’ll be tying some of my weedless flies so feel welcome to have a talk with me. 

I wait for you together with the other builders at the Fly Tying Experience.

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