About Mountain Valley Sports Fishing & Tours
We are a West Kootenay fly fishing guide company, established in 1990, and proud to say the first fly fishing company located in Southern British Columbia specializing on the Columbia and other local waters.
Mountain Valley Sports Fishing has been host to many fly fishing shows, such as Sport Fishing On The Fly, Sports Fishing B.C. and the New Fly Fisher, and also a feature article titled "B.C.’s Best Dry-Fly Fishing" in the well known Fly Fisherman magazine (view article online).
About Dwayne D'Andrea (Owner/Guide)
Born and raised in Castlegar, BC, Dwayne landed his first Columbia River trout on spinning gear at age 7, and from that experience, his passion for fishing evolved into fly fishing, and ultimately starting a fly fishing guide service.
Dwayne also started working at the pulp mill in Castlegar at a very young age, where he is currently employed as an Emergency Response Member in the Safety Resources Department, and also a first aid attendant. In addition to that, he periodically works for the BC Ambulance Service as a paramedic. It's this work experience that assures clients that safety is the #1 concern.
Moving forward, Dwayne hopes to retire from the mill in the near future to focus on his hobby that has turned into a thriving business. As of now, he takes time off from the mill during the peak fishing times to service his growing customer base.
About Mat Ferraro (Guide)
Like many of us, Mat was introduced to fishing by his father. At age three, Mat was casting a toy rod into the North Saskatchewan River in Edmonton AB. Within a few years, he progressed from toy lures to hooked ones and started to catch fish on his own. Growing up in the Edmonton area, the main targets were walleye, pike, perch and stocked rainbow trout. Spin casting was his game all through adolescence, but when he purchased a $5 fly rod at a garage sale at age 18, things immediately shifted.
A new love for fishing had emerged. Mat moved to Nelson the following year to pursue a career in the ski industry and has been in the area since. After witnessing hundreds of large trout sipping caddis one summer evening during a famed Columbia River hatch, nearly all of his fishing efforts from that point on focused on the big river. At 22, the allure of the ocean pulled Mat to the BC coast where he worked as a dock hand at remote fishing lodges and first experienced the pull of a Chinook salmon. Mat has worked all over the BC coast and started guiding in 2017 on the Northwest coast of Haida Gwaii. After two seasons there, he decided to head north to Dundas Island to chase the large Chinook of the Skeena and Nass runs.
Now 29, and a full time student pursuing a career in fisheries biology Mat has decided to stay close to home and guide on the Columbia where his passion for catching trout on the fly began. With a strong interest in aquatic ecology and entomology, and how they can contribute to fishing success, he will be glad to chat fishing all day.
