BAD IDEAS START SOMEWHERE.
I’ve been obsessed with fishing for about as long as I can remember.
When I was around 10, my grandfather bought me my first fly rod—a cheap 6-weight “panfish” combo that came with a reel and an instructional DVD. We grabbed some flies off the clearance rack, and that was pretty much it.
I wore that thing out fishing for panfish off my grandparents’ dock. I watched that instructional DVD more times than I could count. My grandfather even dug up an old box of beat-up fly-tying materials, and I started tying terrible flies with feathers and thread that were way older than I was.
A few years later, I discovered videos of people catching tarpon on fly rods. Until then, I didn't even know you could do that. I was a kid living in Illinois, but suddenly I wanted to catch one more than anything.
My dad took me to a fly shop to figure out what we'd need. Instead of encouraging a kid who was excited about the sport, we were essentially told that if we couldn't spend hundreds of dollars on the right equipment, we'd be wasting our time on the water.
My entire family eventually chipped in to get me a real saltwater setup for Christmas and my birthday.
And I barely touched it.
That experience made fly fishing feel like something that wasn't meant for people like us. It felt expensive, exclusive and way too serious. So, for years, I walked away from it.
Then, in my twenties, a trip to Montana with a friend put a fly rod back in my hands. I haven't really put one down since.
Bad Idea Fly Co. exists because fly fishing should never have felt that way in the first place.
This brand is for the kid throwing clearance-bin flies on a cheap rod. It's for the person who has no idea what they're doing but wants to learn. It's for people chasing fish they probably have no business chasing, taking trips that probably weren't a great idea, tying ugly flies that somehow work, and collecting good stories along the way.
You don't need the most expensive rod.
You don't need to look the part.
You don't need anyone's permission to go fishing.
If some kid sees one of our shirts, thinks fly fishing looks cool, grabs whatever rod they can afford and catches their first fish—
that's the whole damn point.