Want to Learn to Fly Fish? There's a Consultant For That

Rob Snowhite's work bag includes hand-tied fishing flies, sunscreen, a camcorder, a gadget to swipe a credit card through on his cell phone and a small bat to fend off snakeheads.

His day at the office is whichever Northern Virginia lake he chooses. He says he never has a bad day at work.

Snowhite, a Reston native, is a fly fishing consultant. It is a relatively new stop on a varied career path for the 34 year old. He has been a high school biology teacher, a cheese shop employee, a web developer and a fly fishing shop employee in a number of fishing hot spots, including Colorado and Florida.

A year ago, Snowhite was working a corporate job. He was miserable.

"It was awful," he said while putting his boat into Lake Audubon recently. "My back hurt. My neck hurt. I hated the way I had to dress."

With the blessing of his wife, Ilona Altman, and a birthday check from his parents, Snowhite took his canoe and went into business. He says even through all his jobs he was always fishing. He's been out on Reston's lakes since he moved here with his family in 1984.

He figured everyone in the DC area is some sort of consultant. Why not be a Fly Fishing Consultant? For the last year, he has been taking clients out on the water, teaching them casting, what kind of fish are where, the biology of the water. Basically, everything you need to know to catch fish.

"Think of me as a coach, personal trainer or tutor for the angler," he says on his website.

Snowhite now has a new drifter boat and a regional clientele. He will go wherever the client requests, traveling from his home in Alexandria to the Potomac River or Occoquan or Reston's lakes, where 30 years of experience means lots of insider knowledge.

"Behind old pontoon boats," he points around Lake Audubon. "The fish love structures and old boats. It is mostly largemouth bass here, crappies, all sunfish members. There was a trout release recently, so some of the trout have swum down to the lake."

Snowhite typically charges $40 per person per hour. Clients can choose two, four or eight hour trips (the eight-hour trip comes with a gourmet lunch from in Del Ray).

Snowhite recently offered a half-price Groupon and got a fantastic response.

Brandon Vaughn of Centreville was one of the purchasers. He and a buddy met Snowhite for two hours of fishing in Reston recently. Vaughn is an experienced fisherman, so it wasn't that he needed lessons. Rather, he had not been on the water since moving up from Florida recently and didn't know the good fishing spots in the area.