Brian grew up in New Jersey where he started fishing at a young age when his father took him to the local lake with a long bamboo rod and a float. From then on out he was hooked on fishing. After moving to Oregon in 1993, Brian took up interest in learning and discovering the local waters surrounding the Eugene/Springfield area. Now he is hooked on fly fishing for trout,steelhead, salmon, and and many other fish species and he actively fishes year round.
Brian Marz got his start in the fly fishing industry while managing and guiding for the Walterville Fly Shop up on the McKenzie River. After several years of managing The Walterville Fly Shop Brian started his own fly shop in the McKenzie River Valley named The McKenzie Angler in March of 2005. Brian and several other experienced guides have spent countless hours on the water guiding for the McKenzie Angler, and have thoroughly enjoyed putting ear to ear smiles on many anglers.
During the winter of 2009, Brian decided to close the doors of the McKenzie Angler looking for some change. Current he is back in school in pursuit of becoming a nurse anesthetist, and now can be found at Kaufmann’s Streamborn on the floor helping customers or out guiding on many of Oregon’s fine rivers. Brian felt that he had spent more time on the water before owning a fly shop, and so his decision to change things was strongly in order. Helping anglers out and guiding is more his passion; so now he spends more time on the amazing waters that Oregon has to offer.
Brian has been in several fly fishing publications over the last several years due to some of his approaches toward steelhead fly fishing and his knowledge and expertise of the local area trout waters. Some of the publications that Brian has been in are: Flyfishing & Tying Journal, Fly Fisherman, Salmon & Steelhead Journal, featured articles from the local newspapers’ sport section (several times), The Complete Steelheader (an awesome book on steelhead fly fishing-John Larison), Bugwater (a super book on bugs/matching them/etc-Arlen Thomason), westfly.com, and even Horizon Air’s flight magazine. In 2005, he was also in two television programs: one of them being Salmon, Trout, & Steelheader (McKenzie River Fly Fishing for Trout), and the other was Woolrich Outdoors (Fly Fishing The Middle Fork of the Willamette River for Trout). Brian also provides powerpoint/slide shows to many of Oregon’s fly fishing clubs around the state.