John Van Derhoof from Long Beach, California is a FFI Life Member and an avid and well known fly fisher, fly caster, fly casting instructor and fly tier. He is particularly well known for his classic feather-wing Atlantic salmon flies and was one of the featured tiers in Judith Dunham’s book, The Atlantic Salmon Fly. He is also a Life Member and Past President of the Long Beach Casting Club. Some of his accomplishments are as follows:

John started his fly fishing career by first learning how tie flies in 1963 at the age of 11. Casting and fishing came a little later. Since then John has demonstrated, taught and written about casting and tying all over the United States, Canada and Europe.

John was named to the FFI Casting Instructor Certification Advisory Committee at its inception in 1992, and received his Master Casting Instructor Certification in 1997. He was elected to the FFI Casting Instructor Certification Board of Governors in 1999, a position he held until 2006. He currently is a Board of Governor-Emeritus.

John became a member of Phrozen Phantom Phlytiers in 1986. This group was a who’s who in fly tying and fishing; the membership of which included Lefty Kreh, René Harrop, Gary LaFontaine, Darwin Atkin, Judy Lehmberg, Steve Jenson and Craig Matthews to name a few. This group donated their flies to be framed together and auctioned for considerable sums of money. All of the proceeds went to FFI or into a fund that helped worthy fly tiers with limited means attend the FFI International Fly Fishing Conclaves or other FFI mini-conclaves and shows to demonstrate their skills.

John was honored with the FFI Buz Buzsek Fly Tying Award in 2007. Only three individuals have received this award and have served as FFI Casting Certification Board of Governors or Emeritus (Gary Borger and Bob Jacklin) and John is the only Board of Governors or Emeritus to have earned this honor with all levels of Certified Instructor.

John started to learn Two-Handed Casting in March of 2009 and passed his Two-Handed Certification in October the same year. He actively teaches all levels of single-hand and two-handed casting resulting in an average of 3 to 5 lessons per week. John is also very active serving as an examiner of all levels of the FFI Casting Certification Program.