Tom Loe

T-Loe

CA F&G License # 2808, liability insured and bonded
Owner-Sierra Drifters Guide Service
Inyo National Forest Service Permitted, U.S.C.G. Licensed Captain

 

Tom Loe has spent 34 years as a professional fisherman and is a full time fly-fishing guide and the owner/founder of Sierra Drifters Guide Service.  He resides full time with his wife Michele on McGee Creek overlooking Crowley Lake in the Eastern Sierra.   Tom spent twenty years offshore harpooning broadbill swordfish and set lining rockfish as the owner/operator of offshore commercial fishing vessels on both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.  He is currently a U.S.C.G. licensed Merchant Marine captain. 

Tom has had a maniacal fascination with trout his entire life.  He began tying flies at 12 years to assist him in financial support of his addiction to fishing.  Tom has created the Sierras most popular and imitated fly patterns and has been inducted into the Fly Tiers Museum.  Tom has been professionally guiding full time since 1998 and has logged over 3,400 guided trips to date.   In 2004 he was honored by Western Outdoor Publications as one of the wests top thirty anglers.

Loe developed unique and innovative methods of fly-fishing for trout in the area and pioneered guided drift boat trips down the Lower Owens River.  Loe also revolutionized still water nymphing techniques while fishing from his center console bay boats on Crowley Lake.  Sierra Drifters Guide Service has been in operation since 1998 and to date has assisted over twenty thousand fly-fishers in pursuit of trout in the Eastern Sierra.

He guides 240 days a year with the  Owens Rivers, Crowley Lake, Bridgeport Reservoir, East Walker River, Lake Almanor, Hot Creek, and Eagle Lake being his specialties.  Tom has been written about, or authored fly fishing articles regarding the Sierra and other areas countless times in newspapers and periodicals including the Los Angeles Times, Orange County Register, Los Angeles Daily News, San Diego Union, Western Outdoor News, and South West Fly Fishing, Northwest Fly Fishing, and Sierra Magazine to name a few.   He has developed numerous published fly patterns and a strike indicator that are currently cataloged by Pacific Fly Group and are sold commercially.  He has patterns that are in the fly tyers mueseum.  T. Loe has done numerous seminars and clinics to fly fishing clubs and groups and has been depicted as being the “guides guide” in this region.  Loe has written  dozens of articles in fly fishing publications and periodicals.  He writes a detailed fish report that is read by 7000 people almost weekly.