Rich Schaaff lives along the banks of the East Fork of the Lewis River outside Portland, Oregon. with his wife Julie and their dog Cooper.

I moved out west around 10 years ago from the Upper West side of Manhattan. My first summer here I decided rather than settle down too quickly that I would head up to Homer, Alaska and fish my way back to Anchorage. It was the first time I realized the need for something bigger than a 6 wt rod.
After catching my breath I returned to Portland only to jump at the chance to meet my brother in Idaho and fish the Lochsa River & Kelly Creek for some surrealistic dry fly cutthroat fishing..

When I returned to Portland I don’t recall the actual moment when my fly fishing & photography hit head on but I knew when it did I was a goner.

Once I got into the rhythms of living in the NW I soon realized this was the place for me. I thought “Where else can you can get up in the morning and slam a fine cup of Stumptown coffee ,go steelhead fishing for a few hours, run home and put a couple of local micro-brewed beers in the drift boat and spend the rest of the evening casting big dries on a fly fishing only lake at dusk during a prolific hex hatch in the summer?”



My photography and fly fishing have become a big part who I am. The marriage of my two passions has allowed me to meet so many genuinely talented fly fishing photographers, artists and fly tiers who have also found their own slice of what it is about fly fishing that makes people become absorbed by its culture.

As much as I shoot color images my true love is black and white. I am always looking for a shot that will work as a tonal image and tell a story of the simple nuances of fly fishing.


My favorite quote is by the late Harry Middleton from his classic book The Earth is Enough As told in the story by Uncle Albert “Perhaps I should just lease a place in heaven in case there no decent trout water there”…


Rich’s photography is currently being shown at the River Run Lodge along the Deschutes River and on his website www.eastforkfly.com