A family business — Montérégie, Québec
Started on the Salmon River, tied on our own bench.
My first trip to Pulaski changed what I fish for — three years later, I'm tying the flies myself. — Claudya
La Moucherie is run by Claudya Cazes and Kevin — she ties, he keeps the shop running, and between the two of us there's rarely a day without a fly in the vise. Claudya's own path to fly fishing started three years ago, on a trip to Pulaski, New York — the kind of first trip that changes what you fish for good. She fell for it standing in that river, and she's been chasing that feeling ever since, on the fly rod and off it: walleye, bass, pike, whatever's biting, spinning or baitcast when the fly rod isn't the right tool for the day.
Two years ago, tying flies together became part of that — something to do at the bench between trips, tying to the species and water she actually fishes rather than a stock catalog. This season it turned into something more serious and more careful: patterns tested on the same water they're tied for, sized and weighted for how she actually fishes them, sold the way we'd want to buy them ourselves.
We're small on purpose. Every fly that leaves this bench has been tied by one of us, checked by the other, and packed by hand — no factory bin, no minimum order neither of us would want to fill.
Family business is a phrase that gets used loosely, so here is what we mean by it: two of us at one bench, and a next generation already taken with fishing — no encouragement required. We would rather build something worth handing down than something worth scaling.