POCATELLO — A local resident and fly-fishing aficionado owns and operates Moonlit Fly Fishing, a Gate City business that provides anglers across the globe with quality fishing equipment and materials.
Any experienced fisherman can relay the serene peace of wading into a tranquil river as the morning sun peaks beyond the tips of evergreen trees, the angler soaking in the wilderness as they cast out with their fly-fishing rod.
That state of nirvana is a core aspect of what Moonlit Fly Fishing owner Brandon Moon — who lives in Idaho Falls while operating his business out of Pocatello — wants to share with residents of Idaho and other anglers across the world.
“My grandpa was a fly fisherman,” Moon said. “He was someone who always wanted to own his own business. He used to make his own bobbins to tie flies with. The bobbin is what you store your thread on when you're wrapping the thread on the hook. He would take and make his own vices to put the hooks in and tie the flies. There's just a lot of history and inspiration from my grandpa. It was a way for me to achieve my own dreams of owning my own business but also continue my grandfather's legacy.”
Using that inspiration, Moon began to create leaders and other fishing equipment in his basement in 2012, eventually teaming up with business partner and friend Brent Auger during that time. A fishing leader is the section of line between the hook or lure and the main fishing line.
“DRAGONtail Tenkara and Moonlit Fly Fishing merged around 2014,” Moon said. “That's really when Moonlit Fly Fishing took off because I specialize in furled leaders but also furled Tenkara lines. We were manufacturing the furled Tenkara lines for DRAGONtail and we just decided we'd be better as a combined company.”
Moon continued, “We went from doing just the Tenkara rods and the Tenkara lines to offering fiberglass fly rods. That was probably about 2016 when we introduced our first fiberglass rod that was called the ShadowCAST. We continue to expand our Tenkara rods. We're one of the leading manufacturers for Tenkara rods in the country.”
Over the next few years, the organization continually produced more high-quality rods and equipment. Products included a traditional fiberglass fly rod called the Moonlit Lunar Glass in 2018, a fast-action fiberglass rod called the Nirvana Superclass in 2019 and their first graphite rod called the Nirvana Moksha in 2022 with the Moonlit Umbra arriving in December of that year.
“We've expanded into fly-tying,” Moon said. “We're getting hooks manufactured in Japan, which has the highest quality tempered steel, so you get the highest quality hooks, strength-wise and consistency-wise. We're adding in a bunch of our own natural fly-tying materials. We specialize in growing quail for soft tackle fly patterns. We're producing mink and pine squirrel hides. We just got our first shipment of our natural dubbing coming in that came in this afternoon.”
The natural dubbing means that Moonlit Fly Fishing is providing natural materials such as beaver, pine squirrel and mink hair rather than synthetic materials.
For Moon and his company, it’s important that all levels of angler have access to a variety of equipment that caters to their specific style and budget.
“Moonlit Fly Fishing's motto is high-performance gear and an affordable price point,” Moon said. “We say that because we want anglers of all experience levels or budgets to be able to fish with high-performance gear, something that they can be proud of. Idaho is a blue-collar community; especially in the Pocatello and Idaho Falls area, there's a lot of blue-collar people.”
Moon continued, “That's how I grew up. That's how my business partner grew up and we want everybody to be excited about what gear they are fishing with. The Nirvana brand is just how it sounds: nirvana — finding that state of peace and enlightenment on the water with your gear. We want people to be super excited if they can spend a little bit more, but if they can't afford a $1,000 Orvis rod, we want them to be super excited about the gear that they're fishing with and have a rod that is going to perform for them.”
While Moonlit Fly Fishing does not have a brick-and-mortar storefront, they do have a manufacturing facility within Pocatello. Local downtown store Snake River Fly carries a lot of Moonlit’s gear, however, and interested anglers can still buy everything from Moonlit's website and even pick it up from the warehouse if they desire.
“I just want people in the community to know that we're here,” Moon said. “We take a lot of pride in our work. Me and Brent were both born and raised in Pocatello and we love our community. We want to share our passion for fly fishing with our local community and across the world. We want to show the world what our town has to offer.”
To learn more about Moonlit Fly Fishing or to purchase any of the business's products you can visit its website, moonlitflyfishing.com.
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