Joey Maxim

Joey started fishing as soon as he could walk. By the age of 5, he became the favored winner at local derbies and his friends knew Joey’s birthday party would be at the local pond each year.  Joey and his dad started their competition on who could catch the most on the three rivers in Pittsburgh PA where he grew up. Slaying catfish in the summer time, chasing Steelhead in Erie, New York and all around the Great Lakes in the winter or fooling the rainbows and browns on the incredible Youghiogheny River became routine. Joey became interested in a different kind of fishing, fly fishing and that is when Joey’s life took a turn. Three days after gingerly showing his dad how to fly fish for Steelhead in Erie, Joey was in a car accident at the age of 16 and wasn’t supposed to live. Fly fishing pulled him through as it became his way to live again. At the age of 17, Joey helped open the Orvis store in Pittsburgh and the day after graduating high school spent the summer working at Orvis in Jackson Hole, where he found himself “Living the Dream”.  After that summer Joey came back to Orvis in Pittsburgh and became fly fishing manager at the young age of 18. But something was missing, he graduated Western Rivers Guide School in 2018 and has been working for WorldCast Anglers ever since. Joey now calls Victor, Idaho his home. He has the patience of a lamb with the competition of a lion. Be sure to check out Joey’s story in Mend. “The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope”. (John Buchan)