Alberto Rey, a Fredonia resident, was recently recognized as the 2021 Endorsed Fly-Fishing Guide of the Year by Orivs, a popular fly-fishing company throughout the world. Rey started guiding in 1999, and in 2002, he became an Orvis-endorsed guide.

“To become an Orvis-endorsed guide, you have to send references from clients,” Rey said. “Then they send somebody from headquarters to fish with you to make sure that you know what you’re doing. After every guide trip, you’re supposed to have your clients write a review.”

Rey, who was a finalist for the award last year, said there are many factors that go into being the guide of the year, including reviews from clients and role in the community.

“It’s a pretty complicated process,” Rey said. “They have a lot of factors as well as the clients’ reviews, but it’s all out of your hands. You don’t know how close you are. Last year was the first year I was close, so this year, they didn’t tell me until the day of the award, actually minutes before the award was announced.”

Alberto Rey on his back porch. The art piece above him is fitting, since Rey has traveled across the world targeting trout in places like New Zealand, Iceland, Yellowstone and many more dream destinations for trout anglers.

Rey said the recognition has been on his mind since the start of his guiding career, and receiving the award now is emotional for him.

“I’ve been thinking about it from day one,” Rey said. “Twenty years ago, I thought, ‘Maybe some day I’ll become guide of the year.’ When I found out I was a finalist last year, I was a little emotional. It wasn’t like I heard anything about it, so it came out of the blue and I wasn’t ready for it. Then I realized how important it was to me.”

“I was pretty moved (finding out I was a finalist this year). I was very moved by getting the award,” Rey added. “You never know if you’re going to get it again. It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do.”

Because Rey is an immigrant, this award means that much more to him.

“I’m an immigrant to this country, so a lot of my life I’ve spent assimilating myself to this country,” Rey said. “This was one of those things that is a bucket-list thing. That you’re an expert in your environment. It’s pretty special.”

Rey will be receiving a plaque recognizing the achievement along with national recognition from Orvis on its website.

Rey was born in Cuba and left the country when he was 3 years old. His family received political asylum through Mexico. He lived there for a few years before moving to Miami. He eventually found himself in a coal-mining town in western Pennsylvania where he grew up and graduated high school.

“I relocated probably 20 times before I went to graduate school,” Rey said. “I was living in Boston, Mass. after I got my graduate degree, and I was asked to interview for the position that I have at SUNY Fredonia now.”

He is currently a distinguished professor in the department of visual arts and new media at the State University of New York at Fredonia, where he’s been for 32 years.

Rey said an overheard conversation in a sporting-goods store when he first came to the area is what got him into fly-fishing.

“I heard this old-timer talking about salmon running up the streams,” Rey said. “I was like ‘Salmon? We’re inland. Why would there be salmon? We’re not close to an ocean.’ I found out later that they were coming up from Lake Erie.”

“I started doing some research, and I had a neighbor … who got me and a couple friends into it,” he added. “Then I started reading and fishing all the time trying to get better at it. I got addicted to it pretty quickly.”

Rey’s favorite aspect of fly-fishing is that once on the stream, he seems to become one with nature.

“Once you get into the water, it’s like another world,” Rey said. “Everything else in your life kind of moves aside, and you concentrate on what’s happening in the water, what’s happening in the sky … so everything you learned kind of takes over, and you’re just immersed in the environment.”

“The other thing I love about it is you spend hours and hours in that environment,” he added. “When you first walk in you’re an outsider, and the longer you’re there you become a part of that environment and everything continues. You have animals come up to you and a lot of things that just wouldn’t happen if you’re just walking through that environment.”

Steelhead fishing in the Great Lakes region is deemed by many anglers a world-class fishery. Steelhead are migratory rainbow trout that run into large bodies of water to feed and grow. They then run into lake tributaries to spawn.

Typically, steelhead run into oceans, but because of the size of the great lakes, they are able to maintain their migratory lifestyle without ever seeing saltwater. Fishing for these migratory trout brings in a large amount of tourist revenue every year.

“There was a report a few years ago done by a professor at SUNY Fredonia,” Rey said. “Tourism from steelhead fishing brings about $3 million to region. People come from all over the country. I know a guy who comes all the way from England to fish in this area.”

After starting the youth fly-fishing program, Rey quickly realized he could become a fly-fishing guide for people of all ages.

“If I can teach kids to fish, I should be able to teach adults,” Rey said. “At first, I was investing so much money into fly-fishing that I thought, ‘If I become a guide, I can make some of that money back.’ I learned and studied so much that I can share some of that with my clients.”

“Over time, I realized what I really loved was the challenge of getting clients who might not know much about fly-fishing not only on the water, but also getting them to catch a fish,” he added. “That is so much more difficult than (me) catching a fish. Seeing that life-changing event unfold in front of you … is really quite special.”

Rey also stays busy writing and illustrating books on environmental issues along with teaching youth fly-fishing classes at SUNY Fredonia.

“I just finished a book on icebergs,” Rey said. “It’s about climate change and how it’s affected this one glacier in Iceland that I’ve visited a couple times. I have a few other books that we’re working on.”

Some of those projects include a book and exhibition about the Oswego River planned for next spring, an exhibition and possibly a book on the Niagara River projected for 2023 and a solo exhibition at the Buffalo Museum of Science about cultural and scientific artifacts on Oct. 15, which will be up for a few months.

“My artwork has evolved so that now, the artwork is about bringing attention to environmental issues,” Rey said. “That’s what I’ve concentrated my time on over the last two decades.”

Today, the art, the classes and fly-fishing guiding that Rey does intersect almost perfectly, but that hasn’t always been the case.

“It’s interesting. Early on, maybe 25 years ago, it was all disconnected,” Rey said. “It’s interesting how life evolves because my work wasn’t related to the environment. As I started to do more research on fly-fishing, I started to learn more about science. My work started to change to become more about my environment. Before fly-fishing, I was doing landscapes of Cuba and Western New York and it was all coming together.”

He began connecting his work on landscapes with the environment and, before long, connected fly-fishing with the environment by looking at what native species can be found within landscapes.

“I started to think about, ‘How can I make positive change?'” Rey said. “Not only in your environment, but other regions. Instead of lecturing to people and telling them how that’s happening … I started to do artwork that was hopefully interesting, and through the art, engage them in learning about what the art was about. Now, the books are doing the same thing.”

Rey is attracted to nature because it “brings out the best of (him),” he said.

“It centers me and makes me appreciate everything that I have,” Rey said. “It makes me fortunate to be alive and to be able to experience the splendor of it. It’s very complicated, it’s very humbling, but it’s just so rewarding.”

Rey also runs a youth fly-fishing program for kids. The program, which is free, starts in the fall, and meets every week at SUNY Fredonia. The program is also concerned with conservation, and focuses on steelhead migratory patterns, entomology and the importance of keeping our environment pollution-free.

“Children are our future stewards,” Rey said. “If they understand their environment and are connected to their environment, then they’re more likely to protect that environment. I think down the road, whether they stay in this area or not, it provides an example of what can be done in other bodies of water.”

Rey also hosts a creek clean-up every year, where around 175 people participate. It’s a community event that brings people together for one reason, to clean up their stream, Rey said.

In the spirit of preservation, Rey also runs a brook trout restoration program. Not only are they New York’s official state fish, but brook trout are also the only trout that is native to New York. Rainbow and brown trout were introduced in the 1870s and 1860s respectively, and have been able to thrive in certain waters.

Brook trout were once abundant in nearly every stream in New York, but due to pollution, urbanization and development, their numbers have severely dwindled.

Rey works with Whispering Pines hatchery to purchase brook trout called “brooders” — adult brook trout ranging from 12 to 15 inches that are ready to reproduce — and stocks them every October in Canadaway Creek in hopes they can reproduce and create a wild population of brook trout and repopulate the once abundant fish to our area.

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