North Allegheny grad represents country, hooks medal at fly fishing world championships

By: John Grupp
Saturday, June 14, 2025 | 11:45 PM

Mike Komara’s trip with Team USA to the 2025 World Fly Fishing Championships last month in the Czech Republic featured a medal and some metal.

“We had an extra day in Prague, and we went to an Iron Maiden concert,” Komara said. “It was great. It was actually my first concert ever. I had a blast.”

Komara definitely rocked it at worlds.

For the second consecutive year, the 25-year-old North Allegheny graduate helped Team USA to the bronze medal at the FIPS-Mouche championships May 25-31.

Boosted by Komara’s fast start — he was 10th out of 165 anglers after two sessions — Team USA went on to place third behind champion France and runner-up Poland at the 32-country event.

“He’s young. He brings a lot of energy,” team captain Glade Gunther said of Komara. “He also brings a particular skill set from his Pennsylvania upbringing that’s really detail-oriented. Mike is really good at taking information and translating it into catching fish.”

Komara, part of a six-man Team USA roster, had represented his country in France last year, and three times, from 2017-19, in the Youth World Championships.

Komara, a 2022 Penn State graduate who lives in Carlisle and works as a research chemist, was familiar with the South-West Bohemia region of the Czech Republic. He had fished there at the 2019 Youth World Championships, placing fourth overall and leading USA to second place. He also fished in Slovenia and Poland at Youth Worlds.

“He loves to compete, but he also fishes for everything,” USA teammate Devin Olsen said. “All sorts of species back there (in Pa.). … He’s good at technical, light finesse Pennsylvania-style fishing.”

Komara qualified for Team USA after accumulating points at five regional competitions, two interregional events and, finally, a national championship held in early 2024. He completed the two-year cycle tied for fourth, enough to earn him a spot on Team USA for the 2024-25 world championships.

“I believe he is uniquely teachable,” Gunther said. “He is very receptive to intel. … He’s just a pleasure to be with, and he’s very teachable and coachable.”

This year’s championship was divided into five sessions held along the Vltava, the nation’s longest river, and the Otava River, as well as Lipno II, a reservoir on the Vltava.

Each day, Komara fished for three hours along a beat, a randomly selected 150- to 200-meter section of water that he fished alone. He rotated to a different sector each day. A fish had to be at least 20 centimeters long (roughly 8 inches) to count.

Komara landed 13 the first day and 30 the second day, the third-most among all anglers. He only managed five fish on Session 3 — at Vyssi Brod along the Vltava — after getting a tough draw with his assigned fishing spot.

“I was told it was the worst beat on that venue,” he said. “It’s tough. You know you are grinding for 29th instead of 32nd (among anglers at that sector). It makes it pretty much impossible to do well on a personal level.”

Komara rebounded to catch 20 fish the following session at Rozmberk along the Vltava and finished with four catches at Susice on the Otava River on the final day.

“If you get one really bad beat area to fish, you are kind of out of luck,” Komara said. “You just try to catch as many fish as possible to help your team out.”

All told, he caught 72 fish to place 42nd individually. Team USA totaled 407 fish, with a 19.3-incher being the biggest catch. While there is no prize money, they each brought home bronze medals with the FIPS-Mouche logo.

“It was great,” Komara said. “I love representing the U.S. It is always an honor. I think everyone was pretty excited.”

Komara already is into the next two-year cycle as he aims to earn a return spot on Team USA for ’26-’27. He currently is ranked second in the nation in the Fly Fishing Team USA scoring. The national championships are in mid-September in Idaho, the site of the 2026 world championships. The top three in points automatically qualify, with Gunther picking three more to complete the six-man team.

Komara has come a long way from the kid who got his first fly fishing rod as a birthday gift from his aunt at age 8 and spent many days at nearby Pine Creek. He runs innovativeangling.com, a website for tools and tactics of competitive fly fishing, and estimates he has caught 101 different species of fish, starting with “most likely a sunfish” and most recently a type of chub in the Czech Republic.

“There was something about it that always drew me to it and kept me coming back even when I didn’t have success,” he said. “I’m glad I stuck with it.”

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