The World's Finest Fly fishing rods

Our History

The original rendition of Master Nymph, formerly Masternymph, was formed in the Netherlands in 2011 by our head product designer Jason Lieverst. At the time, the sole purpose was to provide the very highest quality Euronymphing flies on a commercial basis to customers all over the world. Jason was the first to design and manufacture tungsten beads in Germany, after becoming increasingly frustrated at the substandard quality of the Chinese beads that were flooding the market. Those German beads were made available to the public in a huge array of styles and colors and very quickly became the most popular tungsten beads in the world, with sales of over 2 million beads worldwide. Jason also acted as a product design consultant for many companies in the fly fishing industry in the UK, Europe and the USA for over 10 years.

Jason was a top level competitor and represented his country at the highest level of the sport, captaining his country on more than one occasion. He was the Chief of International Supervision and FairPlay for FIPS Mouche (the International sport fly fishing federation) heading up a team of International Supervisors to ensure FairPlay at the world fly fishing championships, the European fly fishing championships, and the world youth fly fishing championships for 8 years. When the original idea to host both the world fly fishing championships and the world youth championships in Vail Colorado, Jason was a pivotal part of making those two competitions happen, working very closely with the International organiser and the American fly fishing federation alongside FIPS Mouche, both of those competitions were noted as the best in history by anyone taking part in them. Jason has been responsible for leading the design and prototyping of many products that are sold in the fly fishing market over the last 20 years for a wide variety of companies, and now he heads up our design team at Master Nymph. The original Bellator rods were designed in 2017 and very quickly became recognised as the best Euro style nymphing rods in the world, when the French national team used them to win gold at the 2017 world fly fishing championships in Slovakia. From that point onwards, the goal was to continue to innovate and create the very best Euro Nymphing products in the world.

Fast forward to 2017 and the new Master Nymph, LLC. was born in Bellevue WA, USA by Jason’s wife Nicole Darland.

Nicole has an incredibly vast and interesting career in fly fishing and the hospitality industry, which began in the early 1990’s when her family began developing luxury fly fishing and adventure destination lodges in Chilean and Argentina Patagonia. Casting her first fly rod on the shores of Lago Llanquihue in front of their Yan Kee Way Lodge in the northern Patagonia of Chile, she quickly developed her love and skills for the sport of fly fishing.  She had the opportunity to learn from many experienced guides and prominent figures in the industry, travel and fish in remote and untouched destinations, further her knowledge of the premium and luxury hospitality market, and in doing so, gained a vast understanding about the realities of logistical travel throughout Chile and Argentina. After years of being featured on the covers and inside pages of many of the most prominent fly fishing publications around the world, a rarity for females in the sport at that time, in 2003, she formed her own luxury fly fishing and adventure travel company, Xclusive Xpeditions.  

Her fishing and travel experience, knowledge and notoriety at the time when social media had not yet taken shape, propelled her into a unique position as one of the most knowledgeable specialists in the arena of high-end Chilean and Argentine fly fishing and adventure travel.  She traveled throughout the country and the world and was featured at many clubs, specialty trade shows and at private events, providing fishing demos and speaking and sharing her knowledge with other curious anglers. In 2009, she was recruited to co-host Fly Fisherman TV on the Sportsman’s Channel for 2 seasons, which currently streams on Amazon.  After the birth of her twins, she took the foot of the gas slightly for a couple of years, but had made such a name for herself, she was contacted by the Oprah Winfrey show to teach Oprah and best friend Gayle to fly fish in Yosemite.  While she had to pass on the experience with new five week old twins, she knew the next opportunity would present itself when the time was right.  

That time arrived in 2015, when her third son was merely a year old, Nicole became an owner at North Fork Composites and Edge Rods in Woodland, WA, USA. She was responsible for rebranding both companies and helped bring her fly fishing experience to the design and dream team for many new products. This including their first carbon fiber fly rod series as well as the never been done before or since, linen fly rods as well as many other innovative fishing products.  It was here she learned more about the design and high performance building aspects of any type of fishing rod, especially fly rod manufacturing and design.  

When she formed Master Nymph in 2017, the original plan was to create an Academy for teaching Euronymphing techniques in the States, where the market was unsaturated and just becoming a bit more mainstream.  This quickly shifted to create the world’s finest Euronymphing rods ever to be made for the use of those seeking the very pinnacle of performance for this specific technique and to provide instruction from the world’s most prominent figures.

Master Nymph is committed to creating, designing, manufacturing and delivering the very highest quality, hand made in the USA fly fishing products. Our commitment and desire to make boutique products has been the same since we first formed the company in 2017, and it will never change.