COEUR d’ALENE — If there is such a thing as a fishing off aficionado, it’s got to be Joe Roope.

Roope ties flies that fish can’t resist at the rate of 30,000 a year, which still can’t meet the demand. And that’s just during the off-season.

When the weather warms, he and his summer team become “gilleies,” which in fishing industry vernacular means a guide. They travel to fabulous fisheries around the world to give anyone with a fly rod the experience they love most — to read a river, cast a line in just the right spot, feel the strike, set the hook and start the fight.

Destinations include Argentina, Russia, Alaska, New Zealand, Canada, Finland, Scotland, Belize, the Bahamas, and Bolivia, as well as North Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Montana and Wyoming. At one time, Roope built and managed a fishing lodge on Christmas Island in the South Pacific.

“I’m having the best time I could possibly have on this earth,” said the 50-year-old father and owner of the Castaway Fly Fishing Shop on Fourth Street in Coeur d’Alene. “I really love my time in the shop. My time on the stream is more about relationships now. So my 365 days a year are very special for me.”

Roope’s dream job began early, in his teens.

“I hung my shingle when I was in the ninth grade,” he said.

He was born in Coeur d’Alene and grew up on a farm on the north end of the city. His father, Joe Roope Sr., was the superintendent of transportation for the Coeur d’Alene School District.

“So if I got in trouble on the school bus and got a citation I’d have a call at my home number,” he said. “It was a tough evening at dinner that night.”

But Coeur d’Alene was a great place to grow up, he said.

Living on Fruitland Lane, “I had the dumps to walk around in and build forts.”

In junior high, Roope heard about a father/son fly-tying class at First Presbyterian Church.

“I didn’t know what fly-tying was. I went home to my dad and said, ‘I want to learn how to tie flies. Will you come to this class at church with me?‘“

His father, a former commercial fly-tyer who was estranged from the church, said “Hell no. I’ll teach you how to tie flies.”

Roope Jr. was off and running.

Soon he was selling Hayden Lake Specials to Bing Crosby and a variety of flies to high school buddy and future NFL quarterback John Friesz as well as commercial outlets around Coeur d’Alene.

“It might as well have been Mt. Everest,” he said. “I got paid to do something I wanted to do. It was great.”

Roope also joined a fishing group with his dad in the 1980s at the Athletic Round Table and listened to old-timers complain about how depleted the fisheries had become. He immediately became an advocate of catch and release and remains so today.

“We’ve made a lot of changes and our fisheries are a lot better than they were,” he said. “That’s the backbone of my business. That’s how I get paid — having better fisheries.”

Roope graduated from Coeur d’Alene High School in 1985 after a career in athletics and a reputation for free-spirited independence.

“I wasn’t a stoner. I wasn’t a soch. I wasn’t a jock. I wasn’t academia,” he said. “I had Levi 501s, a flannel shirt and probably smelled like mothballs.”

His locker was full of fly-tying items as well as a shotgun. When the spirit moved him, he would grab the shotgun, leave school and go grouse hunting.

“Well, that’s not how it is anymore,” he said, smiling.

After high school he briefly attended North Idaho College, then set out for the wind and the water.

“My buddies came back from college from fraternities and dating girls from sororities and I figured I was missing something,” he said. “I got through all that. I’ve gone all over the world fishing with all kinds of different cultures.”

Despite all of his exotic expeditions, North Idaho remains his favorite place.

“Beauty-wise, I don’t know of a better place,” he said. “This is not a river-culture place. We’re a lake culture. But I spend my time on the tributaries. I’m blessed to be in Idaho.”

So where does Roope prefer to cast a line? Most likely on the North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River pursuing native cutthroat trout.

You can bet that he’ll catch a bunch on Joe Roope flies.

And you can bet that he’ll return each one to where they belong.