Ron Belak is an award-winning photographer from Evergreen, Colorado. He has fished the Colorado backcountry as an adult for 40 years. In that time, he has fished about 600 different high lakes and small reservoirs in Colorado, as well as a number in Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, Alaska, British Columbia, Alberta and Argentina. Educated as a scientist with degrees in geology and significant coursework in the biological sciences, he approaches fly fishing from an analytical perspective, trying to describe what techniques, strategies, equipment and patterns work and what is the scientific basis for why they work. Ron Belak has published about 75 articles in Colorado Outdoors magazine, and his writing and photography also has appeared in Fly Fisherman and American Angler magazines. He is a frequent presenter at chapter meetings of Trout Unlimited, other fly-fishing clubs and the Fly Fishing Show in Denver.