It's not every day that a brand new fly fishing apparel brand launches, let alone one manned by a team of people that have resumes that include tenures spent at some of the industry's most preeminent brands—gear makers such as Sitka, YETI, Simms, Patagonia, and Orvis. It's partially because of its team's pedigree that Montana-based newcomer Skwala Fishing is already turning heads.

In close to 40 years of writing about dogs and the people who own, breed, train, campaign, hunt with, live with, and otherwise fool with them, I’m not sure I’ve encountered anyone as obsessively passionate about what they do as Meagan Cook. If her professional identity is as the Fishing Manager for Orvis Austin in Texas, at certain wingshooting lodges around the country the über-energetic 27-year-old Austin native is known as “The Girl Who Moves Dogs.”