Dusty grew up in Missouri, started fly fishing when he was eight years old, and spent his formative years highly distracted by the sport. He began guiding and teaching fly fishing in the early seventies while working on a degree in Wildlife Biology at the University of Wyoming. Living in Jackson after dropping out of law school, he tied commercially for High Country Flies and guided the Snake, Green and New Fork Rivers and in Yellowstone National Park.

In 1996 he founded the Dusty Wissmath Fly Fishing School & Guide Service in the mountains near Mercersburg, PA where it quickly earned a reputation as a professional, yet easygoing fly fishing school. As well as directing his own school, he is an instructor at the Wulff School of Fly Fishing and served as the lead instructor at L.L. Bean’s Fly Fishing School in Virginia. He guides in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Montana and hosts trips to fly fishing destinations worldwide. His writing and photography can been found in several fly fishing publications.