The Northern California Fly Fishing Board

Trouttickler wrote:
Just curious, who taught that class? Was it a guy named Bob Bellem?

No, but I think I took a fly tying class from Bob at FishFirst in Albany? (Short, dark-haired guy?)

The FF class (this was 1991) was taught by a guy named Chuck Esher (sp?).

Wild Bill

Personally I truely can't remember my first time fly fishing. It had to be sometime between 1953 and 1954, because in 1954 I caught my first steelie on a fly on the Garcia River. On a Horner Shrimp....that stayed my favorite fly to this day.

In the early seventies I was given a short solid glass fly rod by a relative. I bought some cheap made in Japan flies at KMart and cought three rainbows in the Caliveras river above Hogan Lake. Had no idea what I was doing but was hooked seeing those fish come up and take those flies in the clear water. Still have that old rod.

That old royal coachman was sure a popular fly back then. Must have been those red and white colors. If memory serves, which it often doesn't, I think it was the first fly I could actually call by name.

In this area, Middle Fork of the Feather 1960's & 70's, there was a guide who lived down by Spring Garden who tied a fly called the Feather River Special which was basically a buck tail coachman. He was a hell of a nice guy who fished this fly everywhere from Lake Davis, to the Feather and all the streams and creeks in this area. Unfortunately he's no longer with us...I still have a couple of his flies. I think his name was Harrison or Harrington. I've always wanted to ask old Jay Fair about this guy because I'm sure he knew him.

Sorry to ramble on Michael...that fly just has a lot of memories for me.

Pete

...let's see. I think it must of been 1974 or 1975. My brother took me backpacking up the North Fork of the Kings. Yep - that was the first place I ever used a fly. I went back there a few years ago...some great memories!

-Greg
ps - the hike from Devil's Punchbowl to Crabtree in Bench Valley is awesome!

Interesting about that fly. There was a local favorite during that same time frame called the Mill Creek Queen. (The Mill Creek that flows out of the south side of Lassen Park.) I tied hundreds of those and sold them at the Mill Creek Store. I was living at the ranger station in Mineral back then. I wonder if it was common back then to have lots of local favorites named for local waters (even though they may have been very common flies.)

By the way Pete.....I won't have any Eagle Lake report. Between the weath and some other obligations I cancelled. Speaking of weather.....its snowing at 3300 feet here in Quincy right now.

Yes there are many entertaining stories....most not appropriate for this forum. I spent eight summers in a row living at our families cabin. Two years while working at the small resorts in the area and six years on the Forest Service Fire Crew. Most of that time the rest of my family was out of the country so I had the place all to myself. I did lots of fishing....and there were many great parties....I will let it go at that. Things did settle down just a little bit the last summer I was there....I had a roomate that summer....my new bride.

the wedding usually puts an end to most of the partying...

Grew up in Kansas City, so we had to travel far to find a trout stream. When I was in 8th grade I hooked my first trout on a fly that I tied (remember to this day, a black wooly worm with brown hackle). It was in a roaring, bubbly, frothy pool on the Roaring Fork River (appropriately) outside of Aspen, Colorado on a summer family vacation. I couldn't believe a fish could even live in the middle of that commotion!



My dad, who wasn't an expert fly fisher, but knew some basics, taught me how to cast and strip the fly in.

As you can tell by the pic, I wasn't too jazzed or anything about this fly fishing thing.

Or you could say that I was hooked for life.

Wild Bill

Sorry to hear the Eagle Lake trip got canceled. I was looking forward to hearing your report. I think you're probably right about those flies....someone ties the old standard a bit differently and presto you've got the same old fly with a new name.

Yeah, we had snow over here today as well. I'm sure looking forward to getting up to Eagle Lake. I heard Davis may be opening prior to icing over if things work out. I might be heading out to Almanor next weekend - has anything been going on over there?

no/msg

In 1995 (46 years old) at one of our early Manly Man family/friends, camping/fishing trips, we all had been hardware and bait slingers. My brother-in-law pulled out a fly rod and wanted to show us something different he had tried out. The bunch of us spent several hours standing in the campground road trying to figure out how to cast this new line. Oh, how I wish we had a video of that!!! Well the next year, over half of the crew (including me) showed up with fly rods and caught some fish. Shortly after that I started tying my own flies to try to save some money. HA!!

Beerfly