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TOPIC: I remember that one.
#1701
FeatherRiverSam (User)
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What are your earliest memories of your flyfishing path? 17 Years, 4 Months ago  
I must have been 8 or 9 years old and we always spent our summers or a part of our summers up here in Plumas county. My first fly rod was and old glass 7 1/2ft rod that the name has rubbed off so I have no idea whom it was made by.

We had a couple of ponds by our cabin which were loaded with bull frogs. We use to sneak out at night with flashlights and use the biggest hairiest dry fly we could find and go after those frogs. It was a blast...you almost couldn't miss so long as you got the fly anywhere near the frog.

A few of the frogs would make it home and we did on occasion have frog legs for dinner - tasted kinda like chicken.

Of course my father got us those rods for trout fishing the many local streams & lakes but back then those old bull frogs were a lot easier to catch than trout and a lot more fun. And there was just something about sneaking out in the dark as a young boy that added to the suspense.

That was quite a while ago...where has the time gone...

Pete
 
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Sonny, the black lab, ran ahead to make sure there were no gophers or jackrabbits in the way. If you don't give a dog a specific job, he'll improvise one for himself and it will invariably be fun. There's a lesson there.
John Gierach
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#1707
Flycanoe (User)
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Re:What are your earliest memories of your flyfishing path? 17 Years, 4 Months ago  
When I was in 8th grade, I asked my dad for a backpacking fishing rod for Christmas to take on my boy scout and family camping trips. He got me an Eagleclaw 4pc 7.5ft spin/fly combo rod where the handle converts from spin reel to fly reel setup. I used a spinning reel to throw spinners for below surface fishing and then put on a fly reel for dry fly fishing.

Not long after that on one of our summer camping trips, I caught the biggest fish of the trip on a dry fly.

Later when I was in college, I took my girl friend (future wife) on a hike to Ostrander lake in Yosemite. About mid afternoon while we were relaxing by the lake, I saw trout starting to feed on the surface. So setup the same rod with a dry fly and proceeded to catch about 10 trout over an hour or so while freezing from standing in snow melt fed lake (month was June). My wife still vividly remembers that to this day.

I still have that rod and my son learned how to fly fish on it earlier this year. That rod is now his favorite fly fishing rod as well and used it all summer long on small streams with great success.
 
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#1708
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Re:What are your earliest memories of your flyfishing path? 17 Years, 4 Months ago  
First year I flyfished was 1959, I was 13. I caught a total of three trout that year on flies, and I remember each and every one of them! The first was a brookie while swinging a #14 light Cahill wet fly. The second was a rainbow, caught on a #12 olive nymph. This was the 1st trout caught on a fly I had tied. The last for that season was a brownie caught on an extended body lt. cahill dry #18 that I had also tied. Funny, after all these years, I still remember it like it was yesterday!
Didn't have a rod of my own, used one of my dad's. He had two that he let my brother and I share. One was an old beat up Montegue(sp?) with a heck of a set to it, the other, a steel rod. My vest was an old hunting vest that had seen better days. I cut the seams between shot shell holderes to make little pockets! Everything else went into the game pockets. We made our own dry fly floatant with parafin and carbon tetrachloride. No bottle would hold this stuff without leaking. Always had a crust of wax around the pocket that held that bottle!
Got to admit, the technology has come a long, long way!
 
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#1709
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I remember that one. 17 Years, 4 Months ago  
Myuncle bought me a fly typing kit when I was 13 and at a boy scout meeting I learn to tie a royal coachman.

I tried it out the next day and caught a blugill in the local creek. My first thought was.....

NO MORE DIGGING UP WORMS!

Paul
 
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If stupidity got us into this mess,
why can't it get us out of it? - Will Rodgers
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#1713
Ed Kelleher (User)
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Re:I remember that one. 17 Years, 4 Months ago  
The year was 1995, so I was 57 years old. I was hiking the Rae Lakes loop with sons Ned and Michael, and daughter in law Anna.

i was still spin fishing. Ned had learned to fly fish.

As we were hiking along a small high country lake, he asked if I wanted to give it a try. I did. I caught a trout.

That winter I learned to tie flies (sort of), and bought a 4 piece 5 wt, a Cortland Rim Fly reel and a SA DT floating 5 wt line. That was it....
 
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Tight Lines,
Ed K
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#1714
fishineer (User)
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Re:What are your earliest memories of your flyfishing path? 17 Years, 4 Months ago  
I have an extremely short attention span. I can't remember

Actually, a deer hunting buddy of my dad's came over one day, I was about 10 or 11. He tied a box full of shad darts and was telling us about an trip he was going on. I thought those things looked cool, sorted by colors and sizes. I bought a starter kit and had at it. I tied a bunch of crap for a few months. Then my parents and I went camping on the american. usually i'd be standing next to my dad flinging some sort of junk but this time he brought his fenwick fenglass rod with him. I casted that thing on the lawn at the campsite the entire time. I couldn't care less about fishing and the shad were all around.

well i've come full circle. a few weeks ago there was a post about how many rods have you broken. one I mentioned was that very fenglass, when i rolled up the gate window in my bronco. i was bent for a long time. well one of my dad's salmon/albie buddies father passed away not to long ago and he called me up one day. his dad had a fenglass and old pflueger and a bunch of sa lines. he gave them to me. I'm never using that rod. although i'd like to
 
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"In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics"

Homer Simpson
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#1728
bt45 (User)
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last chance creek/butte county 17 Years, 4 Months ago  
It is the first place I learned to fly fish, It is also the first place I took shane to learn to fly fish...It is a great creak to learn on.
 
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Last Edit: 2007/10/04 06:45 By bt45.
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#1733
Buzz (Admin)
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Tule River 17 Years, 4 Months ago  
I don't have real sharp memories of those days, but here's what I can dredge up:

I grew up in Porterville, and our home water was the several branches of the Tule River. I fished only a couple of times with my dad when I was little. He had an old fiberglass rod (that I have now) and I fished with what I recall to be an aluminum or steel rod. I remember getting caught up in trees so many times that my dad got a little exasperated.

After that, I remember using a Zebco spinning rig. Perhaps my dad figured I'd get less tangled up...
Well, I fished for a while until the handle came off my reel and feel in a pool about 3' deep. My dad made me strip off to my skivvies and dive for it!

In High School a buddy of mine and I fished for trout using a single salmon egg with a small sinker. Perhaps that is why I love to nymph so much now, as the technique is very similar.

After that, I didn't fish much until I started fly fishing with a college friend, and the rest (as they say) is history.


Buzz
 
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Last Edit: 2007/10/03 23:02 By Buzz.
 
Our tradition is that of the first man who sneaked away to the creek
when the tribe did not really need fish.
~Roderick Haig-Brown
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#1736
sangerdave (User)
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Re:What are your earliest memories of your flyfishing path? 17 Years, 4 Months ago  
I spent five years in the early 1950's following my father through willow and boulder while he fished. Once and a while he'd let me reel one in, but most of the time I just watched him. It was always understood that I was way to0 young to do anything but feel fortunate to be there at all. I loved just watching him. I can still see him.

We became very competitive in the early 60's
 
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#1740
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Re:What are your earliest memories of your flyfishing path? 17 Years, 4 Months ago  
Mine occured very young 5-7. Perhaps because my parents got divorced when I was so young, my grandfather took on teaching me to be a man. He taught me to respect women, be able to fix your own car, take care of your tools, that your word or handshake meant something, and how to handle a rod and gun.

At the time I was overwhelmed by my parents breakup. In hidsight, God gave me the gift of my grandfather and his morals and ethics. Those uncertain times filled in the same moment with dispair and sanguine feelings put me on the road to who I am today. The world is neither good or bad, it is what you make of it.

And today, I cherish my fly fishing and shooting skills because my Grandfather took the time to ingrain them in me as a part of who I am. Even my wife and kids can see it, and I never talk about it.
 
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#1746
pgw (User)
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Re:What are your earliest memories of your flyfishing path? 17 Years, 4 Months ago  
After following my uncle around in streams as he flyfished for a couple of years (Merced, Stanislaus and Tuolumne), on my 11th birthday he marched me into a fly shop on Judah in SF, and I received my 1st rod, reel & line...I spent the next 3 Sundays at the casting ponds in Golden Gate Park with my uncle, the flyshop's owner and a couple of fellows from the club...before I could take my birthday present home, I had to demonstrate that I could cast the line properly (distance didn't count as much as efficient technique did).

Before the end of the season that year, my uncle allowed me to fish with his cast off (read: used) flies and I had landed my first trout (which I ate) from the Stanislaus, near Strawberry.

Two years later, my uncle stopped giving me his used flies and began to give me his surplus tying material.

Thanks Uncle Ted,

Petri Heil,

Lttle Paul
 
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"Outside a dog a book is man's best friend...and inside a dog, it is too dark to read!" G. Marx
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#1747
pgw (User)
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Re:What are your earliest memories of your flyfishing path? 17 Years, 4 Months ago  
Trouttickler wrote:
We made our own dry fly floatant with parafin and carbon tetrachloride. No bottle would hold this stuff without leaking. Always had a crust of wax around the pocket that held that bottle!
Got to admit, the technology has come a long, long way!


My uncle used floatant made from white gas, carbo tet, and parafin...in a double boiler, on an electric hot plate on the patio. I still make the stuff using Coleman Fuel, Parafin and T-1-1 Triclorethane...Mrs pgw and the neighbors believe that I'm gonna blow up the block when I make a batch (about a pint and that lasts for 2-3 years) and some of the guys I fish with expect to hear an explosion on the stream when I'm smoking a cigar and dipping my dry fly in the bottle of this stuff!

Paul
 
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"Outside a dog a book is man's best friend...and inside a dog, it is too dark to read!" G. Marx
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