Hello... nice place you have here, sure, I'll have a PBR

[Papasequoia]

Oooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, Pabst Blue Ribbon? One of the beers my dad used to drink, along with Narragansett and a couple of other cheapos. I should have guessed. Thanks for the info.

[flybob]

Hey whatever happened to OLY?

My uncles used to drink that stuff all the time when I was a little s..t!

[Sasha]

Nah it's all about the Olde English 800

[DSFlyman]

Yup the PBR is the Pabst. Nice to run into some other westsiders too. Since I used to live in the Valley, I avoid it as much as I can. I stop by The Spot only if I'm in that neck of the woods. Doc's is pretty limited. I remember when they first opened last year and I went to buy some flies for the surf. Grant tried to sell me the Helios... talk about up sell. He backed off when I tried to talk him into a free sample I'm playing, The Spot needs to branch into the Westside. I guess they'd then be The Fisherman's Spots.

I'll probably get slack for admitting this, but for my tying needs, I'll try and get away with Sport Chalet - the one on Olympic near Bundy is pretty new and they claim to have the largest fishing section of any S Chalet. It's just so close to me.

[stanbery]

Welocme aboard

Nice blog.

Jon

[briansII]

Hey whatever happened to OLY?

My uncles used to drink that stuff all the time when I was a little s..t!

Oly closed a while back I think. I think it was the first beer I ever had a sip of.....blech! Lucky Larger.....now that was a beer!

briansII

[dna]

Nah they're still brewing, but were acquired by PBR: http://www.olympia-beer.com/Home.aspx

[Papasequoia]

Another of the cheap beers we used to buy when I was young was Rolling Rock. We could get a case of that in bottles for about the same price as Schlitz in a can. I had to laugh a few years back when it was all the rage as a yuppie kind of beer. Seems to have faded a bit in popularity recently, but as far as a "lighter" style beer goes it was actually pretty good.

[FishBreaksWater]

Hey DS, welcome -- I feel a little weird saying that 'cause I haven't been here too long myself. I used to post over on OUTDOORSBEST but I wore out my welcome so here I am. Naked.

Funny -- I lived on the westside for ages (Cheviot Hills and Santa Monica) but moved northward to Van Oaks/Sherman Nuys/Studio Panorama/Reseda City about a decade ago. While I had a couple of cool apartments over on the WS, I found my money went further in the Valley (ie. ranch house).

Now you can't get me out of the place, I love it up here...seems you did it the other way 'round.

Although I loved living on the WS -- *, I love all of Los Angeles, this place kicks major butt -- one thing I hated was coming home late on a Sunday afternoon after spending a weekend in the backcountry; I'd be totally tired, starving and in need of a hot shower, enjoying a nice drive all the way to where the 101 and 405 intersect, then spending another hour getting from Sherman Oaks to Cheviot Hills in traffic.

Man, that used to suck. You know the feeling?

Anyway, welcome. I'm known to drink large quantities of Natural Light, but I'll down a PBR or 12 any old time -- even at work.

F.B.W.

[FlyinFish]

Now you can't get me out of the place, I love it up here...seems you did it the other way 'round.

F.B.W.

FBW, I gotta tell you its great to hear someone else who loves LA so much! It just makes me so sad when people bash LA left and right. I really love this place and its just an awesome city to live in and I would be a fisherman nowhere else!

PS - I wish I could live in the valley, but the commute is unbearable. The WS is pretty cool though. Lots of old LA history and lots of good joints and good people.

[DSFlyman]

Yeah, I'm not sure if you guys are natives, but I am and I know the people I grew up with never bash LA. I think that's reserved for folks who come here from somewhere else and are homesick or in the entertainment industry (I am and that sucker takes its toll on people - I've seen the best and worst). I feel like I know this town like the back of my hand (although, based on some of the posts that would exclude local small rod fishing - did I mention I love this site.) Except for the brutal winters, I have no complaints with this town.

If I can get away with it and I have to deal with traffic I commute on my motorcycle. It can be a little hairy, but I wear a seatbelt.

[Sasha]

I am a CA native and I bash CA all the time

[FishBreaksWater]

I've seen Trootfisher around these parts....he's an LA hater for sure....but a good guy in spite of it LOL.

It's so easy to bash LA -- there's a lot of bash-worthy stuff going on here; in one of the biggest metropolitan areas on the planet, that's to be expected.

It's the little things about LA that are rarely mentioned that melt my heart of stone: the front range creeks (Bob and 1Mocast know 'em well), seeing deer on Mulholland Drive or coyotes in Sherman Oaks, the San Gabriels covered in snow in winter, camping on a bluff above Malibu and seeing the Santa Monica coastline at night, the mind-blowing architecture spanning the early 1900's thru the mid-century modern explosion, the taco trucks and the guys in line drinking horchata, the jacaranda blooms in June and the perfumed scent of star jasmine in the spring...the list goes on...

For a short but glorious while there -- around 2005/6 -- a particular front-range stream was fishing exceptionally well. Now, this stream was/is an absolute * to dial-in, let me tell you. Even LARiver (aka Bernard) got skunked at this place on many a fine day, so you know I'm not f*cking with you. This stream and these fish were PICKY and I spent dozens and dozens of days trying to crack the code.

I never did.

The point if this tangent is that the skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles -- the most beautiful city in the world -- are clearly visible from the mouth of this canyon, this beat-up place where graffitti-covered boulders and abandoned vehicles are the norm. And yet, out of these over-used and abused waters came fish like this:


(mine)


(LARiver)

So yeah, LA sucks...spread the word.

F.B.W.

[FlyinFish]

AMEN!

For me, I can have the job of my dreams, fish local saltwater like nowhere else in the world, fish long range offshore trips like nowhere else in the world, fish small creeks, fish the sierras, hike the sierras, ski the sierras, and more. Just pick your direction and go do it. Its all there.

Then there's the food and the local niches and the hang out spots and most importantly of all and my most favoritest thing about LA is THE DIVERSITY! I've met so many different great people and have made such a wide array of friends.

Anyway... it just feels good to hear that I'm not the only one who loves this place.


(Guy at the unmentioned local outdoors store tells me he doesn't like LA and the skiing sucks and the outdoorsy people here are all posers. Of course he proclaims to be a master skier in downhill, randonee, and telemark. When I ask what his usual mountain is, he says he's only skied Mt High and Big Bear... Sometimes, you have to take a step back and realize what you are doing and what you are b!*%#ing about. Get off your butt and drive up to Mammoth or Tahoe, if you're such a dedicated and extreme skier. Sell one of your overpriced and under used skies and that pays for a season of lodging. So the expert downhill, randonee, and telemark skier who skis Mt High is calling OTHERS posers. Hmm... interesting...

Then he talks about how he goes rock climbing at a gorgeous spot in Simi Valley (which is less than an hour away I might add!). And he tells me how beautiful the Sierras are and so on and so forth. So, I'm confused... do you hate LA? Or do you just hate the fact that you never get off your butt and go out and do what it is you claim you enjoy doing? And prefer to spend your time in the city and complain that people are posers?

Maybe its not that LA is a bunch of posers, but maybe its that LA separates the men from the boys and exposes who the true posers are. It brings out the few who are truly passionate and dedicated and exposes those who are... well... posers who telemark Mt High all season...)

Sorry for the ranting boys! I just love LA and CA and can't stand people bashing them unjustifiably. But hey, you're right, LA sucks, you should leave .

[rayfound]

I hate the City. Any City. But SoCal is unique in that at the at the edges of what seems like limitless sprawl, we have amazing outdoors opportunities.

All I know is that from the time I lift my * from my desk, to tying on my first fly on one of a couple local creek, is less than 45 minutes. I can't appreciate that enough.