by meb » November 8th, 2008, 2:10 pm
I'm 54 years old, and I grew up in Long Beach. My father regularly took me hunting, fishing, and surfing. I fished for everything when I was a kid and could ride my bike to local park lakes for bluegills and bass and to the ocean and Alamitos Bay for saltwater fish. Like a few others have already mentioned, fishing for bonito was so much fun (I used a two inch section of a broomstick too trailing a white fly). They would absolutely put up a fight on our "noodle" rods and Mitchell 300 spinning reels. Our family vacations and scout trips often had us fishing in the Sierras or local mountains.
As I got older I spent a lot of time fishing the salt both from shore and blue water stuff. My trout fishing was pretty much limited to a few backpack trips each summer. By this time surfing pretty much dominated my life, but when I went on trips I took a fishing rod to catch some fish for food, so I fished quite a bit.
When I reached the ripe age of around thirty, a few things happened, about the same time, that sucked me in to this addiction of fly fishing: A friend of mine let me try his bamboo rod while we were camping with our families on the Kern. After reading yet another article in one of my hunting/fishing magazines about fly fishing and fly tying, I sent off for one of those old fleece wallet with six flies from Orvis. On my next backpacking trip above Big Pine in the Lakes 1-7 I tied a fly to a bubble and cast it out there still using my "noodle" rod and Mitchell 300, and you know what happened. I caught lots of fish. I needed to know more!!
I was working for PSA airlines at the time and asked a surfing friend of mine if he wanted to take a fly fishing class. He was a pretty avid fisherman already and jumped at the chance. Since we could fly for free, we randomly chose a three or four day course on the Deschutes River with Kaufmann Streamborn where we were fortunate to meet Randy Stetzer and John Hazel. That happened in the early 80s, and I have been regularly fly fishing ever since. That class and those guys got me started in the right direction, and I fished with them every year for steelhead for most of the 80s. I'm still in their debt in so many ways.
My buddy and I spent years exploring and fishing locally from Ventura county to San Diego county. Before computers, we would look at maps and ask around, and we explored mostly in the San Gabriels and San Bernadino mountains fishing the name spots and finding a few great areas that brought us years of fun. We also fished and explored the Kern area and Sierra mountains and lakes. Finally, I was lucky to meet Herb Burton who introduced me to steelhead fishing on the Trinity River in NoCal, and I would make two or three trips a year up there. Herb is a great fisherman who has taught me a great deal and put me on some fantastic fish.
Fast forward to now and I still love fly fishing, although I don't fish as much as I used to. In years past I tied flies almost daily for fun and to get better, but now I mostly tie to fill boxes or for upcoming trips. Almost fifteen years ago I quit the airlines, went back to school to get my teaching credential, and have been teaching middle school in San Clemente for the last eleven years. Today I fish locally regularly, but not weekly anymore, I fish the Sierras quite a bit, I try to take at least one steelhead trip, and I try to take a trip to somewhere new each summer. The last few summers have taken me to Utah, Oregon, and to the McCloud river. I've fished with a few people on this board: Midger, Papasequoia, and Dave D. when he guided on the Kern and hope to fish with some more.
Thanks for this site, it's new to me and this is my first post.
Mark Brown
U. Kern: n/a cfs
There's a funny thing about that little white speck on top of chicken sh*!.... Well that little white speck, is chicken sh*! too.
