I have an anniversary coming up. Almost fifty years ago, I bought my first fly rod. I discovered this sobering fact by accident while cleaning out the attic, where I came across an old fishing license. I recognized the address on Cole Street, a studio in the Haight-Ashbury I once rented, but the other details sounded phony. Did I ever really have blond hair or weigh just 150 pounds? Hard to believe. Only my blue eyes still matched the description on the license. Time had caught me with a sucker punch, so I sat down to do the math.
I’d acquired the license at twenty-six, a California greenhorn working as a warehouse stock boy. The only mountains I’d ever seen were the Swiss Alps through a train window during a semester abroad in Europe. My first glimpse of the Sierra Nevada gave me a bigger boost than the weed I smoked. The experience fit with Edmund Burke’s definition of the sublime, “an artistic effect that produces the strongest emotion a mind is capable of feeling.” Like the Romantic poets, I longed to be one with nature and lose myself in the thrill of the high country. Obviously, I needed a fly rod.
I settled on a two-piece, 9-foot Fenwick Feralite at Dave Johnson’s Sporting Goods on Geary. It was durable, light, and easy to cast. The design was simple, but innovative, with fiberglass ferrules, rather than brass, a concept that builders of graphite rods later borrowed. For my money, you couldn’t do better than a Feralite. They’re still prized by collectors. A vintage 1970s model will cost you $160 on eBay. I remember testing the rod’s action and thinking I’d made the right decision to quit slinging bait and lures. It was like swapping white bread for sourdough or Olympia Beer for imported Heineken. I was gradually upping my standards, becoming a San Francisco sophisticate.
For my first excursion, I chose the Stuart Fork of the Trinity, itself a tributary of the Klamath. Because it is a smaller stream, I figured it would be more manageable and less crowded. I recall the clarity of the air as I climbed into the hills, the scent of sun-warmed conifers, and the squawking of Steller’s jays. With no internet or cable TV in those days, Weaverville was still an unspoiled country town. Most folks hadn’t seen a movie for months. They talked about bears and logging, not the New York Times or Fox News. For eight bucks a night, I rented a one-room cabin with an icebox. Maybe a miner had bunked there once. A little porch hung out over the river, and the sound of the Trinity filled my dreams.
I doubt the Stuart Fork would impress me now, but for someone who could not yet identify a caddis hatch or a BlueWinged Olive in flight, it was an excellent place to learn some lessons. The wading wasn’t difficult. Long stretches of the stream could be fished from the banks. I tripped over rocks, hooked branches and bushes, and loved every minute. And the trout came eagerly to the fly, small hatchery rainbows not yet wary or defensive. I began to get the hang of it, although I still had miles to go. Fly fishing led me to discover other wonderful small towns, such as Chester, on the Feather River. The talk was of a mini Gold Rush when I first visited. An elderly gent had found a huge nugget while panning on the North Fork near Virgilia, and the nugget had grown to the size of an asteroid as the word got around. Copies of Gold Prospector magazine were f lying out of the pharmacy as readers sought advice from the editor, who went by the name of Buzzard. The first line of his editorial was, “All that glitters is not gold.” Fortunately I resisted the temptation to buy a pair of suspenders, grow a long beard, and join the get-rich-quick geezers. Instead, I tried my luck where the North Fork empties into Lake Almanor and coaxed a big brown to take a Pheasant Tail Nymph, very nearly a trophy fish.
Five years after buying my rod, I left the city for the wine country. My new home, a double-wide trailer on the Russian River, came with mice and bats. I didn’t mind the company. I wanted to be a writer, so I was supposed to suffer. In the Alexander Valley, I lived like a farmer and wore the same clothes almost every day, a uniform of a flannel shirt, jeans, and Red Wing boots. On special occasions, I dined at the Bluebird Café with my new pal, Paul Deeds. His order never varied — steak, rare, baked potato, hold the veggies. He applied the ketchup with a free hand. His plate resembled an exercise in abstract expressionism. And yes, he tied his napkin around his neck and refused to tip more than 10 per cent.
For steelhead, I needed more backbone than the Feralite provided, so I invested in a sturdy Eagle Claw, bright yellow, with its length and weight inscribed on the butt section in script. I played the angling rookie, while Deeds assumed the role of Old Master, a sage with years of experience on the Russian. Begrudgingly, with infinite caution, he divulged his secrets. The best times to fish were in the early morning and late evening, when the steelies rested in the same predictable holes, and in the first hour or so during a light rain, when they were on the move and susceptible to a swinging fly. The water color mattered, too, at its most productive when dropping and clearing, but not yet clear.
After five years in the trailer, I moved back to San Francisco. I could call myself a writer by now without anybody snickering. I’d published a well-received book and owned a new graphite rod, courtesy of a decent royalty check. Fly fishing had become an integral part of my life, not merely a hobby. I thought nothing of splurging on a plane ticket to fish the great rivers of Yellowstone or of missing a deadline because I heard the Hex hatch was on at the Fall River. More than once, I was called irresponsible, but I didn’t see it that way. I have no regrets about the time I stole to go fishing, indulging in the delight of being on a stream. Only a few other things have given me such satisfaction. The trout were essential, of course, but I also value the friends I’ve made and the adventures I’ve had along the way.
Take, for example, the time a pal and I headed to the Middle Fork of the Tuolumne River, looking for a stream we hadn’t fished before. I’ve known this pal since college, but I never knew he was phobic about heights. The river lay at the bottom of a deep canyon, and as we descended over a rugged dirt road, my pal began making a strange yipping noise that got louder at each switchback. He was having a panic attack. I realized I’d have to change course if I didn’t want him to open the door and bolt, so I turned around and located a paved road out of Groveland that led us, less precipitously, to our destination.
But the river disappointed us. They must’ve been releasing water from Hetch Hetchy, because the Tuolumne was high and foamy with whitecaps, barely fishable. The only other lost soul around was a stringy-haired guy with a backpack. He carried a spin rod, a metal detector, and probably a concealed sidearm. We took him for a survivalist ready for Armageddon. He lit a Camel and stared at us, trying to determine if we were real or not. He’d been in the canyon a long, long time. I asked if he’d had any luck, and he shook his head sadly. His worms had died on the drive from Vallejo, but he thought he’d do OK with his Pautzke’s Balls O’ Fire. He even showed us the jar. I’d never met an angler so optimistic in the face of such daunting odds.
I plan to celebrate my anniversary in the only way possible, with a fishing trip to the Sierra. Now that we can travel freely again, I have a smorgasbord of options before me. Maybe I’ll see if I can solve the riddle of the Truckee, a river that’s always foiled me, but I might be better off revisiting the McCloud, where the gods have treated me kindly in the past. Though I could also rent a car and head for parts unknown, hoping to stumble on a little gem in the barrens, say, of Siskiyou County. In a sense, it doesn’t matter where I land. I’ll be happy anywhere I can cast to rainbows and browns. That’s my idea of the sublime.