Danville, California, USA
approximately 35 miles east of San Francisco
I've been fly fishing and fly tying since I was 9 years old... my Dad was
a big influence in my entry into the sport of fly fishing. He had started
me on fishing at the age of 3, mostly bait dunking for trout and catfish
and also trolling flies in an "arm powered" boat around a small lake in
the Sierra Nevada's every spring and fall.
While my Dad was my favorite fishing partner, my finest hour was the
summer when I was 12 and we took a 7 week trip to Nevada, Utah, Wyoming,
Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon. I was waist deep in the Firehole
River trying to get out enough line to reach the rising cutthroats and
browns but meeting with limited success, when I heard the older fella
sitting on the bank chuckling at me while smoking a pipe and he asked
"Would you like to learn how to handle that thing?" Well, an hour or so
later, I was able to get the line out to where I wanted it... and land
some pretty hefty fish too! I thanked the man who simply walked away and
waved... the following day, while in a store in Jackson Hole, I saw a
magazine on the shelf and said to my Dad "Hey- that's the guy that showed
me how to cast yesterday!"... some feller named Joe Brooks.
Our summer vacations consisted of camping and fishing.....period. There
were no trips to Disneyland or other amusement parks, and later in life I
grew to appreciate the summers we spent in the mountains much more. Most
summers, we spent 4-5 weeks in the Sierras or Trinity Alps on one of three
bodies of water.... the Feather River, the Stanislaus River or the Trinity
River. I got to know them and their tributaries quite well, and once
introduced to fly fishing, gained an interest in entomology and the
natural progression was into fly tying.
My habit was fed by the world famous Herter's and Netcraft Catalogs,
along with a small store in Downtown Oakland, CA where I grew up owned by
a wonderful man named Paul McClintic.... a little hole in the wall up a
long, narrow flight of stairs that smelled strongly of moth balls and rod
finishing varnish, as Paul was a cane rod builder also... something that
didn't mean much to me until after he passed away. A few years later, I
got to know a fella named Andy Puyans who ran a shop in Walnut Creek and
under his direction, learned a thing or two about tying that changed the
way I felt about it for the rest of my life.
I had a good friend during the summers between when I was 9 and 14 that I
met up with when I went fishing; our families took overlapping trips, so
we were able to extend our fishing time by a week or so. We began a sort
of competition on the stream, a sort of personal "one fly" to see who
could build the best and most imitative flies to catch the most fish on a
daily basis, altering our flies over time to achieve just that little
extra feature that would fool the browns, brooks and rainbows that were
the local residents. The Silver Trude submitted on the page of flies for
Hans is one such fly that not only fooled them where we fished, but has
continued to fool fish almost anywhere I go.
Over time, I've been quite fortunate to have spent time tying with and
communicating with some great tyers.... Andy Puyans, Wayne Luallen, Jack
Dennis, Polly Rosborough, John McKim, Jack Johnson, Harry Mason and many
others of the "cyber fraternity" who I credit greatly with the development
of my skills and my continued interest in the sport.