Fishing

I can't remember when I started fishing.  I can remember back to about age 5 when my family would go to Ludington, Michigan for vacation.  I can remember sitting on a pier fishing for sunfish & Blue gills.  Later, we spent our vacations at Fish Lake, near Three Rivers, MI and I caught a lot of Blue gills and Bullheads.  I later spent a lot of time in Wisconsin and Minnesota fishing for Trout and Walleyes.  Growing up in Chicago I also spent a lot of time fishing of the "Breakwaters" in Lake Michigan for Herring.  Of course, like all kids then, I also spent quite a bit of time fishing in the lagoons at several of the parks catching little 6 inch bullheads.  Nothing to eat but a lot of fun.

Later, when I was in college in Montana I spent a lot of time Trout Fishing and got introduced to Fly Fishing.  I worked during the summers in Oregon, which has a lot of good Trout Streams.  The best fishing I ever had was in the Blitzen River in the Steens mountains in South Central Oregon. The Gerber Resevoir south of Bly, OR was a good place to fly fish for Crappies.  A Badger Hair Streamer was a "killer" lure.  When I was in the Army I spent some time at Ft. Lewis, WA and was introduced to Salmon Fishing at Neah Bay, on the Olympic Peninsula.  Caught my biggest fish, a 45 pound King Salmon there.

In 1971 I was released from Active duty with the Army and we moved to Garden Grove, Orange County, CA.  Not much fishing there.  I did try fishing off some of the piers in Huntington Beach and a few other areas, but did not really enjoy it.  I finally met a fellow fisherman at work and we would take our vacations around the Bishop, CA area.  We would go up Rock Creek to the Mosquito Flat Trailhead, and hike over Mono Pass to the headwaters of Mono Creek.  We would set up camp at the lake in Third Recess and fly fish Mono Creek and the many lakes and creeks in Pioneer Basin.  We also fished some of the lakes and streams around Bishop Pass, the June Lake area, and the Owens river.

In 1978 we moved to Lake Tahoe.  There are all kinds of fishing opportunities in this area, and it is easy access to the rest of Northern California.  I do mainly lake and stream fishing for trout around Lake Tahoe or head a bit north for salmon and steelhead.