HeadMy passion for fishing began early. As a boy I fished the shores of San Francisco Bay every chance I had. We fished for food. It would be years before I discovered fishing purely for fun. In my late-teens I ventured to one of the lake on Mt Tamalpais with my ugly stick and box of lures. It was there I was properly exposed for the first time to the poetic beauty of fly fishing. Not to mention witnessing how effective it can be! I was solidly out fished by guys not fifty yards away. For hours. Within a week I’d purchased a just-add-water Cortland 6wt, a handful of flies and was on my way.
The next 15 years is a blur of trips to every stream on the west slope of the Sierra, up and down the Rockies, Patagonia, anywhere I was told -or had a hunch- there might be trout. Somewhere in there I had my first kid, Jasper Trout. A girl would have been named Sierra Trout. Pretty sick, huh? The Lab was Satchel Trout. My poor (first) wife.
Eventually I discovered Trout Country in Northern California and all sane bets were off. I fished Hat Creek, the Fall, Pit, McCloud, Upper Sacramento Rivers, Squaw Creek. I’d created a job in the film industry that allowed for lots of time off. That time was used to locate, seduce and capture trout. I started fishing bamboo, tying all my own bugs, living out the back of a series of abused trucks, becoming an anti-social, fishing freak. And in retrospect, it was a quest well worth taking. I highly recommend it.
I arrived in Bend years ago, my second wife and our daughter in tow. I’ve long lost count of days on the river since we got here, but already there is a deep love for the dynamic variety of water here. This is where I should have been all along. It’s my privilege to work with the staff here at Fly and Field Outfitters. It’s my joy to share a thirty-year passion with everyone who walks through the doors, or I get the opportunity to spend time on a river with.