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CURRENT ISSUE

April 2013 - Volume 21 Number 4
19
Bill Carnazzo, 1941-2013
A tribute to a top-notch fly fisher.
By Dominic Carnazzo
28
The June Lake Loop
Why you should fish this beautiful part of the Sierra Nevada.
By Peter Pumphrey
30
Big Bear Bass -- and More
This Southern California mountain lake offers not just trout.
By Richard Alden Bean
32
Fly Fishing Baja from Boat and Beach
Lots of excellent advice if you're interested in Baja's East Cape.
By Kirston Koths and Bob Marshak
36
Chucking Chickens
Tips for casting really large flies for really large fish.
By Robert Ketley
38
Shad: A Primer
How to go about finding and catching this anadromous species.
By Lance Gray
40
Trout Town: Markleeville
A tiny town in a tiny county that offers lots of angling options.
By Tom Martens

Click here for Doug Lovell's
February 2010 Good Fight article

Click here for Drew Braugh's
March 2011 Good Fight article about the Fall River - page 1 / page 2

Up on the Fork

There are many things to like about fly fishing, and the pleasurable rhythm of the cast and that nearly electrifying thrill that comes when a fish takes the fly are likely at the top of most of our lists. But there’s more, much more, and some of it not always obvious in its importance.

I don’t recall much from that summer when I returned to fly fishing after a long hiatus, but one trip still stands out. I was alone on a tributary of the Middle Fork of the Stanislaus, up off Highway 108, deep in the Doug fir forest. I could finally place the fly within a foot of where I wanted it to go, and as I moved up the staircase of the stream, it would again and again float for only a second or two before vanishing with a splash and then flying back into the air, attached to the lip of a gyrating trout.

As the light left the sky, I entered a section of stream lined with tall alders, their trunks pale beside the darkening water. Caddisflies and mayflies danced through the air around me, and fish dimpled the mirrored surface of the creek. To say I kept catching trout is really to say nothing. What I remember is the nearly black body of a small brookie stark against my palm, looking in its distinct indistinctness like some irreducible mystery of nature.

I fished until I could no longer see my line. In the darkness, the murmur of the stream grew louder, an almost physical presence, and the scents of the forest rose from the still-warm land and the cool water, all filling the void left when the sun disappeared. I felt as if a door had been opened. I reeled up, knowing it was time to go home. But I understood, too, that I was already there.

Every time I go fishing, that is what I am trying to find again.

Richard Anderson

Publisher and Editor


 
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