"rw" wrote


I always get bored in California. Stanley, Idaho is a far more interesting
place to live, even in the winter. I suspect that the large majority of
people wouldn't feel that way, but I do.


I find California far more boring than Montahoming, too. That may be
because I'm here in boring old Winter, there in fishing season, but I felt
the same way years back when I'd travel there for mostly non-fishing
reasons.





. I've never really
had good fishing in California, so I tend to avoid it.



When I first read your post, I scanned my brain for places to suggest to you
.... then decided there was no place I wanted to go fish in California,
either



a I'm starting to feel uneasy because I want,
right now, more than just about anything, to go trout fishing on a cold,
clear, familiar, freestone mountain stream. It won't happen until late
June at the earliest.


I think we all fish for different reasons, and, yes, each of us for
different reasons at different times. For me, the 'main' reason comes
close to spiritual ... quiet personal interaction with Nature in relatively
unspoiled places, and solitude. When I get uneasy and "need to fish"
far from those places and legal times, I can often find similar psychic
refueling from simple rod-less walks along remote section of river, or along
the beach, or at a wildlife refuge. Fishing is often just an excuse to "go
there" .... and there are other excuses, out of season ... "I need to" being
a fine excuse .. we deserve it.


Menlo Park, California


Whoa, Flash back. About 1970 ( I remember which dog is involved and
her rough age at the time ) I went for a long walk into the large marshland
the used to exist at the end of San Antonio Rd in the East Palo Alto area.
I took a young Golden with me and we scared a mama Mallard and her brood in
one of the sloughs.

She quacked an alarm, the chicks dove, and she went off pretending to be
crippled.

Jenny and I hid behind some bushes to see what would happen after the
intruder was "gone." Soon mama came back and quacked up a storm until
her entire brood was swimming in her wake again.

The whole thing was so cute to watch that ( and I've sufffered guilt over
this for 35 years ) I decided to scare them again to watch the process
repeat.

I stepped out, mom raised the alarm, chicks dove .... and a HUGE swirl and
then another and another boiled around the spots where they went under.
I waited a long time but only about half the chicks ever reappeared.
Thirty five years ago there were still big Stripers in those sloughs at high
tide and I can only guess that one had duckling for lunch. (Where's Sandy
with a wiggling duckling tie? )



I also used to sometimes hunt the very south end of the Bay back then and it
was like a wilderness out there, the city lights far too far away to reduce
the sense of uneasy danger on cold, windy, December mornings. It was
common to see seals, tens of thousands of waterfowl, and big fish herding
and chasing bait.

Life is very short, and a lifetime really shouldn't be enough to see change
in the environment. But in mine I've witnessed the massive degrading of
many, too many, small habitats. ( I used to wade around with a net and
catch crabs in the Chesapeake Bay, near Easton, too, they were thick ... is
that still possible, right coasters ? )

I wonder what our great-great grandkids will do, where they will go, for the
refueling that only Nature provides .. at least for me.