Hello from Cali

[Darrin Terry]

Hello.

Figured I should introduce myself before going around begging for advice. So here goes.

My name is Darrin Terry, and I am very new to the whole fly fishing thing. I’ve only just returned from my first trip. I fished off & on as child until I was about 13-14 years old. Got back to it about 6 years ago (I am 38 now). I currently fish only for trout in the Sierra (Mariposa Co. south to Kern Co.) mainly due to a hatred of the San Joaquin Valley summer temps where I live. Fishing in the higher elevations is much cooler & is a great excuse to spend even more time in the mountains that I love.

Anyway, I picked up my first fly rig thru Cabela’s, a 9 ft. 5 wt. set-up about 5 weeks back. I spent four days fishing three creeks in the Shaver Lake area during an annual Memorial Day camping trip.

I was fortunate to catch my first fish on the fly in the creek which runs thru our camp (about 12 feet from my tent actually). The creek is not exactly great fishing but I managed to land a small 6-inch Brookie. I was grinnin’ of course as these are just about my favorite for pure beauty. On most of the creeks I fish anything over 12-inches is considered pretty good & my previous best was a 13.5-inch Rainbow caught during our annual Labor Day fishing trip (we do 3-4 annual trips). Well I caught a Rainbow just under 14-inch on my first trip fly fishing. Sometimes tho, it feels like it’s not a trout at the end of my line, but rather the other way ’round. 🙂

Well, that’s all. Just wanted to say hello to the other addicts I see around here.

Darrin

PS – A warning if you will. As a newbie, I will be begging advice.

[bryan hulse]

Welcome Darrin,

The Sierras are a beautiful fishery. Several years ago I spent a couple of weeks fishing from the Owens river at Bishop up and into the park. I’ll forever have a picture of the upper Owens burned to memory. It is an absolutely beautiful slow, winding, spring-like creek coursing a trough through 13,000 foot snow covered peaks. And, there is such a neat disparity in the rivers character above Lake Crowley, to the gorge section (which, when I first saw it, I thought it was a ditch), to the tailwater section. Pretty cool places.

I’ll look forward to reading your posts. Hopefully you will be able to write about some trips for goldens.

Bryan

[Darrin Terry]

Thanks for the welcome Bryan.

Yes indeed, the Sierras are wonderful. I did not grow up camping and only fished a little. But there was one trip which stood out in my memory from childhood: we went camping up near Silver Lake in the Sierras. I started camping with a couple of friends after high school in 1987. Ten days I shall never forget. Mostly partying of course, but it changed me and my priorities forever, including the annual camping trips I mention before. I was living on the central coast of California back then and had sworn never to live in the central valley (my mom’s parents lived in Porterville). So of course I moved to Fresno for college in 1990. Now, 17 years later, I’m still here. I consider getting out, but the Sierras are a big draw for me. The camping, the 4wheeling & not least the fishing. And now I have added fly fishing to the list of hooks that keep me here. I grew up on California beaches, but I am most definitely a child of the mountains. They seem to hold me somehow. I am not particularly spiritual, but there seems to

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