About

I was born in Sacramento on March 25, 1945, right at the end of WWII. My parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles all spoiled me. Being a baby boomer in America I guess I was pretty lucky.

My interests as a youngster was fishing, hunting, boats, motorcycles and cars. We lived out in the Fruitridge area on the east side of Sacramento and then moved over to South Land Park in my teens.

We have relatives, the James Sopwith family, that have a rice and tomato farm out north of town near the airport. As a youngster I worked there some and mostly hunted ducks and pheasants.

My grandfather, Archie Anderson, was from a small ranch on the south bank of the Cosumnes River near Plymouth, California. We would go up there for family picnics, swimming and fishing in the river. My grandfather’s sister married into the Wolin family which still have the ranch so we still go there to enjoy swimming and fishing in the little warm river.

Having some attention disorder I did not do well in school except for math. I was lucky to have gone to Catholic schools which at least gave me good work ethics and some integrity. I went to Saint Francis Grammar School, Christian Brother and Bishop Armstrong High Schools, Sacramento City College and Sacramento State University.

I was working part time in a big sporting goods store, going to college and got married at 21 to Carolyn Geisler. We had two girls, Koren and Amy.

I ended up quitting college and working full time in that sporting goods store which started off my career in the fishing tackle industry.

Sadly we got divorced which was  kind of a low point in my life. After about 4 years of wondering I started my own fly fishing shop at the corner of Marconi & Fulton Avenues. Kiene’s Fly Shop was a small success from the beginnings in 1984.

Around 1990 I met Marilyn Eernisse – Wheeler on a blind date at the Davis Fly Fishers annual dinner thanks to our friends Jim & Shirley Humphres. We had lots in common with both being divorced with children and coming from family farming backgrounds. We soon married and started off the second big chapter of our lives together.

Marilyn lived in Davis and worked at the Med-Micro Department at UC Davis School of Medicine. She retired from there in 1991 and went to work running the ‘back end’ of Kiene’s Fly Shop.

We were very lucky to be able to travel together with groups from the shop to many exotic fly fishing locations. Marilyn’s favorite place to fish is Christmas Island in the Central Pacific, 1200 miles below Hawaii and just a few hundred miles above the Equator. We loved the native people there and wading the shallow white sand flats fishing for the elusive Bonefish. Her favorite trout destination is Rainbow Lodge on Nimpo Lake in British Columbia, Canada. The Rainbow trout on the upper Dean River are the best.

 

With some help from our children we now have 7 very special grandchildren (joke).

More to come………