The Things We Love

[Tony Buzolich]

I was just watching a show with Flip Pallot and Rob Fordyce spending a little time together and sharing a lot of old stories and memories while doing some shad fishing and snipe hunting around the St. John's River in Florida. There's always a soft background music while Flip speaks about how many people and kids today will never get to see any of this area that he and Rob grew up in. The conversation goes on about how many kids in big cities never get to climb or fall out of a tree. How many have never gotten to catch a bluegill or build a campfire. Things that most all of us on this board take for granted. Beautiful natural things that are going by the wayside as technology and electronics and gameboys take over the world.

No, we can't turn back time. The salmon will never spawn where they used to like they used to. The water we all love and need is being bought up by Central Valley farming conglomerates and we continue to evolve though not in a positive direction.

I fear for my kids, especially my grandkids, because they will never get to share and enjoy the gifts of nature we've grown up with.

It's good to reminisce about the old days and the fun we had growing up, but sad to think our loved ones may never get to enjoy what we did.
Tony

[dynaflow]

I hear you man.Come to Australia or New Zealand .....fortunately we can still do that stuff here.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Powerful stuff Tony.....

In the 1950s we use to get on our old Schwinn bicycles with a fishin' pole and a 22 rife and head south of Sacramento into the rural

farm land. Back then almost everyone hunted and fished because our fathers, grandfathers and uncles took us. Many driveways had a

small aluminum boat on a trailer on one side. We hunted pheasants, ducks, quail and doves. We fished big spawning runs of Stripers,

salmon, and steelhead.



This lifestyle still exist all over rural or middle America.

We go to my wife's birth place, Platte, South Dakota, that "feels" like Sacramento in the 1950s?

A small town where nobody locks there house, the keys are in all the cars, everyone will say Hello and talks to you.

One difference is lots of farm kids ride dire bikes and ATVs instead of horses or bicycles. They put their fishing poles and guns

on their ATVs and head out into rural South Dakota.

If you are older and yearn for that old life that we lost just go to rural America.

____________________________________

[Tony Buzolich]

Bill,

We headed north. We'd walk from Woodlake through North Sac, then west on El Camino into Gardenland carrying our shotguns and canvas bags full of shells. Northgate was just getting started back then. From here it was all open country.

There was no I-5 or Sacramento airport......just lots of fields and ditches. Jack rabbits, pigeons, and crows were plentiful. Crows were a favorite target because they had a bounty of $.50 and could pay for our shells. We had to take the crows to the F&G Office behind Sac State and the warden there would simply pay us out of his pocket. He told us next time to just bring in the heads so he didn't have to throw away to many carcasses.

That was a long bike ride to get rid of those crows :)
Tony

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

I heard the "north area" was just tons of fields back then.

Our cousins had a rice farm out north of the Sacramento airport where we hunted ducks and pheasants and mud hens.

My grand father's family had a ranch on the Consumnes river near Plymouth were we fished and swam.

[wineslob]

Heh, we used to Dove/Pheasant hunt where Thunder Valley Casino is now......or out at the north end of Watt Ave.

[Jay Murakoshi]

Australia, my favorite fishing area. I've done at least 6 trips to the Gulf of Carpentaria and just this past Oct we fished in the area of Princess Charlotte Isle. I hope to make it back and fish in the Exmouth area before my fly fishing career ends.

[JasonB]

Take a kid fishing (or just hiking, camping, digging around in the creek, etc) whenever you can! Be sure to hide their smartphone while you’re at it too
JB

[dynaflow]

What Jay says is true. Australia has an incredible number of remote and unfished areas, particularly in the Tropical north. Sure there are big Crocs and Stingers in some parts but the fishing for any number of iconic species is unparalleled....big Queenfish are so common they actually are a pest when you're targeting other fish like Barramundi....then there's the Blue Salmon, Snapper, Cod and other reef fish plus the country's biggest Bonefish on the north west coast at Ningaloo Reef and the Exmouth Gulf.

So many places, so little time (and money).

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

My brother Dick and I took our 3 kids when they were all under 10 on a overnight up on Caples Creek, off the Silver Fork American.

They all had a small back pack so they got the total experience. It was there first time sleeping in the wilds.




*There is something magical and timeless about sitting around a campfire in the wilderness with friends and/or family.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

One of my best trips was ~40 years ago camping for two weeks with old friends on the Dean River in British Columbia, Canada.

Dean river Veterans Joe Shirshac, Mac Holloway, Jack Sterdivant took us youngsters, Chris Pasley and I on the great adventure.

After helicoptering in the first day we made a big camp with gear Joe had "cashed" in the woods on previous trips.

Under a huge blue tarp overhead we had a big fire going for two weeks. Sitting around the camp fire every night was wonderful.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Some of my most memorable trips were camping in the Fall with good fishing buddies on the Pit river at remote Deep Creek Campground.

Neil Hansen took me there first and my brother also discovered it with some friends he knew from the Bay area.

Then we went every year for many decades. The times we had at the campfire every night were legendary events.

Skip Orr came in late and was standing at the fire with his waders on and got so animated he feel back into the fire.

One year my brother Dick and I took teenagers Galen Geller and Paul Keel along with us for big trout and beer.


*They ruined the river for me by raising the flows...but at 75 I probably better just dream about the good old days?

[wineslob]

*There is something magical and timeless about sitting around a campfire in the wilderness with friends and/or family.


Couldn't agree more. The absolute best times have always been fishing/backpacking trips with dinner (and a few packed in beers) around a campfire. Still do to this day.

[pszy22]

I recently ran across this program whose goal is to create these types of memories for some kids of the next generation --

https://themayflyproject.com/