Many years ago I started into the retail fishing tackle business, ~1965.

Back then in our top quality sporting goods store in Sacramento (not many fly shops then) we had mostly dry flies, classic wet flies and classic streamers. Not too many nymphs yet.....

Well, up north in Dunsmuir, California on the Upper Sacramento River fly fisher, guide and fly shop owner Ted Fay was pioneering high stick nymphing with two heavily weighted nymphs.

Others like native American Ted Towndally were also pioneering this "new" technique.

Our Cortland Line Company Rep Joe Patterson and my old friend Neil Hansen actually got us "younger guys" started in that short line, high stick, upstream, pocket water nymphing technique.

Jerry Lyerly of Sacramento was one of the first guys I met who was upstream nymphing about 40 years ago.

I know this is going to shock some but this was before indicators came along. All this was without indicators, for the most part.

Some did put something on the line like fingernail polish where they had whipped a loop in the end of their fly line. Something to watch....

We used the Cortland Peach line which was light colored and we merely watch the end of it to detect the subtle stops.

Well, we got started, mostly my brother Dick and I, on the Pit River.

After a few years we got pretty good at it but it did take us a few years to get going because there was not much help in that era.

We got so good at catching fish with weighted nymphs upstream, high stick nymphing that we bragged about not even carrying dry flies.

OK, this was a dark period for me, we made fun of those who had not yet discovered upstream, pocket water, high stick nymphing who only dry fly fished. We were bad guys once too.

We had one fly box of weighted nymphs (wet flies too), an extra leader, some split shot and one spool of heavy tippet material (2x?).

Our nymphs were mostly Hares Ears and black APs in #8, 10 and 12......we used no small nymphs back then in big free stone rivers.

If you want to get acquainted with classic high stick nymphing then go out for a day with Bill Carnazzo who is still promoting, guiding and teaching this technique.

I can remember in maybe the 1980s when indicators came on the scene. I remember putting some in my vest because I thought I had better learn how to use them if I was going to sell them in my fly shop.

Old timers which are guys like Darian and I have seen lots of things come and go in this sport over the passed half a century......

The real old timers that really pioneered this sport are all but gone now. They were the great generation who were the age of my parents. They were pretty lucky because they had averagely much better fishing for everything back in their day.