HOOKED ON MAMMOTH
- zammitch
- Aug 31, 2016
- 2 min read
I've honestly never been good at fishing. Sure, I enjoyed it as a child but for some reason even if I perfectly cast a piece of bait and sat waiting oh so patiently, one fish would decide that I was not worthy and quickly the entire lake would reach a consensus that my line was cursed. The first time I was able to pull a wriggling fish from the water was on a family trip to Sedona, Arizona when we went to a trout stock pond. While sitting there smiling ear to ear, staring at my 'prized' fish I watched as my sister proceeded to place her pole into the water without any bait and catch two fish in a row. By then the whole experience had gone from transcendent to utterly pitiful.
It wasn't until I took a trip to Mammoth with my cousins from England that I had a chance to redeem myself and come back with a truly gratifying story. My whole fishing experience started when I met Tom and Eric, friends of my uncle with which they went way back. They were the first to introduce me to fly fishing, one of my new favorite hobbies. Tom and Eric taught me to cast, to be patient and read the water. They taught me to spot the fish and think like a bug.
Some of my favorite memories of fishing in Mammoth include quietly walking up Rock Creek, watching fish dart back and forth. Hiking through thorn bushes and perching on rocks, and running through cow pastures trying to escape the swarms of mosquitos that had targeted us on the Owen's. (The first day I ruined my shoes so keep in mind that I spent this entire trip wearing only socks, these socks are now my prized possession and my devotion to them will also be represented in my gear review on them.)
After our adventures in Mammoth we drove up to Bodega Bay, a small fishing village just north of San Fransisco Bay. The bodega coast is caked with fog and drift wood, framed by sandy knolls and grassy dunes. Surf fishing entailed lugging massive poles over these bluffs onto the beach, veraciously digging for sand crabs (to be used as bait) and using all of your power to hurl the weighted line into the waves (granted, most of my casts didn't even make it that far).
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