Steve Kyle, who spends a great deal of his time helping others in service of our community, is combining his love of fly-fishing with his commitment to service by helping Project Healing Waters, an organization dedicated to the physical and emotional rehabilitation of disabled active military personnel and disabled veterans through fly-fishing and associated activities.
Steve is looking for small ponds stocked with fish here in Sonoma Valley that could be made available for small groups of less than 10, to learn and practice casting with experienced, responsible volunteers. If you have such a pond on your property and are willing to help, please call Steve at 321-4377.
Steve’s request for help in finding a local fishing pond was accompanied by a beautifully illustrated article from Catch Magazine, featuring a veterans group fishing Fall River. The area looked a lot nicer than I remember from decades ago.
It was the first, and almost the last time Dottie agreed to go fishing with me.
One very hot weekend in August during the early years of our marriage, I suggested we drive up to Fall River Mills and spend the weekend at Rick’s Lodge so I could introduce her to fly-fishing.
As we drove up the Sacramento Valley, the temperature was 112. “Don’t worry honey, it will be a lot cooler in the mountains, especially where we’re staying. It’s right on the water,” I said.
Having never been there myself, I wasn’t prepared for our first glimpse. It looked like the sloughs near Schellville, except that there was no cooling breeze off the bay. I expected the temperature to be considerably cooler than Redding – wrong!
The lodge looked worse than rustic, but I was cheered that the surface of the river was pimpled by trout sipping bugs. Tiny white mayflies filled the air, looking like falling snow. “The fishing is going to be great today,” I said.
“In this is a bug-infested swamp?” Dottie replied.
To this day, she regales our fiends with her first impression of the place. “Hitchcock’s Bates Motel would have been more inviting. The tiny, dingy, dirty room had no air-conditioner and one small window stuck closed. It felt like an oven and smelled like stale cigarettes and Pine Sol.”
Still, there was a flicker of interest in her eyes that day when we walked down to the water and she saw all the big trout. It lasted until she opened her mouth to say something and several bugs flew in. Sputtering and waving her hands in front of her face she declared, “I’m going to sit in the car. You fish if you want.”
I should have followed her, apologized, and agreed to leave right then.
But those big, beautiful trout were so close and so active, I decided to try a few casts, then a few more casts, and soon I lost all awareness of time.
Some time later, I came out of my reverie and realized it was getting dark.
Dottie had spent the entire afternoon in the car, running it now and then so the air conditioning would keep out the muggy, buggy air. I knew I was in big trouble. Without saying a word, I quickly broke down and repacked the rods and the fishing gear, grabbed our suitcases out of the room, loaded everything in the car, and got behind the steering wheel.
As we left the buggy skies of the Fall River valley in the rear view mirror, I said, “I’m sorry. That was a really bad idea.”
At first she didn’t say anything. Then I glanced over at her and saw there was a slight smile on her lips. One might say it was a sly grin. “You’re going to owe me for this, you know,” she said in a surprisingly cheerful voice.
Photo by Tom Culligan
The payback she sought wasn’t hard to take – few days of shows and shopping in New York City, a trip to Italy, eventually a trip to France (Le Ponte du Gard in photo). And in between, Dottie learned to fly-fish because I found places to take her that were much nicer and far more enjoyable than that first experience at the Bates Motel.
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