During my years in Anderson Valley, which began in the late 1950s and continued to the late 1980s, the most popular local outdoor recreation was fishing and hunting. Camping and backpacking were my primary outdoor passions in those years, but local pleasures can’t be denied, so the rod and gun also found their way into my world.
Fishing came first. In those days, trout fishing was still allowed in the upper Navarro River and its tributaries, with a season that usually began the first Saturday in May. The year after we moved to the valley, several of my classmates and I got together on opening day, made makeshift fishing rods from willow switches, six-pound test line, split shot weights and small hooks, dug some worms and headed to the river. We caught several rainbow trout that day and I was hooked. By the next year, I had a proper rod and spinning reel.
I now have a suspicion that adults back then left local trout fishing to the kids. There never were very many fish in the Navarro and its feeder streams, and the trout were rarely big; the largest I ever caught in the Navarro River was approximately 15 inches long.
With the wisdom of years, I now wish my fishing back then had been catch-and-release. Instead, it was catch-and-take-home. In my defense, I and other family members ate the fish I caught. A bit of cleaning, some butter in the pan, salt and pepper for seasoning, a few minutes of cooking and voilà — a culinary masterpiece. A few years later, I had my first taste of farmed trout. Soft in texture and odd (sort of like liver) in flavor, it was a pale imitation of the wild-caught local version.
There was another fish in the upper Navarro River and its tributaries I tried to catch on occasion, mostly in vain. The actual name of the fish remains a mystery; other kids called it a “pudge.” It looked a bit like a trout only more cylindrical in shape. Sadly, it was completely uninterested in any bait or lure I lobbed at it — the only two I ever caught were accidently snagged.
Back then (and apparently still), winter steelhead fishing was allowed on the lower Navarro River north of the Greenwood Road Bridge, though I never tried it. The reasons were several: in my preteen and early teen years, someone would have had to drive me to a fishing hole, equipment — rods, reels, waders, etc. — was more elaborate and more expensive, and the fishing was much more technical. Regarding that last point, timing was everything; after a good rain, but not until the water level and sediment load — the Navarro River ran very brown after a storm came through — had dropped somewhat.
Before leaving fishing, I should mention salmon fishing. My brother and I went exactly once — treated to a party boat trip out of Noyo by one of my uncles. We each caught a salmon of about eight pounds and had a ball. Yes, it was — and is — an outing that costs, but valley folks should consider trying this fishing option just down the road.
My father didn’t like guns, but soon after we moved to Anderson Valley, fellow teacher and friend Leo Sanders convinced him we should have a couple of rifles and learn to use them. So my father bought three; a Remington Model 514 single-shot 22, a Winchester Model 94 30-30, and a 410 shotgun. The rifles both had open sights — no scopes — and neighbor Don Van Zandt sighted them in for us, as he did for many folks in the valley. Soon after, my brother and I took and passed the NRA safety course (even though the shooting portion of the test was only the second time I’d ever fired a rifle). While NRA safety course certification was required, there was no minimum age for getting a hunting license (as there is now); I got my first one as a 10-year-old.
There was a significant amount of subsistence hunting in Anderson Valley back then; hunting to put food on the table. We never were in that position, but others were and probably a few took deer and other game out of season. Unlike my brother, who hunted with Leo Sanders at Lone Pine, on the valley’s eastern hills, I never went after deer. I hunted quail and jackrabbits, occasionally and poorly. Much later, I discovered our 410 shotgun threw significantly high and to the right, which may explain my lack of success.
There was an old rifle range on our property near Philo, essentially a wood wall in front of an embankment with a log 50 feet away that served both as distance marker and rest for prone shooting, and we took up target shooting. My mother soon joined my brother and me, and really enjoyed herself. We would shoot tin cans, juice cans and targets at both 50 and 100 feet. Perhaps the most memorable outing was when one of us took a shot at a spent shaving cream can. Whoever it was managed to clip the very top off, resulting in a foamy spray that covered everything for several feet!
A last story regarding guns — one that shows my father’s dislike of them to be well-founded. During the visit of a friend and occasional employee to my parents’ camp, my mother noticed a rifle tucked behind the seat of his pickup. He commented it was an unloaded 30-06 rifle (a pretty powerful weapon) and pulled it up by the barrel to show it to her. BLAM!! It went off, blowing a hole roughly the size of a half dollar in the truck’s roof. He swore one of his brothers must have loaded it while he wasn’t looking. The incident was truly scary; he could have killed himself or my mother entirely by accident. The lesson is simple; guns are dangerous and must always be either locked and stored securely, or handled as if they are loaded and ready to fire. ¥¥
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