The year was 1947. I had just finished my sophomore year in high school and was scheduled to have my appendix removed at the start of summer. In those days it was considered prudent to remove that organ before it ruptured and killed you. It was deemed so by our family doctor Paul Noetling, who many years earlier had also removed my tonsils. The appendectomy was the down side. The up side was that Paul had offered to take me fly fishing for a week, two months later, in mid August. Of course with such an offer the appendix came out without objection and my recovery progressed nicely. We were to ride horses into our base camp, deep into 4th of July Canyon along the North Fork of the Mokelume River. I had a quarter horse named "Cy", short for Cyclone, who got daily workouts along with me, in preparation for the trip.

Finally, after what seemed forever, the time came for my first fly fishing adventure. Pack horses carried our food and gear, (no tents as it never rained there at that time of the year), and the packer would take the horses out and come back for us a week later. We started out from a point near Lake Alpine, called Blood’s. There was an old corral there (not anymore) by the side of the road that we used to hold our horses while we packed them up for the trip. There were no trails then and our route led us over the saddle to the right of Mt. Reba, down through Underwood Valley, with a final drop to where a small creek from Frog Lake entered the river. Little did we know that our route was later to become part of the Tahoe-Yosemite trail and Bear Valley ski area.

Our camp was nestled under pine and cedar trees on a sandy bank overlooking the river. Paul had been here many times before, and in those previous years, he built a table and shelves between two trees for the stove and "kitchen" stuff. Close by was a "dining room " table, two benches, and against one large tree, the rod and tackle area. The "bedroom" area which was about 20 feet to the north, had shelves that were supported by two poles and a large pine tree. Our first job, when we arrived, was to "sweep" the pine needles from the "living areas", put out the tarps for our sleeping bags and make repairs on the "furniture" which had more or less survived the previous winter. We put rocks in the bottom of a 5-gallon can and buried all but the top of it in the cold creek coming from Frog Lake. It made a great "refrigerator" for our lettuce, and vegetables.

Our camp overlooked a placid part of the river, but upstream and downstream the river was rushing water, cascading over large granite boulders, and dropping through narrow gorges which opened into crystal clear pools. In one section, about a hundred yards below camp, the river flowed into a large pool which narrowed to a 3 to 4 foot wide section, spilled over a ledge, then under a gigantic granite boulder about 10 feet across to the pool below. We crossed the river at this point by jumping the narrow section. Paul always stopped here for a while in silent contemplation. Later he told me that it was the spot where some years earlier, his fiancée Irene caught her foot in the current while trying to jump the river. She was thrown over the ledge and pinned under the large boulder and drowned. They worked for hours to get her body out from under the boulder and finally had to walk out for help. You might notice on some maps, that the TYT trail now crosses the river near a spot called Camp Irene.

Paul was a great teacher. He had all the latest in gear, Montague bamboo rods, Shakespeare and Utica automatic reels, tapered lines (no backing), knotted gut leaders and snelled flies -- he outfitted me completely. Some of the flies we used were the Rio Grande, Royal Coachman, Coachman, Black Gnat, McGinty, Blue Bottle, Professor, Silver Doctor, Mosquito (of course) – and they all caught fish. We always fished them by dragging them up-stream, fishing them like drys, one on the end and a second one on a dropper. It wasn’t uncommon to catch two at a time! We never used nymphs (were they even used at the time?). It was so much fun to see fish clear water for the fly and the trout were beautiful Rainbows, 8 to 12 inches. We spent the days in camp and went fishing mid afternoon and always made sure we got back to camp before dark. Yes, in those days we ate the fish! However, there were lots of them (justification), and we never kept more than we could eat for dinner or the next mornings breakfast (another justification). Here I first learned that if you kept the fish, you killed it immediately – I also learned that if you killed it, you cleaned it. Usually this meant going down to the river with a Coleman lantern and a sharp knife and freezing my fingers off in the cold water. These lessons were probably a crude but effective way of limiting my trout kill. Now days, supply & demand is my rationale for catch & release.

On one of the days at this magical place, we worked our way up river. We would leap frog from pool to pool. My casting techniques were steadily improving. However, at one place I had made my back cast and was bringing my rod forward, when its motion stopped at the same moment that I heard a loud howl behind me. I had hooked Paul in the middle of the bald spot on top his head. Being a good surgeon as well as a family doctor (those days you were both) he calmly instructed me on the technique of driving the point and barb all the way around and nipping off both to release the hook. I’ve never forgot the lessons (on removing the hook — and making sure the backcast lane is clear).

I have many memories of this trip – too many to recount here. It left me hooked forever on fly fishing. It’s not often that one gets the opportunity to learn and experience the beauty of nature and life from such a master. Thank you Paul.

Jim Scherer