Every year I can remember, and some before I can remember, we spent two weeks at Mathre's Resort on Clearlake California. This was my Grandfather's favorite lake and also my Dad's. Dad always vowed he would retire there, unlike my Grandfather who died a few months before he made it. Each summer we would make sure we had one of two cabins at the resort, as there was always a group that tried to be there at the same time.

We would load up the Desoto to bursting, including my Grandmother and her parakeet Blueboy, and head out of the San Francisco Bay Area. The road would take us through the scenic wine country of Napa and up and over St. Helen Mountain into Lake County.

This was usually a "two barf" trip for me. I could make it to the arch of walnut trees in front of the Christian Brothers Winery in Calistoga for our first stop and the next one was usually at Hanleys on the mountain. This was literally a watering hole for men and machines. The old cars had to stop for water in the radiators and the drivers and passengers for refreshments. The cars would cool down while the people rested a bit under the trees.

My Mom said when her family came up that mountain in their Packard they sometimes got out and walked beside it for a while to give it a rest. You knew you were getting close when the Hanley signs appeared on the side of the road. They boasted of refreshments and "No Parking Meters". I'm still not clear on the significance of that statement. I'd start getting excited and fidgety when we hit Middletown and fussed for the next 45 minutes until we could see the lake. Inga and Arn Mathre were always happy to see us and treated us like long lost family. They had no children, so Inga would take me on long walks to learn about plants and birds. She once took me down the road to see a neighbors pet raccoon and we always checked out the hole in the tree next to the cabins where the toad lived. This gave my Mom a few hours to herself.

We would unload everything starting with the birdcage and ending with the "peanut huller". This was an Evinrude outboard motor Grandpa had bought in anticipation of his retirement. It was small and blue and cranky. We would haul it out on the dock and clamp it to one of the wooden rental boats. No matter how much attention and care Dad put into it, it started up at its own discretion. It would work fine clamped into the 50 gallon barrel at home, but on the lake it kept you guessing. It seemed to take pity on me, however, and kept a steady pace with me at the helm. From age seven or so I was in charge when Dad trolled. He finally got to fish as I maneuvered us in and out of the tulles and across the white caps.

When I fished he rarely wet a line. He used to say the only thing worse in a boat than a kid was two kids. The first fishing story of my Dad's in which I appeared was a short one. I was somewhere around 2 and my father had taken me out on my maiden voyage on the Lake. We returned in short order. I had proceeded to eat a night crawler and Dad told Mom he was holding off taking me again until I stopped devouring the bait and making him ill. So for a few years I was relegated to sitting on the minnow tank at Don's Bait Shop and listening to the stories. I think this was where I developed my ideas about truth being relative. I was never bored there. I could look at hula poppers and crappie jigs for hours. Besides Don always had Eskimo Pies in the bait freezer. They smelled a little funny but they hit the spot on a hot summer day.

Dad finally broke down and bought me a bamboo pole with about eight feet of line and a cork bobber. The simpler the gear the less to screw up. I caught zillions of bluegill and crappie on that rig. Just flipped em in the boat. Once in a while Dad got one upside the head but he always took it as nothing personal, one of the hazards of having a kid in the boat. Our troubles began with my first spinning reel. From then on I spent as much time untangling as I did fishing. Dad was my last resort backup in this department and he usually just cut the line and started me over. I hated to admit defeat and turn the mess over to him, but he was in control of the tackle box. I had no hope of re-rigging on my own. This was Dad's way of keeping track of all the gear he would have to replace on our next visit to Don's. I would later get a tackle box of my own as a birthday present. One my Grandmother would never see.

Grandpa and Dad had always been bait fishermen. They came from Illinois where water consisted mostly of creeks, farm ponds and reservoirs. Dad always said that bait was all around you, and grasshoppers and worms were natural foods. As I later became versed in fly fishing I learned that these were "terrestrials". But this notion of bait seemed to vanish when he entered a tackle shop. When I went through my Dad's things out in the shed I counted four tackle boxes for gear fishing alone. No matter what we had on hand, there was always something new that "they had been hitting regular". We never left without whatever it was. If it was new Dad fished it. He wanted to at least try it before I got snagged on a pier or a tree. I sometimes used my allowance to buy something that Dad had success with, but most often these were pricey and had more hooks to get me into trouble. Crappie jigs were cheap, simple, and effective. Dad said we could have bought a cabin at Tahoe with the money we tossed into rivers and lakes, but we would have had to go there every day off to make it worthwhile. There were too many places we knew there were fish waiting for us.

We Take Up Fly Fishing

Dad would practice his fly casting out on our lawn. He had a small cork he used to tie to his line. We had this old fuzzy gray cat named Sally. Dad called her Sally from the Alley, because of where we found her. He pretended to hate her, thought dogs were the rightful companion for a man; but I would occasionally find him petting her in the garage. She was fat and lazy and old, but the sight of that cork flying forward and backward across our lawn drove her into a frenzy. She would race back and forth until her tongue literally hung out about a half an inch. Mom would start yelling she would have a heart attack and Dad would have to take her to the vet. When the tongue appeared he would stop long enough to shove her through the front door but she would race to the dining room to watch out the window like a dowager at a tennis match. I tried to get some lessons but Dad was just getting the hang of it himself, so I got a few licks in and that was about it.

Years later, when I married my husband the fishing guide, I once again became fascinated with the mechanics and skill of fly fishing. Although he had taught dozens of people to fly fish in Alaska, Dan had a hard time with me. He said I didn't listen and I said he didn't explain things right. I finally took a private lesson from one of the guys at the local fly shop to save my marriage. I later read in one of Joan Wulff's books that husbands are to be avoided at all costs when instructions are involved. I found this to be true also with fly tying lessons. Think I'll just rent a video.

Columnist Joan Carter co-owns, with her husband, Dan Carter's Guide Service.