2010 News Magazine
Getting Started
John (JB) BruningThis
past September, I towed my youngest son’s car and all his belongings up
to Bellingham, Washington where he is attending graduate school at
Western Washington University. As that’s a long drive from Boulder, we
had a lot of time to talk. I was reminiscing about the first time I
moved away from Colorado and how it felt to be away from home. Zach
commented that my decision to leave Colorado was part of my story and
that he was now writing his own. We all have our stories and, with
this column, I want to share some of mine.
Fly fishing is a thread that has been woven into the fabric of my life. As a third-generation native of Boulder, born into a pioneer family that loves fishing, hunting and all things wild, I’ve been blessed to have this magnificent area as my home for most of my life. My Dad, Ev, was always willing to take my brother and me fishing. We started out with spinning rods, fly and a casting bubble, fishing the alpine lakes in, what is now, the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area and Rocky Mountain National Park. Ev was very active in the Boulder Fish and Game Club, especially in their stocking program. He and other members of the club would pack heavy tin cans full of native trout fry to stock the high alpine lakes. I still have a romantic fantasy that the fish I catch up there today are descendants of the fish Ev helped stock.
My maternal grandmother, Elizabeth, tied flies for Hank Roberts in a shop located on Walnut Street in Boulder. I remember going to see her there several times and I still have this image of several older women working in the back of the shop tying flies and chatting. Before she passed away she gave me all of her old materials, which I still use from time to time, and several dozen flies that she had tied. Those flies will never touch water, as they are precious heirlooms to me.
But my fly fishing story really began in 1964 when my family took a vacation to Yellowstone National Park. It was on the Firehole River that I caught my first trout on fly fishing gear. I had purchased a cheap fiberglass fly rod, mounted with a Pflueger reel and a level line. As I remember, I didn’t even know how to tie the leader to the line and ended up with a bulky loop-to-loop knot…but somehow, I tricked my first trout and it’s been my passion ever since. We all get started somewhere and I’m sure we all remember our first fish.
I’m basically self-taught, but by the time I was in my mid-twenties, I thought I was a really good fly fisherman. That was until I attended a meeting of the Boulder Fly Casters TU Chapter for a presentation by Dave Whitlock on stream entomology. I walked out of that presentation with the realization that I really didn’t know very much about trout and the food they eat. So I started tying my own flies and studying the critters that live in the waters I fish and a whole new world opened up to me.
Now, in my “mature years”, I have the distinct pleasure to guide and help others get started in fly fishing. Each of these trips is another story, that also becomes part of mine…I look forward to sharing some of these stories with you.
Fly fishing is a thread that has been woven into the fabric of my life. As a third-generation native of Boulder, born into a pioneer family that loves fishing, hunting and all things wild, I’ve been blessed to have this magnificent area as my home for most of my life. My Dad, Ev, was always willing to take my brother and me fishing. We started out with spinning rods, fly and a casting bubble, fishing the alpine lakes in, what is now, the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area and Rocky Mountain National Park. Ev was very active in the Boulder Fish and Game Club, especially in their stocking program. He and other members of the club would pack heavy tin cans full of native trout fry to stock the high alpine lakes. I still have a romantic fantasy that the fish I catch up there today are descendants of the fish Ev helped stock.
My maternal grandmother, Elizabeth, tied flies for Hank Roberts in a shop located on Walnut Street in Boulder. I remember going to see her there several times and I still have this image of several older women working in the back of the shop tying flies and chatting. Before she passed away she gave me all of her old materials, which I still use from time to time, and several dozen flies that she had tied. Those flies will never touch water, as they are precious heirlooms to me.
But my fly fishing story really began in 1964 when my family took a vacation to Yellowstone National Park. It was on the Firehole River that I caught my first trout on fly fishing gear. I had purchased a cheap fiberglass fly rod, mounted with a Pflueger reel and a level line. As I remember, I didn’t even know how to tie the leader to the line and ended up with a bulky loop-to-loop knot…but somehow, I tricked my first trout and it’s been my passion ever since. We all get started somewhere and I’m sure we all remember our first fish.
I’m basically self-taught, but by the time I was in my mid-twenties, I thought I was a really good fly fisherman. That was until I attended a meeting of the Boulder Fly Casters TU Chapter for a presentation by Dave Whitlock on stream entomology. I walked out of that presentation with the realization that I really didn’t know very much about trout and the food they eat. So I started tying my own flies and studying the critters that live in the waters I fish and a whole new world opened up to me.
Now, in my “mature years”, I have the distinct pleasure to guide and help others get started in fly fishing. Each of these trips is another story, that also becomes part of mine…I look forward to sharing some of these stories with you.
This
photo, circa 1910, is of my pioneer great-grandfather, Jonathan Levi
Bruning (right) and my grandfather, John Isaac Bruning (seated with the
cool hat) fishing on what is probably James Creek. I’m pretty certain
that those long steel rods were used to dab some type of “garden
hackle” into the pools and pockets of the creek and I doubt that catch
and release was the order of the day.