When I first met Dunsmuir legend Joe Kimsey, I was standing outside the Ted Fay Fly Shop (at its old location).

He returned from lunch, and as he unlocked the door, I asked him if he was Ted Fay.

He looked at me and said “Boy, I sure hope not. He’s been dead better than ten years.”

An Upper Sacramento Original

Sunday found myself, Steve Bertrand and the legendary Joe Kimsey fishing Trout Lake — a manmade reservoir on the Shasta Wildlife Refuge. (And no, I don’t know why they call it Trout Lake — it’s home to damn few trout, housing mostly largemouth bass and bluegill.)

It’s not the world’s prettiest lake, but it holds the potential for some decent largemouth bass, a fish not often found in this area.

And frankly, the lake wasn’t the main attraction; it was a chance to fish with Joe — a local legend who remembers the Upper Sacramento and McCloud Rivers when they ran thick with salmon and steelhead.

Joe Kimsey and largemouth bass
Joe Kimsey and a good-sized Trout Lake largemouth bass

You ignore access to that kind of history at your own peril, and I never get tired of soaking up Joe’s stories — like the origins of the battered red canteen he brought on the trip.

“Some guy left this in my truck more than 30 years ago, and I guess he isn’t going to want it back now.”

On the sometimes-windy lake, we fished poppers and streamers (the streamers we fished on slow-sinking lines — fast sinking lines tend to foul in the weeds).

In the end, hanging out with Joe eclipsed the fishing by a fair amount; we landed two bass, lost three others, and — embarrassingly — didn’t get a single rush from a bluegill.

Trout Lake, California
Trout Lake is an unremarkable lake where the winds blow in the afternoon.

Still, when you get to hear stories about what this county was like before Shasta Dam went in — and also learn where a guy looking to shoot a deer might want to hang out this fall — then the day simply isn’t wasted.

For those of you who haven’t met Joe, he holds court at the Ted Fay Fly Shop, and though he sold it to Bob Grace many years ago, he still works there because — as he famously told me right after his 70th birthday — “that’s where all the girls are.”

He might be wrong about that, but the right attitude garners him all kinds of style points.

Joe’s a little bent from age and he doesn’t hear as well as he used to, but his cast remains fluid, smooth and straight.

A few years ago – in the middle of an alpine meadow – I stared enviously while he peppered a small stream’s undercut bank with casts.

Each time, the fly landed on the edge of the current, and he deftly drifted it down the seam, using imperceptible flicks of the rod tip to keep the dry bouncing off the blades of grass lining the bank

It was an impressive demonstration; one I’ve neither forgotten – nor successfully imitated. (Though I’ll keep trying.)

Joe rarely fly fishes the Upper Sacramento any more, preferring calmer waters, though he still ties the famous Ted Fay Bomber nymphs by the dozen.

He also still tries to shoot a deer every fall, and at times, it seems like he knows every logging road, campsite and small stream in the surrounding mountains.

Plus, he’s got a wicked sense of humor, and that’s why — despite landing exactly one largemouth bass and losing two others — the day’s fishing was far from pointless.

lakejoeboat
Joe Kimsey, waiting for the trailer to arrive.

See you on the lake, Tom Chandler.

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