THE IRIDEUS - MARCH 2021
Q & A with r e s n e G h s o J Peter Burrows interviews GPFF’s new nt e id s e r p b u l c g in m o c in So who is this Genser fellow who is now president of our esteemed club? Here’s a hard-hitting Q&A to find out: Q: So where are you from, and when did you start fishing? I grew up in Richmond, where I still live. My father had a little law practice before becoming a judge when I was five. He used to take me fishing all the time. I didn’t know it at the time, but he was the world’s worst fisherman. We never caught anything, and he had this these really crappy fiberglass rods that were solid, not hollow, so they were stiff as a board and really hard to cast. Finally, when I was 16 I took some of the money I’d made mowing lawns and went to the local hardware store and bought a rod for $10 that was vastly superior to Dad’s. A friend and I started going to San Pablo reservoir every Saturday morning. We’d throw salmon eggs and catch our limit and then go over to his house and have them for lunch. Q: How did you get into fly-fishing?
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A: I started fly fishing about 14 years ago. I’d gotten to know Bob Woznicki, whose family went to the same synagogue as ours. Our sons were both going to college in Oregon, so one year we decided to drive up four days early to pick them up to go fishing. I went to Fish First and they set me up with waders and a rod and all the stuff, and we went up to this ranch that was stocked with gigantic trout. I don’t even remember where it was. After that, I started fly fishing on our property on Battle Creek, which I’d had the opportunity to buy in 1999. Before then I’d used worms, but it was too easy, and too many fish died. But fly fishing on a small creek was difficult, so I was getting discouraged. Then, at an International Sportsman’s Expo – this is maybe ten years ago – I saw a tenkara rod and decided it would be absolutely ideal for the creek. And I was right. Tenkara requires so much less skill to cast, and you spend so much more time in the water and less time in the trees. So I bought it. And now I have like 12 rods. It’s amazing how they accumulate.
