Skip To Main Content
Bill Barich on Muck Rack

Bill Barich

As seen in: The New York Times, The Guardian, Salon, The Irish Times, Esquire, The Paris Review, Narrative Magazine, Anglers Journal, California Fly Fisher
Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work. Claim your profile

Get in touch with Bill

Contact Bill, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.

Learn more about Muck Rack

Actions

Share this page

Is this you?

As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile

Articles

Riffles: The Great Markleeville Smallmouth Debate

|
By Bill Barich
| California Fly Fisher Verified
There was a time before smartphones when every self-respecting bar kept a small library of reference works to settle disputes between customers. The World Almanac, the Guinness Book of World Records, that sort of thing. The disputes could be quite heated in the late hours, focusing on obscure factoids. I once watched two guys almost come to blows over whether Benjamin Harrison, our 23rd president, was a Republican or a Democrat. The fly-fishing arguments I’ve witnessed could be brutal, too.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?

Riffles: The First Trout

|
By Bill Barich
| California Fly Fisher Verified
I still remember the first trout I caught on the fly. It happened on the North Yuba years ago, on a bright, cloudless June morning with no bugs on the wing. Most fly fishers count their first trout as a key moment in their angling lives, but for me it was momentous. That should make for happy memories, but I’d be a liar to say it was the case. I came to fly fishing the hard way. No one in my family ever touched a fly rod.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?

Riffles: A Flick of a Favorite Fly

|
By Bill Barich
| California Fly Fisher Verified
I’ve never been any good at tying flies. I envy those who have the patience and dexterity to do it. I once bought a vise to give it a go, and when I showed a friend my attempt at an Elk Hair Caddis, he said, “Lucky you didn’t decide to be a surgeon.”   That was mean but accurate. I gave up after that and became the kind of customer fly shops depend on to increase their profits. It’s ironic, really, that I own a collection of vintage flies that should be in the American Museum of Fly Fishing.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?
See all 67 licensed articles (81 Total)