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Founded in 1947, the Pasadena Casting Club is a group of fly fishing enthusiasts dedicated to the art of angling and casting, conservation, education, catch and release philosophy, and camaraderie through Club meetings, outings and events.
HomeJune 2012

A Fly Fishing Fantasy Tour:

Alaska to Bolivia and Beyond

with Chris Santella
7:30 p.m.
Thursday, June 14, 2012




As much as any sport or hobby, fly fishing involves its fair share of anticipation and dreaming. We don’t just go fishing, we plan for it, we give it great thought, we countdown to the day, almost like a bride prior to a wedding. Inevitably, we think of the places we’d like to fish, somehow, sometime, before we deplane from this long flight we call life. 


Rather than beating around the bush, in 2004 an author published a book addressing just this subject: Fifty Places to Fly Fish Before You Die. The book’s popularity grew beyond just the sport, and received attention from the mainstream press. Supported with beautiful photography, the book offered up not only some exquisite locations, but some of the reasons why this sport grips us the way it does.

Most of the year, we focus on bringing you programs for fishing locations which are readily accessible to the average Club member—destinations which are rational. For our June meeting, we are bringing you Chris Santella, the author of the Fifty Places book, to share some of his fantasy fishing locations.


Chris is a freelance writer and marketing consultant based in Portland, Oregon. Fifty Places To Fly Fish Before You Die was Chris’s first book. Last year Chris published his 10th book, Fifty More Places To Fly Fish Before You Die, which chronicles fifty more of fly fishing’s most intriguing destinations as shared by individuals from around the angling world. Chris found success with the bucket list formula, and has gone on to publish nine other books, including:
o Fifty Places To Play Golf Before You Die 
o Fifty Favorite Fly Fishing Tales 
o Fifty Places To Sail Before You Die 
o Fifty Places To Go Birding Before You Die 
o Fifty Places To Dive Before You Die 
o Once in a Lifetime Trips 
o Fifty MORE Places To Play Golf Before You Die 
o Fifty Places To Hike Before You Die 
o Fifty MORE Places To Fly Fish Before You Die 


Chris has books number 11–13 in the pipeline – The Hatch is On, Why I Fly Fish, and Fifty Places to Bike Before You Die. 


Chris is a frequent contributor to the New York Times as well as many fly fishing publications, including The Flyfish Journal, The Drake, and Fly Rod & Reel. His work has also appeared in The New Yorker, Golf, Travel & Leisure, Travel & Leisure Golf, the San Jose Mercury News, American Lawyer, and many other magazines and newspapers.


Chris grew up in Norwalk, Connecticut – the blue-collar town (along with Bridgeport) of Fairfield County. Chris knew no one who had ever professed to fly fishing. After reading articles in Field & Stream and Outdoor Life, his curiosity was piqued. For a Christmas gift when he was fourteen, an uncle commissioned a friend to build Chris a fly rod – a 2-piece 8’ Fenwick 7-weight, in fiberglass. His first trout was caught in the nearby Saugatuck River— in view of the loading dock of an IBM office building. Chris attended Middlebury College in Vermont and received his Masters from Yale.

This will be a show filled with wonder, beauty, and fascinating adventures, presented by one of the more interesting persons in our sport. Join us Thursday evening, June14th, at 7:30 p.m. at the San Marino Masonic Lodge, 3130 Huntington Drive, San Marino, 91108.


Seymour Singer