ANSEL ADAMS

Posthumous

Unparalleled landscape photographer and environmentalist, Ansel Adams redefined artistic photography and the western landscape at the same moment. His dramatic black and white photographs of Yosemite, the Sierra Nevada and Southwest are credited as helping to make photography appreciated as an art form and drew people to the need to preserve these beautiful, open and wild places.

His innovations in developing film and prints changed how people envision then produce photographic images. The Zone System, conceived by Adams, divides light into ten zones or tones from total black (Zone 0) to pure white (zone ten). Of his famous Monolith, the Face of Half Dome, made in one outing with the use of his final plate and printed in 1927, Adams said, "I had been able to realize a desired image: not the way the subject appeared in reality but how it felt to me and how it must appear in the finished print."

He initiated or was behind the formation of many new collections of photographers and created A More Beautiful America which served to benefit the improvement of the environment. He often supported and lent his photographic skills to efforts to preserve wild places.

RAY CANNON

“Man’s quest for the goal of complete pleasure can be achieved. But it is seldom blundered into.”

That is the opening of Raymond Cannon’s book “How to Fish the Pacific Coast.” Sunset Publishing released it in 1954 to enormous acclaim. Cannon’s book sold out of its first printing in two months and is one of a handful of epic outdoors books published in the last century. The book helped define Cannon as a preeminent communicator and fishing legend across the western United States.

Ray Cannon lived in Southern California and Baja, Mexico. He became well known as the founding outdoors columnist for Western Outdoor News out of Huntington Beach. He evolved into legendary status for his columns on Baja, as well as the success of “How to Fish the Pacific Coast” in the 1950s and beyond. Cannon developed a vast following across the world of the outdoors and appeared across Southern California to draw crowds to learn his expertise. He was an expert angler with a reach that spanned from Mexico to California, Oregon, Washington, Canada and Alaska, and he inspired a generation of anglers to follow and take part in his adventures.

Cannon’s book is a rare, outdoors classic. It was written with great style and a unique mastery of the sport. Rare, well-thumbed copies are found online or in bookshops occasionally, thereafter to be treasured as one of the finest outdoors books ever published. He covered the Pacific coast from Baja north to Alaska, with many of his favorite spots detailed along the entire route. His 150-page “Fish Identification” details 203 species that include: names, drawings, size, color, range, bait, tackle, and whether common or rare. In the character of the era, he referred to a Great white shark as a “Man-eater.”

Though not as famous as John Muir, Raymond Cannon held similar renown among anglers as the poetic scribe of Southern California and Baja waters.

KEITH FRASER

Fraser is a sturgeon master, results-only conservationist, bird lover, educator, 40-year baseball coach, champion of youth and bait man. Bait and tackle shops come and go, but Fraser and his crew hit their 40th anniversary this weekend at his little shop, Loch Lomond Live Bait in San Rafael.

He's 6-foot-5, thin, razor sharp, gruff with politicians, kind to children and always old school, like Clint Eastwood in "Gran Torino." His wife, Gloria, puts up with him.

Out on the water, his rod tip wiggled, and he just sat there with his arms folded. "Flounder," muttered Fraser, able to discern all species by their bites. "Damn flounder."

He reeled in the flounder, let it go and said, "Where's Mr. Sturgy?"

Big numbers

Before Fraser revealed his secrets, many anglers believed it took 20 to 40 hours of fishing to catch a sturgeon, a lifetime to get a 100-pounder. In my first three trips with him, we fished 11 hours, caught and released eight over 50 pounds. I caught 150- and 100-pounders on back-to-back casts.

Nobody believed any of this, so I asked Fraser to keep an exact count of his bites, sets and fish on his trips, which usually span just two to four hours, during the peak time of an outgoing tide.

The numbers tell the story: 41 trips, 86 sturgeon (keepers over 46 inches, two over 200 pounds), all released unharmed. Over this period, he missed only 10 sets, known at KFMPs (Keith Fraser Missed Pumpers). In one period, he had 26 straight bites without a missed set, which obliterated my best streak of 14 straight.

A key to Fraser's success is that he invented a rod cradle for sturgeon fishing. The rod sits on top of it. When you get a bite, it's often so quick that you're late, or you move the rod, spook the fish and it's gone. Instead, when a sturgeon starts to taste the bait, Fraser tips the rod forward, using the end of the board as an axis point, careful not to move the bait.

Waiting to pounce

Fraser then gets in strike position, like a gunslinger waiting for his opponent to draw. If the rod tip is pulled down the slightest bit, often so subtly the untrained would never see it, Fraser sets the hook home like it's a 250-pounder. Sometimes it is.

"What I love about it is that with every bite, you don't know if it's a shaker or a 200-pounder," Fraser said. "The anticipation is unreal as you get ready to set the hook. It's like sticking your finger in a light socket. And it's right here in the bay, 15 minutes from the dock."

Watching the bay-delta fisheries decline has been heartbreaking for Fraser, who dedicated much of his life trying to restore sturgeon, striped bass and salmon populations.

As the founding president of United Anglers, he was a results-only force who intimidated politicians, whom he scorned as life-forms equivalent to potted plants.

He was involved with victories that include the 10-year revival of the striped bass fishery, getting a ban on gillnets that kill marine birds and other sea life, reducing the dumping of dredged mud spoils in the bay, raising millions of dollars for all bay fisheries, and new laws to raise size limits to protect juvenile fish and create a maximum size limit to protect large spawning sturgeon. Of course, many people were involved in each of these conservation wins.

As a former English teacher with a degree from Cal, Fraser can deliver charged eloquence that stirs crowds into froths. A few of his gems:

-- On the decline of bay fishing: "The decline of fishing in the bay and delta will serve as a testimonial to future generations as to man's ability to screw up a good thing."

-- On the delta pumps: "Our government can put a man on the moon but can't design a screen to stop the fish from being sucked down the pumps."

-- On government's onus: "The state has taken the striped bass and salmon from our waters at the delta pumps, so why the hell shouldn't the state then assume the burden for replacing them?"

-- On closing fishing: "Shutting fishing down is like cutting off a guy's toe because his finger hurts. It's the ultimate government cop-out."

-- On studies instead of action: "We shouldn't have to wait until the patient dies before we prescribe the proper medication."

-- On lack of field expertise: "A seagull perched on the railing of a ship in the Mothball Fleet knows as much about the sturgeon population as (the Department of) Fish and Game and other so-called experts."

-- On money vs. nature: "There will always be poachers and polluters. Greed is a never-ending enemy to the well-being of our bay."

-- On water politics: "There is a never-ending supply of politicians who would gladly divert every drop of water from Northern California to the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. All that concerns them is their cell phones, their deals and the almighty dollar."

Yet Fraser softens among children, birds and his dogs, like Rooster Cogburn getting his heart melted by Mattie Ross. He has donated hundreds of free trips to take youngsters fishing, has a flock of wild birds that he feeds every morning ("they have more personality than a lot of people"), and his little dogs, like Daisy and Salty, are always aboard for fishing trips.

On our trip, we put the set to a few fish, enjoyed the fight and then, like always, released them all. Because of Fraser's influence and knowing that sturgeon can live to be 70 years old and more than 400 pounds (my life best), I haven't killed a sturgeon for 25 years.

- Tom Stienstra

LESLIE APPLING

Leslie Appling of Palm Springs is a renowned wilderness guide and founder of the Leave No Trace movement that promotes seven principles for outdoor ethics: plan ahead and prepare, travel and camp on durable surfaces, dispose of waste properly, leave what you find, minimize campfire impacts, respect wildlife and be considerate of others.

TOM STIENSTRA

An American author, outdoorsman and columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, Tom Stienstra is the consummate outdoorsman and conservationists. He has written numerous guidebooks on the California outdoors including Moon's California Camping, the best-selling and longest running outdoor guidebook series in America. His Moon Pacific Northwest Camping is an Oregon best seller.

In 2018, the Outdoor Writers Association of America awarded Stienstra 1st Place, Outdoor Recreation Photo of the Year. In 2017, the National Academy of Television awarded the Emmy for Health, Science and Environment Special to Stienstra and co-producer Jim Schlosser for their PBS Special, "The Mighty T -- the Tuolumne River." The PBS Special also won the President's Award from the Outdoor Writers Association of America as the best outdoors television show of any kind for the year in America. At the OWAA annual conference, Stienstra was the organization's only member recognized for first-place awards in newspaper, radio and television.

In 2015, Stienstra became America's first outdoors writer to win "The President's Award" as "Best of the Best" for the fourth time from OWAA, when he won best story of the year in the Newspaper Newspaper/Website division at the organization's annual awards banquet in Knoxville. The winning entry was “Paddling with giants,” published in the August 5, 2014 editions of the San Francisco Chronicle. To become a finalist for the President's Award, that story won first place in the Outdoor Fun and Adventure Category of the Newspaper/Website Contest. He is one of OWAA's most awarded members, and in 2009, he won first place for best outdoors column in America.