On 10th anniversary of Page 2’s debut, it’s time for him to retire — for a day

From Markleeville, Calif. — 

Today marks the 10th anniversary of Page 2’s debut, so many people taking their valuable time ever since to tell me to go away, and I’m not referring to just my family.

So I gave it a try for a day, just man and a place so remote it makes Nebraska appear populated, a guide — because I didn’t want to get lost and end up in Nebraska — and an experienced fly fisherman, because somebody has to take the hook out of a fish’s mouth.

Yeah, I know it’s that time of the season when Manny wishes he could still use his female fertility drug, the Dodgers paying the price because he can’t stay healthy without it, and so many Dodgers fans e-mailing and begging I get tougher on the McCourts, as if they aren’t tough enough on themselves.

Plenty of time for all that, as well as fresh meat to carve, you know, a whole season with Lane Kiffin, but just imagine going somewhere — no cell service, no stoplights, no thought given to time or a dwindling 401(k).

What would you pay for such tranquility, the only sounds bells around the necks of milling cows, rushing streams and chubby rainbow trout whispering, “feed me, feed me”?

How much would you pay to play a golf course carved out of heaven, bear tracks in a sand trap, and breathtaking views of the entire Carson Valley, including the Moonlight Bunny Ranch?

OK, so The Times isn’t paying me enough, and as upset as you are about that — knowing now I cannot retire any time soon, I took a look at just such an exotic place to see if it might be a worthy haven for our editors and the other rich folk back home.

A deposit of $30,000, which is refundable, and $5,000 a year in membership fees get you on Clear Creek Tahoe playing golf, fishing down in the valley, use of a beach house on the edge of Lake Tahoe — eventually housing opportunities with a Nevada tax break available.

The mountain golf course, the subtle handiwork of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, has as an added bonus Titleist Pro V1 golf balls everywhere just waiting to be found. I know this because it took a call to the pro shop on No. 12 to have them send out more after the guy I was playing with lost a couple of boxes.

Before I go any further, I should probably get to Moby Dick.

When was the last time you took a day off from life and went fishing? I guess in some ways it’s like sitting around waiting for Matt Kemp to make contact, watching a bobber stroll across the water, anxious and hopeful something might happen, surprise almost every time when it does.

To watch Matt Kemp, though, you must sit in a dump, as Plaschke has pretty much described Dodger Stadium, or your own home, and Lord knows what he might say about your house.

I was sitting in God’s country, a beer first at the Cutthroat Saloon in Markleeville to muster the courage to go into the woods with Santa Barbara’s Jim Taylor.

Taylor, a ’69 UCLA grad, is co-owner of Clear Creek Tahoe, minority owner of the Oakland A’s and the man who brought Costco to California. I’m guessing his partner, Chip Hanly, is the golfer of the two based on what I saw after Taylor called for more golf balls.

In addition to Taylor, we were led into the woods by Don Weirauch, our guide from the Angler’s Edge in Gardnerville. I swear I heard strumming banjos in the distance.

Taylor pulled out a rifle when we arrived, too late to ask him who from L.A. had hired him, pleased to learn it was something to fend off squirrels, which I guess are a big problem for Taylor.

Later he would jump higher than Shannon Brown after seeing a water snake the size of a pencil, everyone glad he had left the cannon in the car.

We trekked across a meadow beneath the California Alps, so much cow manure I was pretty sure no one was going to follow our tracks.

This was the America most of us never really see, trees older than Dwyre, happy rainbow trout sitting there in the clear moving waters, knowing if they got caught they had to be released.

Time to fish, and Taylor caught a sunburn, while Weirauch put a cigarette in his mouth. If only he knew what the fish wanted, switching from a speckled wing to a flashback pheasant tail before I went with a parachute Adams, size 16.

I know this is all very technical, but that’s just the way we fisherman talk. I have the license now to prove it.

I don’t like to brag, but you should have seen the one I caught. Reminded me of Gary Matthews Jr. I made the perfect “presentation,” and he took the bait.

There was no way he/she could ignore the red butt wooly bugger I had cast, biting and nearly taking me downstream. I can only report it took great courage, incredible strength and determination to hang in there.

That fish thought nothing of throwing his two pounds around. I’m telling you, performance-enhancing drugs are everywhere.

The perfect day over, and back into cellphone territory, I checked messages.

“Hope you drown in Lake Tahoe,” Mark D. Ashton wrote in an e-mail.

Yeah, so good to be back, and to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Page 2, I’m taking another week’s vacation.

But nowhere near Lake Tahoe.

t.j.simers@latimes.com