Professional Career
Tom Stienstra is America’s most traveled and awarded outdoors writer and was the fourth living member inducted into the California Outdoors Hall of Fame. In 2017, he became the first member in the 90-year history of the Outdoor Writers Association of America to win 1stplace awards in newspaper, radio and television, and was awarded an Emmy by the National Academy of Television and Arts. He published his first story at age 8, “Searching for a lost friend,” in the Palo Alto Times. He is the nation’s six-time winner of OWAA Presidents Award.
Newspaper
In 2021, Tom Stienstra won OWAA’s highest Excellence in Craft Award for career achievement, the first outdoors writer from California to win the award in OWAA’s 93-year history; https://owaa.org/eic-winners/.
With my buddy, Rudd
He is the outdoors columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, where his columns appear on Mondays, Thursdays and Sundays in print editions and at www.SFChronicle.com, often with associate photo galleries on Facebook.
He is on top of one of America’s longest running, most-awarded runs. His career spans 40 years since being hired as a columnist in 1980, and has received more than 150 awards, including national awards from Associated Press and United Press International. He won the Northern California Pulitzer Prize for a conservation series and has been nominated four times for the national Pulitzer Prize. He has been awarded the “President’s Award, Best of the Best,” as National Outdoor Writer of the Year, a record six times. His online stories have received as many 1.5 million page-views for a single post. One year he decided to try writing about winter sports, and the next year was named Far West Ski Writer of the Year.
His column, “Coping with death of a loved one,” was chosen as one of the 20 best stories about dogs in the 20th century and reprinted in the book, “Old Dogs Remembered.” Other stories selected for the book include features by James Thurber, T.S. Eliot, John Updike, William Wadsworth and others. A series about fishing for great white sharks was selected was one of the best features in the 20th century about San Francisco, and selected for reprint in the book, “Travelers’ Tales of San Francisco.”
Books
Tom Stienstra is the nation’s No. 1 bestseller of outdoor guidebooks. His new book, “Moon 52 Weekend Adventure in Northern California — my favorite outdoor getaways,” debuted as a No. 1 bestseller for Pacific West Travel Books on Amazon.com. The book won 2nd place, best outdoor book in America for the year. His book Moon California Camping is published in its 22nd edition in 2021, the longest running, most successful outdoors guidebook in America. Amazon.com has twice awarded Moon California Camping as the No. 1 selling outdoor guidebook in the world. His book Moon California Hiking was a No. 1 bestseller in 2020 in Sacramento, Santa Barbara and San Diego on Amazon.com. New editions of Moon Pacific Northwest Camping, Moon Washington Camping, Moon Oregon Camping and Moon West Coast RV are all available. In its weekly review of bestsellers, the Portland Oregonian listed his book Moon Pacific Northwest Camping as a No. 1 on its bestseller list. His novel is “The Sweet Redemption, an Inspector Korg Mystery,” which is rated at 41/2 Stars at www.Amazon.com. He has published more than 30 titles in dozens of editions.
Radio
Tom writes, records and produces the radio feature, “Great Outdoors,” which appears on KCBS-740 AM, 106.9 FM/San Francisco, Northern California’s No. 1-rated radio station. The show is featured at 7:35 a.m., 9:35 a.m. and 12:35 p.m. on Saturdays. He also appears live during drive time frequently on KCBS, the No. 1-rated radio station of any kind in the greater San Francisco Bay Area market. In 2017, in national competition with OWAA, he won three first places out of seven categories for radio features.
Television
In 2017, with co-producer Jim Schlosser, Tom Stienstra produced, wrote (and hosted) the television film, “The Mighty T – The Tuolumne River,” which was broadcast on PBS affiliates with 100-percent density in California households. The National Academy of Television awarded the show an Emmy for “Health, Science and Environment Special.” The show also won best outdoors show of any kind in California, best conservation show in America, and the OWAA President’s Award for best outdoors television show of any kind in America. Previously, he teamed with Schlosser for a CBS weekly outdoors show, The Great Outdoors, which aired in San Francisco and Sacramento markets. He studied under Mike Rowe with two-minute specials on Evening Magazine on KPIX-5/San Francisco. In the winter of 2020-2021, in a mission to provide water for the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, he co-produced a private video about the troubled Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge.
Photography
Tom Stienstra has illustrated his published stories, seminars and online posts with his own photography for more than 30 years. In 2018, he won first place for best adventure photo in America, “Presidents Award, Best of the Best,” best published image of any kind. In 2011, he was also awarded the “President’s Award, Best of the Best,” from OWAA for first place, best published image of any kind, and was the first to win both 1stand 2ndplace for best newspaper feature photography. His online photo galleries of adventures have received more than 1 million page views many times.
Winter sports
Tom was named Ski Writer of the Year for the Western U.S. for a series of stories on a record number of snowboard deaths, how equipment and behavior contributed to them, which inspired a national contest with $20,000 in prizes for a new quick-release snowboard design.
Blog
Tom Stienstra Outdoors was the No. 1 outdoors blog in America in 2012-2015, with up to 1.6 million page views for single blogs, at www.sfgate.com, before it was folded into a pay-only site at www.sfchronicle.com.
Tom releases a daily twitter, available at http://twitter.com/StienstraTom.
Philanthropy
As a member of Rotary International, Tom Stienstra is spearheading a project, in its third year, to design, fund, manufacture and service a series of trout pens at Lake Siskiyou, where trout provided in late fall are grown the world-class sizes and released in late April, and then crowned with a youth fishing day in May. He is president-elect of Mt. Shasta Rotary and will become president in June, 2021. He has been involved in many projects and crusades to benefit the public. After a landmark fire burned 35 percent of the town of Weed in Northern California, Tom personally raised funds to help rebuild the Weed Public Library. After picnic facilities were vandalized in Sisson Meadow in Mount Shasta, he also gave an outdoors seminar to raise funds to rebuild facilities. He also gives wildlife watching seminars at schools, all grade levels, across California. He was one of three founders of a conservation organization, formerly known as United Anglers of California.
Seminars
Tom Stienstra has sold out the San Francisco Commonwealth Club and appearances at REI outlets, Barnes & Nobles and other book stores across the Western United States, and is an advertised draw at the International Sportsmen’s Exposition. He has taught writing classes at The National Writers Workshop. In fall of 2018, he is starting a series of writing seminars called “Impact Writing” at the College of the Siskiyous.
Conservation
Tom Stienstra was one of three co-founders of United Anglers of California and helped write legislation that created a new fund to restore Bay-Delta fisheries. He has been named conservation writer of the year in America six times, and in 2017, won first place, best conservation story of the year, in California.
Organizations
Tom Stienstra has been a member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America since 1980, is a two-term, six-year board member, and was voted by his peers as Board Member of the Year. He is the founding president of the Outdoor Writers Association of California. He was the local conference chairman for the OWAA national conference in Redding, and served on more than 20 OWAA committees, and wrote a dozen bylaws that streamlined OWAA operations. He is a member of Mount Shasta Rotary and the Siskiyou Land Trust.
Travels
Tom has explored all of California and most of Washington and Oregon from the Cascades on west. As a pilot certified to fly complex, high-power aircraft, he has covered thousands of miles quickly across the Western U.S. and Canada. In the process, he has seen the landscape from a unique perspective, which inspires future trips on the ground to seek out little-known spots. This is how he first saw the Kern Canyon, Independence Lake, headwaters of the Owhyee near the Jarbridge Mountains in Nevada, and thousands of other spots.
He has hiked 45,000 miles and ventured to thousands of lakes, rivers and mountain tops, has boated much of the California Coast. His scope of adventure spans from the Costa Rican jungle to the Arctic Circle in the Northwest Territories.
His contracted expeditions include:
- Sierra Crossing: Trekking from the desert in the Great Basin, over the Sierra Crest at Mount Whitney, down into the Cradle of the Sierra in the Kern Canyon, then up and over the Great Western Divide to the western Sierra Nevada foothills.
- The Search for Bigfoot: Tracking the Myth in Northern California and Oregon.
- On the John Muir Trail: Hiking in the Footsteps of Legends.
- Of Big Fish and Grizzlies: Travels in the Alaskan Wildlands.
- Around the Bay in Seven Days: A 126-Mile Hike from the Urban Jungle to the Coastal Headlands.
- The Klamath Challenge: Shooting 200 Miles and 1,000 Rapids at Flood Stage.
- Pacific Shark Hunt: Face to face with a White Shark.
- Climbing Mount Shasta: California’s Ultimate Peak Experience and other climbs.
- Miles From Nowhere: Excursion into California’s most remote areas.
- We Voyageurs: Canoeing 400 miles on the Sacramento River from Redding to San Francisco.
- Hooking a 42-pounder, trout that is: And other Canadian Fishing Tales.
- Pacific Crest Trail, from Yosemite to Tahoe.
- The Owyhee River, America’s most remote canyon, by canoe from Nevada to Idaho to Oregon.
- Bay Area treks, Skyline to Sea, East Bay National Skyline Trail, 70 miles in Henry Coe State Park.
- Mountain Summits, climbing Mount Shasta, Mount Whitney, Mount St. Helens, Half Dome and others.
Tom Stienstra’s Top Catches
- Sturgeon, (30-pound line) 400 pounds
- Seven-gill shark, (wire line) 178 pounds
- Sailfish, (14-pound test line), 160 pounds
- Tarpon, (14-pound line) 125 pounds
- Halibut, (30-pound line) 98 pounds
- Dorado, (20-pound line) 60 pounds
- Mackinaw trout, (8-pound line) 42 pounds
- King salmon, (20-pound line) 32 pounds
- Striped bass, (14-pound line) 26 pounds
- Yellowtail, (20-pound line) 37 pounds
- Steelhead, (6-pound line) 16 pounds
- Atlantic bonito, (14-pound line) 15 pounds (Non-registered world record)
- Silver salmon, (fly rod, 8-pound tippet) 12 pounds
- Rainbow trout, (fly rod, 6-pound tippet) 11 pounds
- Largemouth bass, (8-pound line) 8 pounds
- Brown trout, (4-pound line) 6 pounds
- Arctic grayling, (4-pound line) 3.5 pounds
- Cutthroat trout, (6-pound line), 3.5 pounds
Education
Tom Stienstra graduated with Special Distinction with a B.A. from San Jose State University, 1976. He graduated with an A.A., Special Merit, from Foothill Community College, Los Altos, in 1975. He was awarded the “Academic Who’s Who In America For Scholastic Achievement” from the nation’s colleges in 1975.
Personal life
Tom Stienstra is married to Denese Welch Stienstra. They live in wild lands forest of Northern California. At 21, he survived a hatchet attack, after which he gained insights into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and fulfillment through the outdoor experience. He is a guitar player with a home studio who has written dozens of songs. He has two stepsons, Jeremy, who hiked the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail last year, and Kris, who graduated from UC Berkeley with a major in global political economy.
Fandom
His followers have posted the following biography on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Stienstra.
Contact
tomstienstra2021@gmail.com
“What sets you free? Hike. Bike. Camp. Fish. Boat. Wildlife watch. Explore.”