The June issue landed in your mailbox a few weeks back and, if you were looking closely, you may have seen my ugly mug in the Reader Gallery helping my friend’s daughter Vera pose with a striped bass she caught. The photo next to it showed her sister Mirren with a striper of her own and with my hand making a discreet cameo there as well, again holding the fish.
I think those moments take all of us back to our earliest fishing memories. I was immediately whisked away to the time my cousin impaled a hook, baited with a worm, in my right cheek and the tears that followed. Luckily the hook was not buried and my uncle was able to remove it without effort. It also brought me back to a time when I wowed my grandfather by bringing back two 5-pound largemouth bass – one before dinner and the other after – to release into the pond behind his house. I was 8 years old and I don’t think he could fathom the idea that I could be as effective with a fishing rod as I was at that time!
Flashing back to fishing with Mirren and Vera; I saw a gritty determination in those girls when it came time to crank in their stripers. Mirren in particular, at the tender age of 4, wanted to do it again and again. There’s a feeling I know well! But it’s funny, everything is scintillating to a kid so when Vera and my daughter, Lila, called her over to see the giant blisters on the bubbleweed they were popping, she was just as excited to stop fishing and get into squeezing the air and goop out of the bubbleweed.
My daughter told me earlier this year that fishing doesn’t really excite her. You’d think that might be stab through the heart for me, but it really wasn’t. I’ll be the first to say that “fishing isn’t for everyone” and I fully believe and understand that. My goal has never been to raise an angler, maybe I hoped I would, though. But an interesting thing happened when she saw the images of her friends in the magazine.
“I want to do that!” she said, “I want to be in the magazine too!”
You can expect to see her in a future gallery for sure, as long as I can get her to hold the fish, which hasn’t always been easy! But at least it gave me a reason to get her out there to fish. She has proven herself as a true lover of the outdoors, she started snorkeling at age 7 and the only ‘catchable’ bug or creature I have found in my yard or the local woods that she’s afraid of is a tree frog; there’s a story there but I don’t have the room to tell it. So I’m confident that she’ll see the fishing thing through, at least for her six seconds of fame.
I wrote this editors log to encourage those of you that have a son or daughter, or grandchild or niece or nephew that has shown – at least – some interest in our beloved sport, to get them out fishing with the promise of getting their photos printed in the magazine. I will do everything in my power to make it happen, all you have to do it email the photos to me with their basic information; name, age, etc. to me a [email protected] and I will do the rest.
