I know that 2022 was an exceptional season for many species and anglers throughout New England. But for me, it was a season that began with great promise and then dissipated into the background as more important things bullied their way into my life. In the months since losing my dad, I have found that fishing is not as much like riding a bike as one might think. My patience is shorter, my once fine-tuned finesse is clumsy and things that require the development of a ‘touch’ haven’t come together as easily over these last few months.
I have tried to reason my way through these changes in dozens of ways, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s nothing more than being rusty and a little out of shape. Our brains can betray us, in that they make us believe that those moments when we are at our best will always be the baseline of reality, we’ll always be equipped with the same tools with the same level of mastery, but that’s not always the case.
I know that it has not left me, I saw flashes of it numerous times throughout the fall. Once on a late-night trip with a friend Nick who texted me in late-September and insisted that I needed to fish – he was right. In the first two hours of the four we spent dead-drifting big Zinger baits into a dumping inlet, he was hooking 3 or 4 to my one. I felt lost for a while, feeling in the dark, that creeping heat of embarrassment. But then I felt the hardening of determination, thinking instead of observing; feeling instead of waiting. The hits came easier after I changed my mindset from reaching for the bottom to hanging the baits horizontally in the tide. He still out-caught me, but his goal was pure, earnest and I don’t think I’ll ever forget that gesture of kindness.
I also felt it creeping back in on a tough tog trip with Jason Colby. I hadn’t slept well at all and found myself quiet on the boat. I think of Jason as one of the best fishermen I have ever shared a tide with and the only thing that mattered to me was holding my own. The winds were howling, forcing us to stay in closer to shore and out of the waves that, as Jason put it, ‘would have us bouncing out of the boat.’
We fished through a picky bite all morning but had enough keepers to send us all home with plenty of meat. On the last stop of the day, I felt the groove settle back in. Drop the jig until it clunked on the rock, pick it up just enough to feel it drag, wait for the chew, slide it slowly until the drag disappeared into softness or the ‘crunch’ thundered up the line and into your ears – in either case set the hook. I got my full satisfaction when Jason doled out a morsel of praise, “you carried the boat there for a while.” That felt good.
As we turn the page into 2023, and with a new understanding of the importance of really living every day of my life. I am dedicating this season to repairing the rest of what was lost during the months of barely fishing. And to getting myself back into shape, back to doing yoga and riding my bike. But most of all, I will be dedicating this season to my dad, a man who didn’t fish, but was fascinated by my obsession with a sport that he really didn’t understand. And I just cannot wait to get started.
