Towards the end of my high school experience, I spent every chance I could chasing fish. I was a kid who was painfully shy around most people but get me on the water and a new persona emerged, confident and somewhat cocky. I excelled at trout fishing and I rarely met anyone I felt knew more than me. I fell into a “meat hog” stage where I harvested as many trout as I could until one day I realized that I had far too many fish in the freezer and it was time for a change…enter catch and release fishing! To be quite honest, catch and release fishing made me even cockier because I watched all these “lesser fishermen” struggle to catch a few trout, meanwhile I would be catching as many as 40 a day!
All good things come to an end and the “real world” was quickly approaching. My mother sat me down and attempted to motivate me towards buckling down and taking school serious so I would go to college. She offered me three choices for the following year:
1. Go to college and they would only pay for “A’s” and “B’s”
2. Get a job but I had to move out of the house when I turned 18
3. Join the military
Well, Mom’s ultimatum backfired on her. I knew I wasn’t mature enough to handle college; I wasn’t a bad student but I definitely wasn’t a good student either. If a subject interested me I tended to do very well, if not I would usually skate by with minimum effort exerted. Going to work wasn’t an option either! I knew I wasn’t ready to be a bill paying adult yet, I was still a kid! I chose the last choice and my mother was distraught! I enlisted in the Navy’s delayed entry program while I still was in high school and reported to boot camp three months after graduating.
The Navy was an eye opening experience for me and meeting people from all over the country was exciting. I still was a pretty quiet kid but boot camp has a way of bringing you out of your shell some. I finally started to buckle down somewhat and fishing became my outlet for stress relief; I started to care less about the results and more about the experience of being outside. I reported to Pensacola Florida for my basic “A” school, a Mecca for a myriad of saltwater species. I expanded my saltwater fishing experiences as I chased after cobia, spanish mackerel, king mackerel, pompano, redfish, and speckled trout…oh yeah; I finally started chasing after girls as well! They were never as easy to catch as the fish and at times I had some difficult decisions on whether I would chase them or fish during the weekend.
When I reported to my first ship stationed out of Norfolk Virginia I found that I really excelled at my job. I had very good mentors that grilled me mercilessly to know my job inside and out and I relished the challenge. I spent 18 months learning how to operate my gear on the USS Virginia before returning to Pensacola for a year of technical training. Just prior to my return I was promoted and I arrived back in Pensacola somewhat cocky and arrogant. For the first time in my life I had people who wanted to know me because of my success and I definitely took advantage of it. I can’t say that I’m proud of the way I behaved then…in fact, looking back now I think I was a major ass! The one thing about me that didn’t change was my love for getting outside and I spent more hours than I can count angling for fish…and girls, and I actually had a decent success rate with both.
At the end of my technical training I reported to a training detachment for the USS Kitty Hawk in Norfolk Virginia. I arrived there with all intentions of continuing my haughty ways and set my sights on an attractive girl I knew from being stationed there before. It’s funny the curve balls life throws your way when you least expect it, I had no intention of getting into a “real relationship” but somehow I fell into one. My outdoor pursuits waned some as most of my free time was dedicated to someone that was exactly the opposite of me in every way, though I didn’t think so then. A short 2 ½ years later I was “caught” and married at the ripe old age of 23. Married life required me to actually earn money to support my “family” so instead of leaving the Navy at the end of my enlistment and going to college I chose to reenlist.
During this timeframe I did start a new outdoor pursuit that was completely foreign to me; a coworker introduced me to bass fishing; more specifically, tournament bass fishing. For a cocky young man that loved to fish, this was absolutely addicting! I was able to take an outdoor pursuit that I loved and also compete in it as well…what a rush! Tournament bass fishing was unlike anything I had ever done before, instead of taking fish for the table a great deal of effort and care was spent ensuring that the bass remained alive in aerated livewells. If a fish died you were penalized severely and in a sport that is determined by ounces, this could be very costly. Bass fishing came pretty easy to me due to my intensive background in angling for other species. There were different techniques and tackle I had to learn but overall the switch to pursuing a new species wasn’t difficult. My interest in tournament bass fishing peaked soon after I was married as I found myself in a relationship that I honestly didn’t know what I was doing in. All of our differences that I thought were exciting before we were married were magnified into major relationship issues afterwards. My solution to these issues was to do what I always did when I was stressed; I headed to the water as much as possible. I purchased a boat and threw myself into the sport and as has always been the case when it came to fishing, I became very good, very quickly!
I had two people that really influenced how I fished for bass; one fished by total instinct and the other fished logically. My friend DJ would fish where and what felt right to him and disregarded what bass fishing experts would do in the same conditions. My friend Curt on the other hand, was an engineer by trade and he looked at logical seasonal patterns and patterned his techniques and locations based on that. I fell right in the middle of both of them, I would fish logically when it suited me and at other times I would do what felt right. The truly interesting thing was that all of us were successful in the local tournaments even though we had very different approaches. I also managed to acquire some sponsors after a good friend that I had taken in as my own protégé to the sport made some timely phone calls to a regional distributor and we both lucked into some entry level deals.
As much as I love this sport I can honestly say now that it was addicting to me and as with all addictions, ultimately destructive in nature. I no longer had a relief from my normal day-to-day stressors and the sheer amount of tournaments that I was competing in became additional stress. I poured my money into new and better tackle, gas for my boat, better boating equipment, and a countless other expenses (creating even more stress). I definitely used this obsession as an escape from my marriage since early on I realized I wasn’t getting what I needed and honestly, for the first time in my life my relationship with nature was disconnected as well. I stopped enjoying all the “little things” that my outdoor pursuits had always given me and somewhat resented having to go fishing every weekend. The Navy eventually gave me the break from fishing and my marriage that I desperately needed by deploying me three times in a five year period. It was during this time that I was introduced to something that would start the change in the way I viewed the outdoors.
Next week: The Religion of the Outdoors
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