Time On The Water

I really miss fishing.

No, I mean I REALLY miss fishing. I’m surprised. I’ve always done a lot more watching than actually fishing while on one of my charters. As a matter of fact, charter fishing is really the act of taking others to find and catch fish. So I was surprised how much I miss the act of fishing.

Maybe it has more to do with the surroundings than actually wetting a line. I love the view. I love my office. It’s ever changing and almost never looks the same from day to day. Perhaps that’s it. I’m not sure.

I started fishing when I was boy. That was back in 1959. I was six years old. My Dad took me to the old Clearwater Beach bridge that had been turned into a fishing pier. The first thing I remember catching was an octopus. It tried to climb up the line to the rod and then proceeded to squirt ink everywhere. When you are six years old it doesn’t get much better than that. I guess that’s where it all started. The simple curiosity of what might be caught on any given trip. That mystery has never left me.

I’ve lived and breathed fishing since 2001. That’s when I started fishing full time for a living. The longest stretch of days in a row on the water has been 41. That’s right, 41. At that time I was booking every day and only taking time off for bad weather. We had a very long bout of beautiful weather. I was praying for rain about day 30 but it just wouldn’t come. Here’s the funny part. The break in the good weather was four days of rain and wind. About day three I was actually starting to miss the water. It still feels that way, especially now.

I went to the hospital on the afternoon of February 25th. I’ve been off the water for 40 straight days. Hard to believe.

I REALLY miss it.