Back in June, 2012—June 11, around 8:30 a.m., Rhode Island Hospital, to be exact—I underwent full reconstructive surgery on my left foot, a decision that ultimately cleaned me right off deck and benched me for the better part of a year and a half. This last season, my foot still working at about 50 percent of its “normal” capacity, I could easily have jumped back into fishing but somehow couldn’t face the idea of setting foot on a deck without the possibility of work- ing it. My weathered Guy Cotten oilers hung at the head of the basement steps looking sullen, I thought, and my rods gathered a gritty sheen of dust in their designated racks overhead. Somehow, this whole ordeal—the sudden pros- pect of facing a new relationship with my gear and familiar decks — put a gut-level fear in me, a fear that I might have ruined fishing for myself, that I might have fucked the whole thing up beyond repair through too many years doing it full-tilt.
Guys with whom I’ve fished for the better part of 20 years checked in at regular intervals, but I was sure I could hear a new distance in their voices—as though they were the same dudes, and I’d defected. I was, of course, dead-wrong in most cases. I was what was awkward, distant, standoffish. Chalk it up to serial over- thinking and a king-size load of self-pity. Pathetic.
This winter, I started to dream about fishing again—more or less constantly, really starting back in November or so. At some point around December, during a conversation with my long-time boss, and close friend, Capt. Russ Benn, he put it to me straight in a way few people in my life can: “It’s not like you can just walk away from fishing—You’ll lose your @#$% mind…” He is, of course, right.
I realize now that I did need a pause after so many seasons on deck, working, shooting photos, then get- ting home, writing, staying on top of incessant regulation, talking to fishermen, then slipping out the base- ment door in the wee hours with a rod and plug bag, waders slung over my shoulder, then reading and/or editing dozens of other fish-writers’ work. Fishing, fishing, fishing, fishing, fishing…and fishing, and then some more fishing—damned close to 100 hours per week all season, a fishing manic episode, more or less, April to December. Immersion in any activity at this level—and fishing is no different from any other pursuit, exacts a price. Wears you down to a stump. When I tossed my sea bag over on to the dock from the cockpit of the Maridee II the day before surgery, I was a hot mess. But I also knew it was time to ease off, to re-evaluate—which I have done, ad nauseam—then, ultimately, to reset.
The horrible part of this necessary adjustment period has been the timing: Frankly—no other way to put this— I’m raring to go. I’ve been driving all over hell’s half-acre in the deep night or the dawn, staring into the water at places I’ve fished obsessively since I got my driver’s license. I’ve been haunting Point Judith and Snug Harbor, Jamestown, and Wickford Harbor like some fish-obsessed poltergeist. I’ve caught myself drawing deep breaths of the bait-barrel- meets-diesel-meets-creosote-meets-squid-processing-meets-ocean air as though it were all the parts of it other than the oxygen were keeping me alive. I’ve been snelling hooks, stripping reels, splicing lobster-pot warp, and all the other things I’ve always done to stave off total lunacy. Bottom line: It would take an entire nest of fire ants patrolling my boxer shorts to make me any less at ease over this whole winter B.S.
During the last major snow event I ran outside and actually punched a few airborne snowflakes, kicked a snow drift while bellowing a 3-minute sequence of foul language into the gray air, fell arse-over-tin-cups on the ice, then threw a shovel like a cockpit harpoon into a bush in the back yard.
I’ve been reading my 2014 edition of Eldridge Tide and Pilot Book line by line like a novel for a few weeks, and sitting in my living room, watching an occasional fishing show — by which I mean swearing and making threatening gestures at the television, trying to get various hosts to turn off the @#$% clickers on their @#$% reels. I’ve priced out a couple of beater canoes and tried to figure out how I might pull a black-ops run into the trout hatchery in North Kingstown with a light spinning rod. I can draw every lesser tidal river in the state from memory after plus-minus 12,378 hours “scouting” on Google Earth since January. I have deliberately backlashed at least two conventional reels just for the satisfaction of picking the tangled braid out and re-packing the spools. I am currently pondering learning to crochet so I can create a new wool/acrylic plug bag cozy before April.
In short, after what felt like forever, things are getting back to normal here in sunny and tropical Peace Dale, RI. Now, I just have to figure out how I’m supposed to get from here to the RISAA Show later this month, then tackle the somewhat uglier business of surviving the stretch from there to the first fresh schoolies. Either way, I know I’m not the only sorry candidate going through the winter withdrawals, and I’d invite any of you who have some good ideas about how to pass the unbearable time to look us up on Facebook (Coastal Angler Magazine, Rhode Island) and share your thoughts there. Also, as you do get out for your maiden fishing ventures of the new season, by all means send along photos of your first catches. You can reach me at zhfished@gmail.com.
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