Casting About

It's all good

Most agree that I have been dealt a pretty good hand, able to travel around the country doing what I love and hanging out with good people. Certainly you’ll hear no rebuttal from me persuading you to the contrary. I am still pondering the fact that my high school sweetheart and wife of 11 years hasn’t demanded long-term counseling by Dr. Fish for my obsessive-compulsive addiction to bass fishing. Maybe she figures its no use. More likely it’s because fishing is only one of several things I obsess over, that’s what the Bass Edge crew tells me anyway.

To me life is about experience and appreciating all its grandeur. Perhaps that is my driving force. I love the challenge a pond, river or lake offers, never able to guarantee weather conditions or a bass’ response to my offering. I remember too well the filming on Lake Seminole with Bradley Stringer back in our first season. Prior to our first day of fishing, a cold front screamed through, plummeting the water’s surface temperature by 13 degrees and evacuating every bass from its spawning bed. We might as well have been casting in my garage -- at least it was heated. But as my favorite quote goes “This to shall pass.” And it did. The mercury rose and the bass returned to their nesting havens with a vengeance.

There is nothing like arriving at the waters edge as the moon begins its fade into the dawning morn, scampering squirrels and songs of birds the only trace of an audible footprint. The stillness demands nothing yet lures me into its captivating trance. Taking time to appreciate being present in the void between night and day, I revel as the black western sky is slowly ushered out by rays from the east.

These are the natural moments, glimpses dissolving personal anxieties and stresses with the blink of an eye or a fleeting sound bite. One memory I recall as if still there was during our filming on New York’s Lake Champlain. Holding true to Don Hertz’s and Gary Sears’ normal standards of excellence, our production team “scheduled” (at least that is what we told the park ranger since gate closing was an hour prior) a sunset shot on the highest mountain overlooking the Lake and Fort Ticonderoga. With no technical savvy when it comes to production, I helped carry equipment up the hill, then staked claim to my front row seat of the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. Grouse were nesting for the night and vibrant fall colors stretched as far as the eye could see. I thought back to what it must have been like there during times of battle, and suddenly the exceptional fishing experience earlier in the day seemed insignificant.

Traveling for our third season’s filming and promotional events has presented a lot of time to “bond” with our team and our family of sponsors. There is nothing quite like driving 13 hours one-way with Brigman. Fortunately, he keeps our traveling music collection refreshed and always offers to get out and help me navigate parking lots in case I have forgotten during my last 3,810 successful completions. Seriously though, it’s fun to travel with him, even if the corporate office had to sweeten his deal to put up with me. Just for the record though, I am still not willing to negotiate on who gets the cup holder!

The most personal satisfaction I have is meeting the many great people. I love to listen to their bass-fishing stories, answer their questions or hear how a mom took her kids out bream fishing at a local pond. Fishing is an experiential sport and all of us at Bass Edge can tell someone everything we know about fishing, but until they experience fishing they will truly never “know” fishing.

So when told I have a great job, I just grin and say, “Yeah, it’s quite the experience.”