Home Stretch
Summer brings the hope of a new season and a return to normal.
What could be more appealing right now than exploring new waters, our theme this issue?
That could be an ill-timed concept at the moment, but I don’t think so. It’s certainly irresponsible to sound the all-clear just yet. But there’s nothing particularly irresponsible about keeping the imagination working.
As we slip past the landmark of a year of cautious behavior and COVID 19-curtailed activity, the whole allure of new waters smacks of a normal we haven’t known for a while.
Exploration, new experiences, the freedom of summer—remember that? Yeah, so do we, and it sounds great.
Summer is upon us. So is great fishing, from stripers in the Northeast to the tarpon migration down south. Right now, I’d settle for an unfettered shot at the same old experiences on familiar turf. Discovery and new fisheries sound especially appealing and, with some luck and persistence, might be within reach.
Many of us are beginning cautiously to venture out once again, and some of us are hatching plans, if not quite yet for next week, at least for the imaginable future.
As we go to press, somewhere around half of Americans have entered the ranks of the vaccinated. Skeptics and refuseniks to the vaccine line may stretch out the time we have to deal with this and delay getting back to a semblance of normal, or a new normal.
It reminds me of making your way to the airport, through security, through the tunnel and the boarding process. Then, as the plane is ready to pull away from the gate, somebody decides they need to visit the lavatory. So everyone sits and waits, and waits, till that person emerges, makes their way back down the aisle and buckles in.
We’re waiting on another hundred million or so to buckle up so we can all get rolling.
When this whole mess started more than a year ago, we talked about social distancing as part and parcel to the angling mindset. That’s surely gotten a lot of us through this, and perhaps prevented an entirely lost year. After all, if you get skunked, you don’t give up the game and quit fishing. The toughest days can only get better with enough patience, and one thing anglers know is patience.
Now, as the end is perhaps in sight, some of the lessons we have learned on the water and rely on come into play: persistence, patience, ingenuity and hope.
We look forward to the day when quarantine means waiting to clear customs, a pod refers to a bunch of porpoises surfing a bow wave, and the only reason to wear a mask is so you don’t get sunburned.