Issue Five of the Road to Water is full of colorful stories.
The most fascinating element of the fishing lifestyle for me is, and always has been, the fishermen. I have been surprised, grateful and overwhelmed by the intelligence, creativity, curiosity and kindness of anglers I’ve met on the road, while working at Bass Pro Shops, and through the effort to grow this magazine, time and again.
This issue is a testament to many of those incredible people. Take Allan Lang, for example. Lang likes to target lake trout, and pike in his native upstate New York, but do you know what he did for a living for most of his life? The man searched for, found, unearthed and sold pieces of meteorites that have struck the earth and fossils dating back hundreds of thousands of years. Yeah, Lang is an angler who has literally dug up and sold dinosaur-aged bugs and pieces of space rock.
Or how about Chris Wells. Have you ever heard of a Bass Chaplain? Chris is a guy who goes on tour with the B.A.S.S. anglers and provides spiritual guidance and support. He has heard and seen some anglers struggling with difficulties you’d never imagine on the road.
How about Idaho sturgeon. I don’t know about you, but Idaho, with its enormous roadless region, almost-vertical mountains and incredible wildlife has always fascinated me. We bring you there to tell you the story of an angler who targets ten-foot fish. We’re talking about a fish that, when you land it, you get in the water with it.
Ever wonder what it’s like to have your own fishing T.V. show, travel the world and be on magazine covers. We asked John Thelen, host of Destination Fish, a show that airs on Sunday Morning? in the Midwest. Oh, and he’s graced the cover of thirty magazines while chasing fish all over the globe.
Talk about heroes, how about Scott Boese, who, with his son Jon who is an Iraq-war Veteran, started Soturi Tackle When Jon came back from the Middle East he set his mind to making the world around him a better place and Soturi Tackle has worked with veterans, handicapped children (one child designed one of their more popular lures) and anglers everywhere to create incredible baits that catch enormous fish.
Ever heard of arctic charr? I hadn’t either until this issue, and probably because they only exist in one state in the lower 48 (Maine). In their fall spawning colors they’re a beautiful orange. So we talked to Stan Williams, a guy targeting a gorgeous fish you can only catch in one place in the entire U.S.
You want to talk tough? J.R. Cooper is a tournament angler who once, while suffering from a condition called primary thrombosis, chipped a tailbone on the water while fishing. He still raced back to the weigh-in, weighed in their bag despite vomiting blood, and then told the audience: “Okay, I have to go to the hospital now.”
Ever wonder what it’s like to be the hometown hero who goes pro on the B.A.S.S. tour? We did too, which is why we talked to Alex Weatherell, who, in 2010 was the Junior Bassmaster World Champion at only 17.
Ever wonder what kind of crazy stuff D.E.C. officers encounter in their time in the field? We did too, which is why we interviewed Vern Fonda, a veteran N.Y. D.E.C. officer whose traveled as far as Alaska, and once had his fifteen minutes of fame on national television for rescuing a hawk stuck in a picnic table.
Speaking of Alaska, how about the story of an angler who has caught arctic grayling. Yep, those are the ones with a wing. Steve Prievo tells us what it’s like to catch this almost mythical fish.
You like soldier stories? Prievo has one of the most beautiful, heart-wrenching stories of a dedication to a fall soldier that we’ve ever heard.
And, if aside from loving a good story about fascinating anglers, you just want to catch more fish? Well, we’ve got the tale of Eric Apalategui, a west-coast angler who is building a growing website that utilizes a network of anglers around the country to tell you exactly where to go, what to throw, and how to fish to have your most successful day on on the water. Eric was once lost and then searched out and found by a helicopter, but you’ll have to read the issue to learn more about that one.
I could keep telling you about the wild Georgia trout in the Blue Ridge Mountains (thanks Tad Murdock) or how you might stumble across a steelhead stream while living at a Catholic worker camp and be forever changed (Mike Hunyh shares some amazing stories with us), but you’d be better served by reading the issue.
I was so fascinated by the people I met who helped me conduct a 36-state, 200-night, living-out-of-a-Jeep fishing road trip from Maine to Montana in 2010, that I knew I had to create something incredible with those stories and more like them. This fifth issue of The Road to Water is the ongoing expression of my gratitude for all that the angling community has given me in the past 30 years. I hope these stories impact you as profoundly as they did me. I have been sharing these stories with co-workers, friends, and family for the past few months in amazement, and while it’ll cost you seven dollars, (my profit is only four), I think the 150-plus, ad-free pages in this magazine are more than worth it for the conversations, dreams and curiosity that they’ll inspire.
Thanks for reading.
Catch A Cure 