A few weeks ago, I had one of my more meaningful fishing outings in recent memory. It was a reunion with one of my church youth group leaders, Mark Bieber, who, after my high school years, became a fishing buddy. At that point in my life, I was a spin-only angler, as was Mark. We’d sometimes fish from land, but most of the time it was from Mark’s rowboat or canoe. Our quarry ranged from carp to largemouth bass to pike to channel cats, and we fished in places like the coves of the Connecticut River and the old claypit ponds in Berlin. Life happened, and we eventually stopped fishing together. But we always kept in touch; Mark and his wife Sharyn came to our wedding. Both were strong influences on me.

I think we can all agree that forty years is quite a long time to not fish together. So, dammit, we fixed that. Our happy fishing reunion/outing took place on a cool, sunny, breezy August afternoon, not the best conditions for largemouth bass fishing, but then again, catching fish was not the prime directive. We fished Dunning Lake at Winding Trails in Farmington, Mark with his spin rod and rubber worms, me with my fly rod and bass bugs. The conversation flowed, just like it did 40 years ago, from Bob Dylan to women to fishing to my book to retirement to getting older to more fishing, all while we both savored a wonderful cigar.