Dying to Fish

How many times have you heard the following phrase: “No fish is worth dying for”?

I started tournament fishing 30 years ago and I’ve heard it a bunch – in local derbies, at the tour level and in casual conversation. We use it to assuage ourself when the wind is making the lake unsafe, or when there’s lightning in the area, or too much debris in the water and we postpone or cancel an event, or stay on the bank.

In most cases discretion is the better part of valor. Whether it’s for $200 in a Tuesday nighter, a hundred grand on the Elites, or just the satisfaction of a great day of catching, even if it’s worth it for you individually to take some risk, most of us care about how it would impact our families to get a visit from a couple of cops or friends with dour faces and some very bad news to share.

And yet we still do dumb stuff. I’m pretty careful in a boat, because I understand how much can go wrong, and I’ve still taken unnecessary risks. I’ve stuffed waves, crumpled in fear when it felt like lightning struck 20 yards away, just missed 55 gallon barrels under the surface, and so on.

So I am impressed by second year Elite Series pro Kyle Patrick, who had a scary incident related to a tick bite and his heart, and will sit out the last two Elite events. He was in position to qualify for next year’s Classic – it would have been his third in a row – and will now instead work the Expo floor for his sponsors. But he’ll be there instead of in a box.

That’s hard to understand when you’re 28 years old, feeling invincible, obsessed with fishing and depending on your rods and reels to pay your bills. Hell, it’s almost as hard when you’re 55 like me, not fishing for anything but relaxation – and knowing that you have one day off a week to hit the water. Kyle clearly made the right choice, but it’s one that will forever live with a “what if” in his mind. He can’t prove that he would not have suffered major health issues if he had fished, but he can’t prove that he would have, either. And while he’s shown consistency in getting to the Classic these last couple of years (plus a portion of another) there are no guarantees.

No one wants to be a cautionary tale, but no one thinks they will, either. I recall the story of 49ers defensive back Ronnie Lott from when I was a teenager – he could either miss a game, or have a portion of a finger amputated and still play. He chose the latter. I guess that’s part of what made him great, but that doesn’t mean it was the right choice. 

Fishing is not football – in some respects it’s more dangerous and in many respects it’s far less dangerous. I have no idea how many of Kyle’s contemporaries would have made the same choice or would have opted for the Ronnie Lott option. In this case, though, I think it was braver to sit one out and run the risks associated with that choice than to get after it in the remaining northern events.