Introduction

My first blog ever. I have always considered myself a fisherman even when my life has been focused on other things. As a youngster I grew up on Cape Cod fishing mostly salt water from the shore with my father and occasionally from a friends boat. As I got older into my teen years fishing with my father happened less and less and fishing with my friends happened more often. However, fishing with my friends was mostly freshwater fishing for largemouth bass, small mouth bass and pickerel. Mike Kennedy, Chris Shrum and Jeff Byrne were my main fishing buddies. Mike and I created a fishing style that was unlike any I have ever known, but it was very effective. We each had small rubber boats that we fished from. We would go to these very small ponds in Hyannis and catch dozens of small largemouths in a couple hours and have a blast. Chris Shrum was fortunate to live right on Long Pond in Centerville, MA and he had a canoe as well as a small motorized aluminum boat. Chris, Jeff and I would not quite catch the number of fish that Mike and I did, but the size was a little better and Chris and I both were able to take a few bass that bordered the 4 to 5 lb. range.

I graduated high school in 1993 and from then until 10 years later I could count the amount of times I went fishing on two hands - very depressing. Four years of college as well as one year teaching in West Springfield, MA kept me far away from the ocean and I was unfamiliar with any ponds in the area. I am sure that if I fly fished that there were some great areas for trout in western Massachusetts. In the fall of 1998 I received the high school band director job in Falmouth, MA and even though I graduated from the arch rival, Barnstable, I was excited to be back on the Cape. The process of building a successful high school band program is grueling to say the least and I honestly did not even meet any other teachers in the building for the first three years I taught there. It wasn’t until a fishing trip sprung up out of nowhere in 2002 that I would start to regain my fishing bug.