If fishing didn’t save my life, it — at the very least — preserved my sanity. For a year, it provided my only respite from thinking about the horrific way in which my best friends died. Being on or along the water with a rod in my hand kept me tethered to the simple but profound pleasure of angling and allowed my mind to escape persistent mental visions of what their bedroom must have looked like in the wake of the murder/suicide.
Eventually, the nightmares stopped and I healed. Still, I will maintain a “maintenance” dosage of fishing to bring me peace and joy for the rest of my life.
Why? Because fishing is good for me, a fact I learned long before my friends died.
Here’s what happened:
(Robert Montgomery, This is the beginning of the first essay in Why We Fish, my new book, available at Amazon, Barns & Noble, and other booksellers, as well as from the publisher, NorLights Press. If you like the book, please post a brief review of it at Amazon. Thanks.)