2019: Year of the Fish
Last year I ate more fish than I’ve eaten in my entire life. It was a delicious year, but it was more than that. It was a year that changed me in ways I certainly didn’t see coming.
We are already nearly two weeks into 2020, but I think I’m still within the grace period for new year reflections. And, quite frankly, I can’t think of a better way to kick off this blog.
2019 washed over me, broke me down, and carried me onward, like a river pushing me toward a greater purpose. There were times it overpowered me, but I learned when to face it head on and when to flow with it. Many of the lessons 2019 taught me I owe to one thing: learning how to fish.
I didn’t grow up eating much seafood. My parents never seemed enthralled with it, so I was hardly exposed to it throughout my life. That all changed in the late fall of 2018, when I started dating my boyfriend who is an avid angler and seafood lover. He took me fishing for the first time on a blisteringly cold Washington morning late last January and, at the risk of losing you all with such a bad pun so early on, I was hooked.
As the year went on I fished in all kinds of places, from the Eastern Sierras to the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I learned how to gut, clean, and cook my fish, too. But it wasn’t just about catching the fish and making a tasty meal, though I very much enjoy that part.
I reconnected with the earth. I learned how to read the water and I started to understand how animals and the environment interact with one another. I learned how to be patient, how to be in the moment, and how to appreciate just getting to be out there. I spent days without so much as seeing a fish, and I had 20-fish days. Being competitive to a fault, I spent hours practicing so that I could outcast my boyfriend. I fished from a boat, I fished on lakes and rivers, I drilled a hole through ice and fished on frozen water.
Never in my life would I have guessed I’d learn such a skill. That I would voluntarily sit in the freezing cold for hours on end just hoping for a bite. And never in my life have I been happier!
Fishing helped me rediscover my love for nature, which eventually pushed me to start this blog. I didn’t study biology or forestry or sustainability in college. I was always intimidated by the academic demand of the sciences. Looking back, a part of me wishes I hadn’t shied away from science as I got older. But, as 2019 proved to me, it’s never too late to learn something new.
Learning how to fish has sparked my interest in a variety of environmental issues - an interest that has always existed, but that has been somewhat subdued in recent years. I now feel that I have an almost insatiable thirst for knowledge when it comes to topics like wildlife management, conservation, sustainability, public land issues, and climate change.
And so, I turn to books and trails.