AN ODE TO ANTHONY AMID THE PANDEMIC AND CANCELLED FISHING TRIPS, HIS SON’S SUDDEN MEDICAL CONDITION OFFERS PERSPECTIVE FOR ONE ANGLER BY TONY ENSALACO “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
T
hese are some of the lyrics that John Lennon used in his song “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy).” This simply means our lives don’t always turn out the way we expect they would. The story goes that the late, great former Beatle borrowed the phrase from another author, but he definitely made it popular. Whatever the origin, it seems to accurately describe what everyone has been going through over the past few months, and is an apropos expression for what was about to become of my life. Something that has remained constant in my ever-changing world for the past two decades is my annual spring steelhead pilgrimage to Southeast Alaska. What started out back in 2000 as an exciting new adventure eventually became a mandatory escape from the unreliable spring steelhead runs throughout the Midwest. The numbers of fish returning to the Great Lakes tributaries have been down for several years, making it extremely difficult to time the run because of the small window of opportunity that anglers have to work with. Also, the region can
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ALASKA SPORTING JOURNAL
JUNE 2020 | aksportingjournal.com
