The Back Page

Natural Progression

by mad mike benson

There was a point in my life where I earned the name “Mad Mike”. A moniker I fully embraced with the enthusiasm only a twenty-something with no money in his checking account and a cooler full of cheap beer can muster. I spent every waking moment thinking about and implementing plans to catch fish. Whatever kind of fish that I was obsessed with at that moment. Designed new flies, tried new spots, new techniques, different levels of sobriety. I was truly a mad man. Older guys would come fishing with me, or let's be honest, take me fishing as they usually owned the boats. And I would just laugh between swigs of beer when they would say stuff like, “It's just nice to be out here” ... or, “I'm happy just to be on the water. I don’t care if we catch a fish...”

Now I know that the progression of fishermen through the well-established clichéd stages of development has been beaten into the ground ad nauseum so I won’t get into all that. But now I'm a bit older... not old mind you... but older. I also have a small human in my home that demands an inordinate amount of time, money, and attention. Add into that I decided to fully restore a 30-year-old flats boat, a project that has taken 3 years and an amount of money that would just be impolite to put into print, not to mention bad for my health if my wife read it. So, let's just say I don’t get to fish as much as I used to. Hell, I don’t fish as much as the guys I used to make fun of did. I still obsess, I still dream, still play with fly designs, talk about, and pretty much live with one foot in the water... But I'll be damned if when I do set foot in a buddy’s skiff, peel back the tab on the first of maybe two beers I'll consume that day and take a look around, if I don’t say to myself, “I don’t care if I even catch a fish... it’s just nice to be out here...” Ole Norman Mclean might have been “Haunted by waters” ... I’m haunted by a twenty-year-old version of myself with a ten-beer buzz shaking his mohawk at me with disgust in his eyes... f*ck off kid... I’m busy...