This is somewhat devastating because saying you might not do something at 23-years old is just youth speaking. Saying it at 43-year old means not only has it not happened, but that it might never happen. I should have gone when it wasn’t as expensive, but at the time it was expensive.
If I had saved $18,000 and, instead of fishing Bristol Bay, put that money into an index fund and left it alone for 20 years, it could be worth over $130,000 assuming 10% growth.
But that’s the thing, save at the expense of experience and you feel like you missed out. Spend as fast as you can make it, and you may never be able to afford a house or retirement, let alone college or a future for your kids. It’s about saving enough money and having enough experiences to reach a level of happiness. It’s also about perspective.
When I lived in California I’d pack up for the summer as soon as school was out for two months of fishing on the rivers of my youth. That’s the life to which many aspire. I’ve lost the brown trout of a lifetime on the White River in Arkansas, landed rainbows and browns on the Miracle Mile in Wyoming, caught Snake River cutthroats on the Snake River itself. I’ve caught grayling above the arctic circle and in Wyoming. I’ve caught native golden trout on a secret stream in California’s Sierra Nevada.
In three paragraphs I’ve gone from sounding like a poor, bitter angler who will forever whine about not being able to afford fishing the iconic rivers of Bristol Bay to a braggart going on about all the stuff he has done in the Lower 48.
But water looms, and it is impossible to both fish it all and put necessary valuation on the experience. This sort of comparison didn’t exist when people were simply content with their angling careers. There wasn’t a checklist (or emails) of exotic locations that threatened to rob us of satisfaction. Patagonia became legendary for trout and salmon because fish were planted there in the early 1900s. By the ‘30s and ‘40s officials were marketing Patagonia as a fishing destination, but travel angling was for the wealthy and or fanatical.
After World War II, my grandfather wasn’t planning a vacation to catch trout in Patagonia or taimen in Mongolia. He was fine with walleye in Nebraska.
The Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club became the modern iteration of the San Francisco Fly Casting Club in 1933. Casting ponds were built in 1938. But anglers in San Francisco needed only to drive seventy miles to catch 40-pound chinook salmon on the Russian River. Drive further north and there were more rivers with enormous fish. There wasn’t the need to travel great distances. There were steelhead in the Los Angeles River until the 1940s.
Contemporary society pits anglers not only against the reality of the crumbs we’re fishing for, but the expense of accessing that glimpse into the past.
So what are my fishing goals for 2025? Instead of letting email advertisements or books by legendary writers make me lament what I missed out on, maybe I should focus on where I am, when I am, and appreciate it for what it is.
But I’ll keep saving just in case.
• Jeff Lund is a freelance writer based in Ketchikan. His book, “A Miserable Paradise: Life in Southeast Alaska,” is available in local bookstores and at Alpha XR. “I Went to the Woods” appears twice per month in the Sports and Outdoors section of the Juneau Empire.
