fishing with my dad essay

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Life Lessons from “Fishing With Dad”

When my kids were young, my favorite book to read at bedtime was called “Fishing with Dad.” The book, I now realize, was as much for my benefit as theirs. I was learning to be a father, and the leading of fishing trips seemed an essential part of that craft.

It’s been almost a decade since the book was put into storage, but two parts of the story stand out clearly in my mind. In the opening sequence, the hero father awakens his son before dawn and buys him doughnuts on the way to the fishing hole. (This early-morning departure qualifies, in my family, as science fiction.) There’s a lot in the middle that I can’t recall, but the story’s ending is unforgettable. Dad, recognizing that hooking a panfish on a worm-and-bobber rig might be a challenge for his young son, stealthily secures a fish on his own line, then sends his son to the car to retrieve a snack. He reels in both lines, unhooks the fish and transfers it to his son’s rig. When the boy returns, the bobber is dancing with a catch that cannot get away.  Fish on _!_

For a dad-in-training who longed for a fishing bond with his offspring, the author’s message came through loud and clear:  get your kid a fish. _ _But that dictum would prove hard to follow. In trout-fishing contests at my home-town park, where boys my son’s age—he was seven or eight at the time—were pulling dozens of stocked fish from a lazy stream, we managed to get skunked. Jonah learned then that he did not have a hero dad, but a fumble-fingered classics scholar who didn’t know the difference between trout worms and nightcrawlers. His disappointment was palpable (and hurt like hell), yet, somehow, his fishing ardor endured.

Last month, while standing on a beach in central New Jersey in a cold, driving rain, I found myself living out a bizarrely supersized version of the “Fishing with Dad” story line. Here I was, trying to get my kid a fish, but the bait I was throwing—Atlantic menhaden, a.k.a. bunker—was itself bigger than any of the quarry in hero-dad’s fishing hole. My son had gone back to the car, not to fetch snacks but to escape foul weather while playing games on my smartphone. I had brought Jonah here, three hours from home, in the midst of a late-spring nor’easter, gambling with his comfort and patience in the hopes of hooking him up to a ten-pound bluefish, perhaps the most powerful creature that a twelve-year-old can subdue without an adult’s help.

Now, as the rain rattled on my parka hood and the full-moon tide began surging over the beach crest, that gamble appeared badly misguided. The weather did not trouble me as much as the solitude: I was alone on a beach normally lined with four-wheel-drive trucks. Surfcasters in these parts will brave any storm if fish are within reach, so their absence was a very bad sign. But then, without warning, a violent motion animated one of the two rods I had placed in our sand spikes. Line began paying out from its reel, and self-doubt was instantly banished.

Surf fishing with cut bait, or “chunking,” has a rhythm unlike any other method of fishing. Hours can pass in total quiescence, then a rod suddenly bursts into convulsive life. No technique or presentation distinguishes one bait from another; the choice of whether to hit, and where, lies entirely with the fish. Like a slot machine with its sudden jackpots, the random rewards of chunking can be addictive. On a previous outing, Jonah and I discovered we shared this addiction, and that bond encouraged me to go through with this trip despite a wretched weather forecast.

Before I could set the hook on the beast now taking my rig straight out to sea, the line went slack. Bluefish are not fussy eaters, but this one mysteriously had dropped my bunker head in preference for some other meal. Still, its very presence had transformed the desolate beach from a place of despair into one of promise. As if sensing this, my son was now climbing over the dune toward me, miraculously choosing the wet and cold of the beach to the electronic comforts of our minivan.

It was not long before our next pickup, and my son took the rod_: fish on!_ I stood beside him shouting admonitions like a boxing coach at ringside. Rod tip up! Pressure on! Walk with the fish! (It was now charging parallel to the beach, fleeing some dimly sensed fate). The rod was bending and twitching, but suddenly it straightened with a sickening lack of tension. A second fish, cruising between us and our quarry, had brushed against the line and severed it. My son uttered a cry of anguish. I re-rigged and rebaited, trying to make the most of waning daylight.

My son was adrenalized now, pacing back and forth between our two rods with agitation. I would gladly have waded into the frothing surf, could I have somehow put a fish on his line, but the prey we had chosen to pursue could easily take off one of my fingers.

Then came a second take, and my son grabbed the twitching rod once more; once more I was standing beside him, cheering and admonishing by turns. This urgency, this sense of shared crisis, was what we had come for. The fight went on for a long time, until the quivering line approached the water’s edge. “Now comes the hard part,” I said, not at all sure I could talk Jonah through the mechanics of beaching a fish in heavy surf. But before I could try, the line flew out of the water, the leader cut by the fish’s teeth just north of the hook.

We headed for our motel room, vowing an early start the next day. Jonah was downcast after two defeats, and I was troubled by questions. Am I right to drag my son into a realm ruled by passion, not wisdom, a realm where I cannot control events as the hero-dad did? Should I place him so much at risk of heartbreak? What right has a guy like me—more at home in a bookstore than on a beach, heedless of the wire leaders that would have brought that last fish home—to take a boy surf fishing?

By morning the storm had churned up the surf such that even chunking was impossible, as a local tackle shop informed me. There would be no second chance, and my primary feeling was one of relief, given the high stakes of the previous night. I had failed to get my kid a fish but somehow the truncated trip felt like a success. Jonah’s peaceful slumber confirmed this; with the adrenaline flushed from his system, he slept blissfully until nearly checkout time, then rose in good spirits, ready for the long drive home. On the way to the Garden State Parkway, I bought him doughnuts.

The One That Got Away

A dad tries to rekindle a family’s father-son fishing tradition — but his son fails to take the bait.

As a dad, I don’t take many stupid risks anymore. For example, I won’t drive through blizzards unless I’m doing it in the name of fatherhood itself. That’s happened twice: Once to drive my wife to the hospital when she went into labor with our first son, Marcel, in February of 2015, and then two Februaries later to go ice-fishing.

I left my wife and young son at home, in upstate New York, and drove with three friends toward the Canadian border in white-out conditions, sliding through intersections and backsliding down hills all the way to North Hero, Vermont, to go fishing, like it was some kind of emergency. We dragged a sled heaped with gear over the ice through the whipping snow for half a mile, to the refuge of a plywood fishing shanty. We set our lines and tip-ups over the holes in the ice, then retreated to the shanty to watch from the warm glow of the woodstove. For most of the day, we took turns checking the holes outside, reaching our hands into the gelid ice water to re-bait the hooks as needed.

Baiting a hook with frozen fingers felt clumsy, like learning to eat with chopsticks. Except I don’t love fishing like I love eating noodles. I just wanted to learn so I could teach my son. I imagined, years into the future, being able to sit on a frozen lake with my Marcel, imparting wisdom through fishing metaphors.

Most of the other traditional father and son bonding activities were unavailable to me. I don’t play sports, I don’t fix cars, I don’t hunt, and I didn’t spend much time with my father growing up. For a model, I could only look to the old photos of my great-grandfather Leopold Arbour, holding massive northern pike by the tail or dozens of lake trout on strings.

I’d always longed to be as rugged as [my great-grandfather]. As a new father, that wish had suddenly intensified.

I’d grown up hearing tales of great-grandpa— the exemplary rugged outdoorsman in my family tree — and his fishing adventures on Lake Champlain, hunting the mythical lake beast “Champ” and the fanged northern pike known locally as the waterwolf. He was an actual lumberjack from Quebec who’d worked his way down through the Adirondacks as a teenager.

He never took me fishing, but I used to visit him in the summers at the Adirondack cabin that he’d built, swimming in the cold pond out front that he’d dug by hand. I’d always longed to be as rugged as him. As a new father, that wish had suddenly intensified.

Back in the shanty, my best impression of Leopold Arbour wasn’t good enough. Five hours passed with no movement on the tip-ups. I pulled Grandpa Arbour’s flask out of my coat — a glass one wrapped with leather and emblazoned with a Canadian maple leaf — hoping to ingest some of his hard spirit in the form of Wild Turkey. We each took ceremonious swigs followed by less ceremonious swigs until it was gone.

As the daylight faded, the guide came in to see if we’d caught anything — we’d hooked one minuscule fish (most likely re-caught bait). Eager to demonstrate Vermont’s lax weed culture, the guide packed a bowl and told us between puffs, “I think you just got here too late, man.”

The spring my son turned 5, the old idea hit the surface of my brain like a fanged northern pike charging from the depths: I should take my son fishing.

It was the final snag in a long string of fishing failures. Once, when I was a teenager, my father had taken me on a deep-sea fishing trip off the coast of Gloucester during one of his bi-monthly weekend visits. It was a good change of pace from our usual routine — bowling, a movie, and a night at the Red Roof Inn — but we didn’t know what we were doing. We watched the other father-son duos pull in coolers-full of fish while we only caught two inedible dogfish and froze. Everyone else was wearing heavy seafaring coats, and I spent most of the trip in the cabin, trying to wrap every available inch of thin cloth from my Beer City Skateboards hoodie around my trembling hands.

I’d tried to approach fishing with renewed vigor in my 20s, heading out once with a guide and once with a friend from work, only to get tossed by currents. After the ice shanty incident, I decided to hang up my pole for good.

And yet, the spring my son turned 5, the old idea hit the surface of my brain like a fanged northern pike charging from the depths: I should take my son fishing.

Fishing, especially under tough conditions, still just seemed to contain so many of the lessons a father should teach his son — self-sufficiency, patience, and grit.

I bought a new fishing pole, and Marcel and I marched down the banks of the Hudson River. We trudged over the driftwood and the water chestnuts, and I imagined that we were emulating the way Grandpa Arbour and his son used to seek out fishing spots in the Adirondacks, near Lake Tear of the Clouds, where the Hudson originates. I liked to think that despite the chasm between our skill levels, we were drawn to the water by the same forces. But I doubt it. I think Grandpa Arbour was mostly in it for sustenance. He famously kept his bathtub full of live fish during the Great Depression so that his family didn’t starve.

Marcel spent most of our time sitting on a rock behind me and asking if we could leave. On the rare occasions when I caught a fish, he cringed and looked at me sideways as I reached into its mouth with pliers to release the hook.

Being on the water, part of the network of oceans and streams that connect the world, releases the tension in your chest and lets you breathe deeper.

Three years later, despite his lack of interest, I tried again. But before I could, Marcel used all the fishing line on our only pole to construct a makeshift drone like the one he’d seen on his favorite cartoon, Craig of the Creek .

He tied helium balloons — “Happy Birthday” balloons, several SpongeBobs, and a few pink hearts — to a transparent strawberry container. We pressed the record button on my wife’s old iPhone and taped it inside. Marcel flipped the bail on the reel, and the drone hovered low, too heavy to get off the ground. We removed the phone and tried again. This time the balloons blew forward violently and tangled. Marcel turned the handle a few times, and then a powerful gust carried the whole ensemble over the tree line. The reel buzzed, and Marcel twisted and pulled like a marlin fisherman. Finally, the wind ran away with all the line and left him staring at a bare rod with his mouth hanging open. The SpongeBobs grinned their manic grins until they shrank into a cluster of specks in the blue sky. I looked down to see if Marcel was crying. He stared up blankly for a moment and then burst into a fit of joy, jumping and cackling. He bolted through an active volleyball game toward my wife, screaming, “Mama! Mama! It worked!”

The rest of the week, we followed more of Marcel’s inspirations along the Hudson and Fishkill Creek. We built a catapult for the black spiky water chestnuts that cover most of the beaches; we constructed an elaborate driftwood hut; we discovered a massive bald eagle's nest; we found a way into a disused brick hat factory and explored its ruins. After each long day, Marcel and I biked home in the evening glow. I saw in his face that he was invigorated but relaxed. He’d been deeply breathing in the river’s calm might all day long.

The Hudson is tidal — water flows upriver for six hours, and then flows back out for another six. As Marcel and I worked on our driftwood hut by the river’s edge, the water line inched up the shore until it wet our shoes and socks. The primary forces of the universe were lapping at our feet. Being on the water, part of the network of oceans and streams that connect the world, releases the tension in your chest and lets you breathe deeper. The vastness of it inspires a vastness of imagination and a smallness of self that make conversation and creation easier.

You don’t need a fishing pole for that, but it helps to have something to do. As we built our driftwood hut beside the water, I taught Marcel how to build a simple lever to hoist large pieces of driftwood into place. He was amazed by its primitive utility.

Standing there, I realized maybe I like everything about fishing but the fishing itself.

We met other river people: dog walkers, bird watchers, photographers — an elderly fisherman named Phil, who, like us, never seemed to be fishing. We first met Phil on a beach overlooking an inlet. He told us that he grew up fishing for crab by hand with his father in the freshwater pools of western Puerto Rico and that he’d been fishing the Hudson for 40 years. He saw Marcel’s binoculars and asked if we’d seen any great blue herons. We had just seen one at the base of a waterfall by the creek, standing like a statue, staring at the water. We watched it for about 20 minutes, but it never moved. Phil said, “He’s fishing for herring. The herring come up from the ocean around this time, and the stripers are right behind them. When I keep seeing that blue heron fishing for herring, I know it’s almost striper time.”

We saw Phil each of the remaining vacation days, in jogging shoes and a Kangol hat, strolling along the shoreline of the Dennings Point Peninsula and along the river beaches, with his hands clasped behind his back. I wondered why he wasn’t fishing yet. All around the riverfront, striper fishermen were already sitting patiently next to their lines in the water, but Phil was always without a fishing pole.

One afternoon, we stood next to him on a dock by the Fishkill marsh, where there is an especially serene vista. The water, perfectly still, mirrors a patch of reeds that blow gently against a panoramic backdrop of the Hudson Highlands. Osprey and bald eagles hunt there, and in early May, you can see spawning stripers writhing in the shallow water. It occurred to me that Phil might not care about fishing as much as he once did. Maybe he didn’t need to fish anymore. Maybe he just liked to be there, observing the animals, releasing his energy and absorbing the energy of the water.

Standing there, I realized maybe I like everything about fishing but the fishing itself. I like to be by the water, I like to understand the patterns of nature, I like wearing overshirts with lots of pockets, but sitting with a line in the water feels like being tethered to the river bed. I reflected on my great-grandfather and the other things we did together. He was also an avid gardener. Once he saw me pluck two juicy tomatoes off the vine and bite into one, and then brought me inside so my great-grandmother could make a tomato and mayonnaise sandwich — white toast, mayonnaise, salt and pepper, and one big tomato slice. I sat with him at the table and ate one, then two, then I asked my great-grandmother for another. Grandpa Arbour looked at me, grinning. He suggested I skip fourth grade to spend the year gardening with him. He wouldn’t have wasted our time with fishing because he could tell I wasn’t into it. He saw me for who I was.

Back at the marsh, a train cut across the vista like it was gliding on the water. Phil spotted a great blue heron and pointed it out. We watched the svelte bird transform into a dinosaur as it opened its wings, spanning 6 feet across, then fly low over the reeds. I never realized how big they were until then. It had looked so meek a few days earlier — almost invisible — standing, staring at the water with its neck crooked, waiting for a fish.

Home — Essay Samples — Life — Joy — The Joy of the Catch: A Personal Narrative on Fishing

The Joy of The Catch: a Personal Narrative on Fishing

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Published: Jun 13, 2024

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Essay on Fishing With Family

Students are often asked to write an essay on Fishing With Family in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Fishing With Family

Introduction to fishing with family.

Fishing with family is like a fun game where everyone can join. It’s not just about catching fish, but also about spending time together. You learn to be patient and enjoy nature.

Preparing for the Trip

Before you go fishing, you pack snacks, drinks, and gear like rods and bait. Everyone picks a job, making sure you have all you need. It’s like packing for an adventure.

At the Lake or River

When you reach the water, you find a good spot. Then, you cast your lines and wait. Sometimes you talk, or just sit quietly. It’s peaceful, watching the water and sky.

Catching Fish

Feeling a fish bite is exciting! You work together to reel it in. Even if you don’t catch much, it’s fun to try. It’s about the thrill, not just the fish.

250 Words Essay on Fishing With Family

Introduction to family fishing.

Fishing with family is a fun way to spend time together outdoors. It’s a chance to sit by a lake or river, feel the fresh air, and wait for fish to bite. This activity is not just about catching fish; it’s about making memories with loved ones.

Before going fishing, you need to pack some important things. You need fishing rods, bait, hooks, and a bucket to keep the fish. Don’t forget snacks and drinks, because fishing can take a while. Everyone should wear a hat and sunscreen to protect from the sun.

Learning Together

Fishing is also about learning. Parents can teach their kids how to tie hooks, choose the right bait, and throw the line into the water. It’s exciting when you feel a tug on the line and try to pull in a fish. Sometimes you catch one, and sometimes you don’t, but it’s always fun to try.

Enjoying Nature

While waiting for fish, you can enjoy the sounds of water and birds. You might see ducks or frogs. It’s peaceful to watch the water and trees, and it feels good to be away from busy city life.

Building Bonds

The best part of fishing with family is talking and laughing together. You share stories and jokes, and help each other. When someone catches a fish, everyone feels happy. These are special moments that you will remember for a long time.

500 Words Essay on Fishing With Family

The joy of fishing with family.

Fishing is more than just catching fish; it’s about spending time with the people you love. When you go fishing with your family, you create memories that can last a lifetime. Imagine sitting by a lake, the sun shining down, and your loved ones by your side. You talk, laugh, and wait for a fish to bite. This is what fishing with family is all about.

One of the best parts about fishing with your family is learning new things together. Maybe your grandpa shows you how to tie a hook onto your line, or your mom teaches you the best way to cast your rod. Each family member might have their own special trick to share. Even if someone doesn’t catch a fish, you all learn from trying, and that’s what counts.

Patience is Key

A break from technology.

In today’s world, we’re often looking at screens. Fishing with family gives everyone a break from phones, tablets, and TVs. It’s a chance to enjoy nature and be with each other without distractions. You can hear the water, see the trees, and feel the breeze. It’s a peaceful time to connect with the world around you and the people you’re with.

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

When you fish with your family, you work as a team. Maybe someone sets up the fishing spot while another prepares the bait. If a fish is caught, you might need help to reel it in. Working together, you all share in the excitement and the success. It’s a great way to feel close to your family and appreciate what you can do when you help each other.

Respecting Nature

Enjoying the catch.

If you’re lucky, you’ll catch some fish to take home. This can be the best part! Cooking and eating the fish with your family can be very rewarding. It’s fun to think that you caught what you’re eating. It can make the meal taste even better because you all worked for it together.

In conclusion, fishing with family is a wonderful activity that brings everyone closer. It’s a time to learn, be patient, take a break from technology, work as a team, respect nature, and enjoy the rewards of your efforts. Whether you catch a big fish or just enjoy the day, the time spent with family is what truly matters.

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Sharing a Father’s Love for Fishing

When I tell you I love my dad, I mean it with my entire being. When I think of a human so imperfectly perfect, he always comes to mind. It’s amazing how the things he would say to me still resonant in my daily life.

His death is what really showed me the level on which my dad loved me. It was during a debate with my four other siblings as we organized his going away services that I realized my dad was really my hero. Somehow we all were able to argue until our mouths were dry, and jaws hurt that we were his favorite kid. How can one man manage to make every one of his kids feel so special?

My dad taught me how to fish during my early years, he put a rod in my hand as soon as I could balance in a pair of shoes. For that to be my entry into fishing and to see how my life has transcended as a result is my ultimate motivation. I want my story to be every kid’s.

Fishing is more than fishing. It’s strategy. It’s research. It’s determination. It’s meditation. It’s bonding time. It’s food, I could go on forever.

The conversations and bonds formed while fishing are life-changing. Even during times of complete silence, waiting for my wooden cork to sink below the surface, I think about how I could be a better son, person, and fisherman.

I have changed careers several times on my journey. One of my proudest accomplishments was becoming a New Mexico State Police Officer. The opportunity brought me many life experiences, many life lessons, and tons of real-life knowledge. I used that position to help be the change I wanted to see in the world, by serving the community I care about. I’ve been honored to speak on national television, travel and speak on panels with decorated civil rights leaders, been a guest on different podcasts, and train ranking police officers on how to be better in communities of color from a curriculum that I created. Now I want to share not only my life experiences but also my skills.

I happen to be talented at catching fish, thanks to my dad. I have always had the dream of being a teacher or trainer in some capacity. Now I have combined my two passions of training and fishing.

My goal is to equip parents with the tools needed to be able to teach their kids or friends to catch fish. Nature is all around us during these unprecedented times, and now more than ever we have the time to appreciate it! This is the time to make lemons out of lemonade and make the memories with your child that they too will remember forever.

P.S: I was my dad’s favorite!

Go fishing with Anwar and learn the skills his father passed down to him.

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Anwar — I love your essay! I too grew up fishing with my dad — and am now trying to teach my children to love to fish — and resonated with so many things you wrote. Keep up the good and important work! Gretel

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Fishng with Dad

By: Yan   •  Essay  •  1,027 Words  •  November 17, 2009  •  1,000 Views

Essay title: Fishng with Dad

When we were children my mom and dad frequently took my sisters and me camping and fishing to a lake in South Georgia. The campground was just beautiful with large oak and pine trees showing off their greenery and massive trunks. There were several campsites set up near the crystal clear lake and the surrounding area. We set our tent up to air out the musky smell. Eventually, the owners of the campsite would come to greet us and set up a fire pit. This fire pit ring was just a big old tire rim with the rubber part taken off, but it served its purpose. The campground also had a pool for those campers that didn’t care to swim in the lake, and a small convenience store built like a log cabin that sold everything from bait to stamps. When you went in the store you couldn’t help but smell the strong scent of pine sol they apparently used to mask the smell of the stinky crickets. While camping with my family was fun, I looked forward to fishing with my dad the most.

My dad loved to fish and he loved taking me with him. Fishing also guaranteed me one on one time that I will always treasure. My dad could constantly depend on me to jump up and go with fishing with him no matter what time he left. I was extremely proud to be his fishing buddy. When he thought I was old enough my dad made a rule that I couldn’t go fishing with him unless I could bait my own hook and help clean the fish. You bet I learned to do all that real fast. I think that is one of the main reasons my sisters didn’t care to go fishing. They also didn’t care too much about getting worm dirt under their nails, getting bit by mosquitoes or having the smell of fish on their clothes. My sisters don’t know what they missed by not going on these fishing trips with my dad.

Dad and I would get up way before the sun was up. We would quietly get dressed so as not to wake anyone. He would sometimes even let me drink coffee, which I thought was a great. He would put it in a coffee cup with a lid and make a big deal out of it. We would walk to the bait store to get our drinks, snacks, bait and anything else we might think of. Then we would launch the boat.

There was nothing more refreshing then feeling the cool morning breeze whipping through my hair as we sped towards the fishing spot. My dad was a great fisherman who had the knack of finding the holes where there were fish. He had just the right mixture of talent, luck and experience. Sometimes daddy would try to talk while we were headed to the spot, but that was almost impossible. We would normally end up yelling over the sound of the motor and constantly having to repeat ourselves, and it would become extremely frustrating. The best time to talk was while we were floating around waiting for the fish to bite. We both would take our shoes off to feel the warmth of the sun on the carpeted bottom of the boat, until we drifted on an active fishing hole.

Dad’s favorite fishing hole on this lake was easy to spot by the landmarks. There was a willow tree that gracefully drooped over the water in its magnificent beauty and swung with the gentle breeze. Right beneath this tree you could spot part of a log that was

Fishing with Dad

Like many of the people I fish with these days, I grew up fishing. I now take my son to the streams my dad took me to, and often think about how much he would love fishing with his grandson. I point out large rocks that he caught fish behind and tell stories about how his biggest smiles were always on the river.

Like many of the people I fish with these days, I grew up fishing. My dad taught me about salt water fish when we lived in Florida and then about largemouth bass and trout when we moved to North Carolina.  While we liked all kinds of fishing, we pretty quickly settled into trout fishing in the mountains as our favorite.

Each year he would save up his vacation days to take me and sometimes my brother fly fishing, quoting T.S. Eliot with, “In the mountains, there you feel free.” Having studied at Sewanee and at Oxford, he would often bring his favorite authors into the long, comfortable conversations we’d have driving there.

Fishing with my son at Green Cove Creek in Virginia

The streams we would fish had great Southern names, like Gragg Prong, North Harper, and Lost Cove Creek, and were usually small streams , only a few yards across. We would lay out the maps in the evenings to pick a new spot for the coming day. Driving to the streams would be like sitting in front of a pile of birthday presents, not knowing but hoping. We’d look down from the gravel road through the trees and brush to get an idea of whether we had found the right place.

As we would step into the water and look upstream, we would talk about how the trees would arch above the stream, reaching up with bright green branches towards the brighter light coming through the top. It felt like walking into church with the altar just a little farther upstream.  And then we’d start our fishing and love it. At the end of the day, he would think back and say, “When you’ve caught a trout, you’ve really done something.”

I now take my son to the streams my dad took me to, and often think about how much he would love fishing with his grandson. I point out large rocks that he caught fish behind and tell stories about how his biggest smiles were always on the river. So now, since I can’t fish with my dad anymore, we have a different family tradition: when we’re having a particularly good time on a stream or river, we reach down into the shallow water for a nice smooth rock that looks like the rest of them.

Then when we get back home, not that week or even that month but sometime soon, we drive to the cemetery. We sit down on the hard ground with the fresh mown grass, lay the rock at his tombstone and tell him the story. There are lots of rocks at his tombstone.

Sometimes in the story we land the fish and sometimes the fish gets away, but it doesn’t matter. We’re just glad he’s with us.

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Fishing with My Dad by June Hannay Kosier

“I worry about kids today not having time to build a tree house or ride a bike or go fishing. I worry that life is getting faster and faster.”                                                                                                –  John Lasseter My father was a hunter and fisherman.  When I was about 11, I decided that I wanted to go fishing with him.  We started out going fishing after dinner and then tried Saturday morning fishing.  We had a few interesting situations while fishing that summer.

My mother’s favorite color is red.  Since she did all my clothes shopping, everything I owned was red—solid red, red striped, red plaid.  You name it, it was red including my sneakers.  The benefit of this is that all my clothes matched.  The downside of this is that bulls like to chase you. 

Dad had waders for walking down streams fishing for trout.  I would walk along the stream bed because I only had my winter boots or my sneakers (red, of course) to wear.  Occasionally, I would encounter cows, horses or goats.  They were curious and would come near and sniff.  One evening, while fishing in the Poestenkill Creek, I found myself in a “pretty kettle of fish” as I entered a pasture with a bull. For anyone who thinks that bulls charging anything red is a myth, I will show you a scar to prove you wrong.  The bull saw me, dressed in red from head to toe, and came charging.   I didn’t get gored, but I did cut my knee open when I ran into the stream and fell.  The bull was satisfied with that.  Dad laughed hysterically. 

Next came fishing on an early Saturday morning in Vermont.  Again, my boots became a problem.  Dad waded down the swollen stream and I walked along the shore with my winter boots on. The grass and weeds were high and filled with morning dew.  Walking along the stream, my pants got very wet.  Dad decided to build a small fire near the stream and dry me out.  We could only find a few wet sticks to build the fire and Dad explained that the fire would be very smoky.  It sure was.  I was almost dry when we saw about twenty men came over the hill with brooms, rakes, hoes and fire extinguishers.  Dad said “Oh, Oh! We are in trouble now!” The only thing I could think of was this must be what it feels to see the enemy coming over the hill before a great battle.  The fire fighters must have seen us at the same time we saw them.  They immediately turned around and went back from where they came from.  Dad thought they probably thought there was a grass fire and since they saw there wasn’t, decided to leave.  “We got lucky.” Dad said.  

After these two incidents. I decided to try Bass fishing in a boat.  Dad decided to let me row.  My father was no fool, but this turned out to be not his best idea. I was like a “fish out of water”.  I managed to row us around in circles despite my Dad’s instructions on the proper way to row a boat. As a sailor’s daughter, in my mind, I was a failure.  In order to be able to fish that day, Dad had to “cut bait” and take over the rowing. 

I never went bass fishing again.  As a matter of fact, after that summer, I never went fishing for anything again. I had “bigger fish to fry”—boys.   This story was first published in the New Authors Journal, Special Issue, 2022, vol. XIX, Number 2, page 14.

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I’ll never forget the father-son fishing trip that changed my life

by Brent Frazee | Jun 18, 2017 | Fishing , Outdoors | 0 comments

On Father’s Day, I often drift back to the summer when my dad took me on my first fishing adventure.

I was just a little guy, but my dad decided I was old enough to accompany him to Canada. So off we went to Lake Despair, a secluded body of water in Ontario.

For a city boy, it was quite an eye-opening experience. Our cabin at the water’s edge was no Ritz. When I asked my dad where the bathroom was, he led me to a little shack in the back where flies were buzzing about.

“How do we flush?” I asked my dad, looking at the two-holer facilities.

Dad laughed and said, “You don’t. This is an outhouse. You just do your business, hold your breath and get out of there.”

Then there was the fishing. I had caught bluegills, bass and crappies on our first trips back in Illinois. But I had never seen fish with razor-sharp teeth that seemingly had a mean streak.

I remember how we went out on the lake for a few hours after we got unpacked. My dad had hired a guide for the next three days, but we were on our own for the first evening.

My dad rowed us around in a small aluminum boat, and we fished the weedy shallows near our cabin. He tied a red and white Dardevle spoon to my line and instructed me to cast to the edge of reeds that jutted out of the water.

On one of my first casts, I watched as a wake emerged from the weeds and ended with an explosion at the end of my line. I pulled back and watched as a northern pike burst out of the calm surface and arched as it tried to escape.

It looked like it was big as I was, and my heart raced. I can still picture it to this day.

I eventually got the fish in, and my dad proudly proclaimed, “Maybe I didn’t need to hire a guide.”

The trip only got better. The next morning, a Native American guide whose family had for generations lived in the area drove up our cabin in a loud, beatup truck.

After we exchanged greetings, we piled into that truck and headed for another lake. I remember that the door wouldn’t shut, and it would spring open every time we would round a curve. I also remember how I would almost fly out, saved only by my dad grabbing me by the scruff of my shirt.

Once we piled our fishing equipment and our cooler into the boat, Arnie, our guide, started the motor and headed into a wilderness the likes of which I had never seen.

I wondered why he cut the motor at one point, until I saw him pointing at a bear along the bank.

Once we got to a beautiful bay, Arnie told us it was time to cast. We caught several smaller northerns right off, and I was happy. When I cast to an area where logs filled the bottom, I felt my lure come to a stop and I announced, “I think I hooked a log.”

I tried to hand the rod to Arnie, but he gruffly said, “Logs don’t swim,” referring to my line that was slowly cutting through the water to my right. “You have a big fish.”

I fought that fish for what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a few minutes in reality. Once Arnie slipped the net under the fish, I was in awe. I had never seen a fish that big.

We also caught walleyes that day and Arnie filleted our catch  on a boat paddle, then peeled some potatoes and threw them into a frying pan sizzling with grease. He also opened a can of beans and put it in the fire. A few minutes later, we had a shore lunch that I can still remember.

We continued to fish for hours over the next few days and I never got tired of it. There was something new to see every day—waterfalls, beautiful islands, loons and even a moose wading through the shallows.

I could tell by the look on my dad’s face that he was thrilled that I was taking to the world that he so loved.

Don’t get me wrong. My dad was by no means an expert fisherman. But he loved being outdoors.

I think a lot of that had to do with his job. He was in charge of a large accounting firm in our hometown of Rockford, Ill., and he put in long hours, sometimes even returning to work after dinner.

He was a great guy, but he was serious, often stressing about his job without voicing it. But when he was outdoors, he was a different person.

He was relaxed and we had a chance to bond. We would talk about everything – from my little-league team to the days he grew up on a farm.

That trip began a long relationship in the fishing boat. My dad and mom went in with their friends and bought a cottage on a lake in Wisconsin and we were up there almost every weekend. We would slip out to fish every morning before the girls woke up and we learned where every productive hole on that lake was located.

Every time a storm was slowly approaching, we would rush to the boat and head to the bubbler – a spot where water bubbled up from an adjacent lake. We knew the walleyes would be hitting for an hour or so before the storm hit.

My dad and I continued to fish until he became older. When he was started to get frail, we reversed roles. I took him to Canada, this time to Lake of the Woods, for one last trip.

I remember how he got excited to catch walleyes and giant crappies when our guide pulled our boat over a hump.

It wasn’t long after that that dad’s health went downhill. He and mom spent the winters in Florida and we got together a few times to do some fishing on the Gulf of Mexico. But eventually, things got worse and it was obvious that he didn’t have much more time.

I still remember our last conversation. It was a little awkward at first. Dad was a proud man, and he didn’t want to admit that he was about to die.

But suddenly his face brightened as he changed the subject.

“Hey, do you remember Arnie?” he asked.

Yes, Dad, I’ll never forget.

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Fishing For Perspective

By Alex Odland

Published: October 04, 2023

My brothers and I have an ongoing joke about our Dad. He's constantly on work calls, which results in anxious pacing around our house. When he gets tired, he stops in place like a statue, so we love to snap photos of him when he's frozen. Sometimes we find him blocking doorways, in the middle of the road, or in front of the open fridge. It's like he's sleepwalking, so in the zone that he's completely unaware of his surroundings because of how much he loves his work. So when my Dad and two brothers arrived at Eagle Lake in Ontario, Canada, I was shocked to see my Dad seemingly set free from his usual real estate daze.

Now I had protested this trip for quite some time. Summer was ending, and I'd be moving into college just five days after we were planning on returning home. While I usually had my Dad wrapped around my finger as his only daughter, he didn't budge. So here I was, a tackle box in my left hand, fruit cup in my right, and five hours from the nearest international airport, ready to fish from 8 am to 5 pm for a week straight.

Just as I had avoided the trip, I boycotted our first day on the lake with great prowess. It was only until I saw the inner child of my workaholic father come out that it occurred to me that, if anything, I could sit on the boat for ten hours to make him happy. We loaded up a bright red cooler with a variety of fixings: finger sandwiches that seemed to be from the grab-and-go sections of the airport, ketchup-flavored potato chips (which is apparently a Canadian classic), and my personal favorite, O'Henry candy bars. After filling up our boat with enough gas for the day and much-too-alive bait, we flew across the water in our 15-footer, searching for the biggest and best walleye and muskie Eagle Lake had to offer.

We located our first fishing spot thirty minutes from the lodge, and it was nothing like I had ever seen. Here I was, living my Animal Planet dreams, absolutely taken by the rush of the Canadian flora and fauna coexisting with our now seemingly microscopic fishing boat. Here I pondered philosophical tenets that had never crossed my mind, like how have humans altered the physical parts of the natural world? Or If wilderness lives at the edge of civilization, where am I? I even witnessed a bald eagle swoop down from a 30-meter tree, perfectly skimming the water to snatch a freshly killed walleye only a few feet from my fishing rod. The raw beauty of nature got me thinking about what was important to me, who I am at my core, and all of the things around me that have become mundane because I see them so often: my incredible and loving family, the idyllic nature I am surrounded by in my home and the places I get to visit, and the valuable gift of time.

After the awareness I had experienced on the first day on the lake, I woke up the next morning excited about going through the same motions I had the day before. I then realized perspective was the most crucial piece: how can I take an experience and focus more on the positive components of the present versus all of the things I wish I could change? That day, I shifted from "I have to" to "I get to." As we sought out our next fishing spot, I helped use the underwater camera to jig around pockets of fish. I learned how to hook my bait (without screaming), jammed out to Jimmy Buffet with my Dad and brothers, and caught a 27-inch, picture-perfect walleye. Later that day, I was caught off-guard by our guide asking us if we wanted to cliff jump at a spot he knew of on the lake. Cliff jump? Is this guy crazy? My mind wandered to articles I had read about everything that could go wrong with this sudden shift in events. Not only the act, but everything throwing myself off a cliff represented, sent shivers down my spine. There were a million things to question: what was beneath the surface? What if I didn't jump far out enough? What if I got to the top of the ledge and couldn't bring myself to jump at all?

The idea of cliff jumping also had to do with all the facets of my life that I have precautions about jumping right into. My brothers are always hiding their most poor-judgment decisions from me because they know my Dad would say yes 100 times before I give them a "maybe." Whether that be about buying fireworks to launch off our patio, hypothesizing about throwing our dogs into the deep end of a pool to “see what happens,” or cliff jumping off of a 30-ft ledge into the depths of Eagle Lake, I've always lived by the mantra "Better safe than sorry." It was when I was able to let go of these words that I was able to get off of our boat and begin to summit the rock formation we had stopped at. By the time I was at the top of the cliff, the thoughts of panic swimming around my mind began to settle. Here, I felt a release, a previously undiscovered clarity, that propelled me forward to the edge, ready to jump before both of my formerly confident brothers. I remember looking down and then never looking back, jettisoning my entire being feet-first into the unknown, with all the people I loved cheering me on. I felt catharsis I had never experienced before, a release of every single worry I had about being away from home, going to college for the first time, and doing things like fishing and cliff jumping that felt foreign and uncomfortable. This jump was a gateway to some recent developments in my life, all of which I would never have tried had I not let loose a little more to appreciate all that is around me.

I pulled my Dad aside after dinner that day. Alongside my gratitude, we shared our fears about the coming years. He told me about his time in college and how he was scared to live as a divorced man in our house without my brothers and me to keep things interesting. We laughed about my childhood, especially the summer I had scraped my entire face from being dragged across the pavement trying to walk our yellow lab, Rufus. He told me secrets, ones I am still keeping, and I realized there was so much more to learn about him, puzzle pieces of who he is that his work tended to hide in their entirety. I loved the sides I saw of him in our little paradise; I couldn't remember the last time he told me he was proud of me or impressed with what I had accomplished, and by the lake, I was all that and more. However, what resonated with me most about our conversation was that he saw this new side of me, too. A girl who could let go of her parents’ not-so-recent divorce, a girl who could accept that her grandmother had stage IV pancreatic cancer, a girl who could take on what was thrown at her with grace. I had become a girl that could process her grief and loss in healthy and rejuvenating ways because I had people and activities I loved supporting me. During this conversation, I saw for the first time how much the turbulent and toxic American work culture had been to my Dad. He worked so hard, so often, and there are only so many hours in the day for him to take time for the things he loves. All of those work calls, while important, limited exploration and suppressed joy. I vowed that no matter the workload I would take on in the future, the thing that gave my life the most value was everything I loved—fishing, cliff jumping, and the hobbies I had the ability to discover.

By some form of time travel, it was somehow our last day in Ontario, and while this was the day I had anticipated counting down to for the entirety of the week, I wanted to stay there at the lodge forever. The protesting I had done when we departed for Canada reared its head in a new and mutated way, and I refused to leave. I pitched alternate solutions and ways I could get out on the boat one more time before we left for the airport in three hours. I begged and pleaded but to no avail. Fortunately, my usually unopinionated brother piped up and suggested, "Why don't we go to the point?". The point was a close drive, a beautiful hike that led to an unexplored alcove lined with some of the most picturesque cliff jumping spots you could imagine. The water was always flat and glassy, and the walk required to reach The Point was enough to keep anyone else from entering the space. It was here that I was the happiest, an unbothered form of myself that hadn't come out amongst the chaos of my high school years. My last moments in Ontario were spent cold plunging into the lake, climbing up to cliffs of varying heights, and throwing myself off of ledges up to 45 feet. I felt alive—a final taste of my personal paradise to end a life-changing week.

"It doesn't have to end here," my Dad pitched optimistically. I looked at him with eyes full of hope. "This could be a yearly tradition, your Great Grandpa Sunny and I used to fish every summer for a month."

"You mean that?" I managed to get out. My brothers cheered, and suddenly the goodbye was not so bad because it had become a see you next year. All these amazing things I felt at the lake: passion, freedom, joy, fear, and thrill. They didn't have to go away. It was wholly and entirely up to me to find new cliffs to jump from in my future endeavors: in college and beyond.

After the eye-opening experiences I had this summer in Canada redefining my perspective on work versus play, I did everything in my power to maintain this mindset when I took on college. If I had to give one piece of advice to the class of 2027 who will join us at Notre Dame in the fall, I'd tell them a thousand times to say yes. This attitude has unintentionally led me to all kinds of opportunities on campus. Some of my favorite times I have tried things that scare and push me have been joining the world's largest women's boxing club, serving the country in Army Reserve Officers Training Corps, and putting myself in new and uncomfortable social situations that have led me to some of the best friends I've ever had. The college workload is an incredible amount to juggle, and discovering new outlets will enrich everything you do academically, on campus, and beyond. It is important, now more than ever, as we step away from home for the first time and take on physical distance from our families, that we find time for the communities on campus that are here to welcome us, to make us feel at home and loved. Just as I had forgotten what it was like to hear my Dad say, “I’m proud of you”, extending words of pride and kindness go a long way in a place like Notre Dame that is full of difficult and time-consuming work. These ideas of hard work and free time can coexist just as I did in nature, and saying yes to them gives each thing you do have value. Say yes to clubs and sports teams, say yes to the cliffs that seemed insurmountable and unjumpable, and say yes to fishing in the middle of a barely explored part of the world. While there is so much to fear, there is much more to gain when you jump into the things that scare you, excite you, or make you ask questions. You'll be amazed at the beautiful ways you can evolve and transform.

After the fishing trip, my brothers and I agreed that the Dad that fishing brought out was the one he had been suppressing for too long. As grateful as we were for the time he put into his job, his work calls, and the all-work-no-play concept society has deemed necessary, our newfound interest in what he loved, fishing, helped us realize that he, too, deserved to let loose more often. And while my Dad can't unravel his workhorse habits in a matter of months or even years, I hope that vicariously through me and my exploration, he too will find some enlightenment in the passages of his life that we spoke about that day by the lake. Love, joy, passion, fear, freedom— he deserves those things. We all do. It just took a little fishing and cliff jumping to help me understand that.

Alex Odland

Alex Odland is a student in the class of 2026 pursuing a major in Science-Business Pre-Med and a minor in Bioengineering. She is from Marin, California, and lives in Johnson Family Hall. She considers her second home on campus to be Army ROTC and Galvin Scholars. Alex’s essay, “Fishing for Perspective,” explores her relationship with her father and how a quick trip to Canada completely changed her perspective on the modern-day work ethic. She would like to thank her parents and brothers for always supporting her academic endeavors and her English teachers, especially Kristen Sieranski, for their guidance and support along the way.

Fishing With My Dad

For as long as I can recall, my dad (BIG FRANK) was an expert fisherman. My first memories, which began my fishing obsession, were on Oneida Lake drifting homemade spinners for which my father became somewhat renowned around the Syracuse Fire Department and the City. We used to tie them all off-season, along with melting lead for special sinkers we molded that Big Frank said made a big difference on your drift. He used to crush the walleyes on Oneida, and it was commonplace for fisherman to follow our 20 ft. Penn Yan around and line up their drift with us. Often other boats would pull right up to us for fishing reports and/or to buy spinners from him. The generous soul that he was, he often simply gave these fishermen his special spinners. They had certain bead color patterns that had to be specifically sequenced.

While or after the transactions were occurring my dad would introduce me or explain to me that they were fellow firefighters or my Uncle Dicks neighbor, etc… You see, men did favors for each other every day. It was the way to get by, and I would later remember these fishermen returning favors to us. My Uncle was usually on the boat with us, and we often would get our limit early. Then, we would go and target perch, which somehow my dad knew were active around 121 or at a certain drop-off that at that time only were available through paper maps and charts.

Like it was yesterday, I recall my dear sisters Michele, Cheryl, and my thoughtful Mother getting him a “flasher-depth finder” for Christmas from Fredons when they were a luxury item. We couldn’t wait 12 more hours, so we gave it to him on Christmas eve at my Aunt Carm and Uncle Bob’s house party right after we fried up smelt that my dad netted, cleaned and prepared for a 100 at my Italian mothers extended family Christmas party. With that finder he got even more deadly. Augmenting his techniques of lining up islands and landmarks was now coupled with technology that we could now use to find schools.

I recall him targeting suspended fish that others new nothing about, and him adjusting his tactics to fish higher in the water column, landing trophies while others got skunked. He then decided to try a different fishery, completely changing tactics, purchasing and acquiring new gear to target Lake Trout on Seneca Lake.

A group of Syracuse friends and fishermen (Bob Carbone, barber Eddie Brown and Steve White and others) went west during one of Oneida Lakes downturns, and he started crushing them there. Fisherman always wanted to know what he was using or doing different. He taught me to know your spot and follow patterns, and to pay particular attention to subtle depth changes, where he would consistently see marks feeding from the bottom up 5-15 feet. He found old antique Victrola boxes and custom designed them to recoil wire, which we used to hand-line Christmas tree rigs and sawbellies (alewives). He spent the first hour on the water scouting with the flasher, and netting wounded baitfish, because he claimed a lot of the bait we could buy was from a different lake and it wasn’t a match. Plus, he said that he would notice patterns in the sizes of wounded bait and only use the popular size, and that was one of the differences he claimed why he was more successful than the other guys. THIS TRICK HE ONLY SHARED WITH ME, because he did not want competition taking his evidence.

As time went on, we bought a new boat together, the Alumacraft Trophy 185 that I still fish with now. He helped me, mostly he did it, rig up our new boat with downriggers and planers, and he would dedicate his time and effort in getting our boat ready all week for our next weekly trip. I was the rigger while he steered and guided us over his “honeyholes”.  He expertly would explain how to troll in S patterns and just intersect the bottom with our deepest rig prior to moving out deeper where he noticed suspended fish on the drop-off. Until writing this, I claimed responsibility for success by rigging us correctly, but I know now that we were a team and that the knowledge in me was acquired during his lifetime of fishing.

He was a great partner, because he was always willing to try new waters with me and we fished as many Upstate waters as possible in pursuit of trophy Salmon, Trout and Walleye. Though we had great success utilizing our techniques on many other Finger Lakes and Ontario, his true love was Seneca Lake. We always entered the annual Memorial Day Lake Trout Derby on Seneca and in his last 20 years we rented a camp on the lake for the whole week and made it our family vacation. He would gloat with pride when we showed up at the weigh station with a heavy cooler, him hearing the events staff telling the crowd, “Here comes a couple of ringers”. We won substantial prizes in 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, two separate placings in 2006, and in 2007, and the plagues still don the “wall of fame” in my parents Liverpool home.

I distinctly remember the last big trout that my father fought in his quest to win the derby and the many lessons that it taught me. On this trip his health and strength was failing and he mentioned he wasn’t certain that next year was an option. The derby was over in 2 hours and I wanted to get packed up and head in, since the fishing was slow. He said, he’d prefer to stay and make another pass, because he kept marking suspended fish offshore of Starkey Point while I was tending the rods and his instincts said we were going to connect with a big bow. We did, just minutes later, he hooked and fought a 10lb plus silver beast that would have taken first place, only to see that rainbow jump 4 feet out of the water and shake loose. I was so disappointed, but he wasn’t. He said he was happy the fish was free and pleased that he was right to continue.

He taught me through fishing to be creative and persistent. To trust my instincts, not just in fishing but also in life. His examples showed me that attention to details is an important aspect of success. Him taking me fishing made huge impacts on my life. If he didn’t, I certainly wouldn’t be writing this article today, and you wouldn’t be reading this right now. My loving father passed away 2 years ago, and I miss both him and fishing together, but his legacy lives on in the fishing tips he provided me that I share with you. THANKS DAD.

Jack Ohman, The Sacramento Bee Jack Ohman, The Sacramento Bee

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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/last-time-went-fishing-dad

The last time I went fishing with my dad

Editor’s note: This is the second installment of cartoonist Jack Ohman’s series “ The Care Package ,” for PBS NewsHour.

Cartoonist Jack Ohman’s aging father was in no condition to go fishing, but when his dad said he wanted to go, Ohman spent days figuring out how to make the trip happen.

Ohman recently revisited that trip and what he learned about his father that day.

From the time he was a kid, Ohman and his father fished together, usually bringing home nothing but jokes about the day’s poor catch. They may not have had a lot in common, “but we had fishing,” Ohman said.

Three years after his father’s health steadily began to decline, Ohman knew this trip was important, and he couldn’t have picked a better time to take it.

When he and the boatman lifted his father and placed him into the boat, the Oregon sky was blue, the birds sang and the flowers were in bloom. “It was unbelievably poignant,” Ohman recalled.

It was a banner day. Ohman’s father not only caught the most fish but also the biggest. By the time the trip was over, Ohman eagerly offered to plan the next one.

“I said, ‘We could go again,’ and he said, ‘No, I don’t think so,’” Ohman said. “That’s when I knew. This was his way of telling me, this was it, he was closing up shop.”

There was nothing Ohman could say. He never brought it up again.

His father died nine months later.

Ohman knows he’s not the only person who has grappled with a parent’s mortality.

“This is a story that millions of Americans are experiencing everyday,” Ohman said.

Read part 3 of 5: What I wish my dad said before he died

Reporting by Laura Santhanam

Sign up to be notified when we publish the next installment

Jack Ohman joined The Sacramento Bee in 2013. He previously worked at the Oregonian, the Detroit Free Press and the Columbus Dispatch. His work is syndicated to more than 200 newspapers by Tribune Media Services. Jack has won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the Scripps Foundation Award and the national SPJ Award, and he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2012 and the Herblock Prize in 2013. Contact Jack at [email protected]. Twitter: @JACKOHMAN.

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