I don’t carry much baggage. The few regrets I have are mostly about things I didn’t do, not things I did — and even that list is short.
But there’s one that snuck up on me. Took years to even recognize it as a regret.
I was obsessed with fishing from the time I was eight years old. Bass at first — up before school, sneaking off to the canal behind the house, chasing the early topwater bite. More than a few mornings I missed the bell entirely. I couldn’t help it. That nervous explosion of a fish blowing up on the surface did something to my brain that nothing else came close to.
That run lasted until I met my best friend Roddy, the summer before freshman year, at the grand opening of a Kenny Rogers Roasters. A few mutual friends made the introduction and that was it — instant bond, inseparable. Roddy’s family more or less adopted me as a second son, and in doing so, opened a door I’ve never closed.
Saltwater. Flats fishing. The Three Amigos — bonefish, permit, tarpon. I practically short-circuited just hearing about them.
I dove headfirst into every book Roddy handed me. The crown jewel was Fishing the Flats by Mark Sosin and Lefty Kreh. I read it cover to cover, then read it again. I filled notebooks with hand-drawn diagrams of tides, fish behavior, bottom structure — anything I thought I’d need. It was more than a hobby. It was an obsession that kept expanding, pulling me deeper into the backcountry of the Everglades, further from anything that didn’t involve saltwater and a fly rod.
Speaking of which — fly fishing hit me like a second conversion. I’d spend hours in the backyard practicing casts until my hands blistered. Roddy had a bonefish-shaped pillow I used for target practice. The neighbors must’ve thought I’d lost my mind. Maybe they were right.
By senior year, I’d missed thirty days of school in a single semester and turned down football recruitment four years running. I handed in my pads after one week of spring practice when the coach told me Saturdays were mandatory. There were fish to catch. No further discussion needed.
When graduation talk turned to class rings, I thought about it for about ten seconds. I didn’t wear jewelry. If I got one, it would end up in a drawer or on some girl’s necklace. They weren’t cheap either.
So I pitched my mom an alternative.
“Mom?”
“What?”
“Instead of wasting money on a class ring, I think a fly rod would be more useful.”
“I don’t know. You’ll regret not having the ring one day.”
“You do realize who you’re talking to, right?”
She sighed. “Fine.”
She knew.
A day or two later we drove to the fly shop. I was out of the truck before it was fully in park. The rods stared back at me from across the room — shiny graphite blanks, a far cry from the glass broomsticks I’d grown up on. I needed one setup that could do it all, so I went with a 10-weight. Heavy for some applications, perfect for the fish I had in mind.
Sandy, the shop owner, helped me build it out. The reel was a Lamson Permit edition with a cork drag — beautiful, and pretty remarkable at that price point. She loaded it with orange Dacron backing, tied on the fly line, and rigged the butt section herself, even though I offered to help. I guess she didn’t trust me. Fair enough.
I walked out grinning like an idiot. My mom smiled too.
I went straight home, tied on a popper, and broke the rod in on bass in the canal behind the house. The proper christening came a few days later in the Glades — a tarpon on the first trip. Small fish, big moment. All was right in the world.
I fished that rod for years. Then life hit the brakes the way it always does — slowly, then all at once. Adulthood has a way of doing that. The water didn’t disappear, but the time did, and somewhere in the blur of it all, I sold the rod and reel to a friend. Didn’t think twice. It was just gear.
It never occurred to me that it was something else entirely — a gift from my mom, picked out on a Tuesday afternoon when she could’ve said no and didn’t.
The weight of that didn’t land until she passed away a few years ago.
That rod. That reel.
I’ve thought about it more times than I can count since then. Not with the kind of regret that eats at you, but the quiet kind — the kind that surfaces when you’re alone on the water and the morning is still and you realize some things can’t be replaced, only remembered.
Now that I’m retired, I’ve found that fire again. Better yet, I get to pass it on to my kids. The passion never left — it was just waiting for the noise to settle down.
And maybe — just maybe — I’ll track down that reel.
After all, it was my class ring.
