Catch Us If You Can
Yep, great sight the other night walking Ashley Reservoir with my daughter Maggie. We ran into about ten kids fishing right out in the open on the main road.
Hey lads, it’s goddamn illegal. But I saluted 'em all and wished 'em good luck. Nothing better for a kid than to be outdoors fishing. No screens, no video games. Just good clean air and bantering with your buddies.
As I’ve mentioned before, awhile back me and this bloke Peter Jourdain, using the aliases Jack and Harry, created the Fishing Buddies. We set out to open up Holyoke’s Reservoirs so kids could fish. Like a lot of kids in Holyoke, we both grew up fishing in the reservoirs until they closed them in the 70s.
But even with Sheriff Mike Ashe, EPA Administrator John DeVillars, Riverkeeper, Bobby Kennedy, Jr. and other big shots on our side, we couldn’t get the lunkhead political appointees to bite. Worms, all of ‘em.
Let’s hope those kids I talked to the other night, the next generation of Fishing Buddies, have better luck. They’re off to a good start. Apparently the cops today don’t chase 'em out like they used to chase us. They just tell ‘em to hide better.
I’m headed up there tonight with a handful of Fishing Buddies stickers. Maybe we get this thing going again and pass the pole to these young anglers. Keep your dukes up.