Guest column: Fishing gives athletes chance to cope, connect and compete during pandemic

This column won’t offer advice on the best fishing spots in the Shaw Media area, nor will it provide advice on where to buy superior equipment and lures that will net you the biggest catch.

Rather, this column will tell a story about how a group of young athletes and a mentor have found solace during the pandemic. It will show how they have coped, connected and competed during the past eight months. This column will offer a look at how fishing has become their panacea during the pandemic.

The story doesn’t start in March 2020. The backstory begins when Bob Bosman first took his son fishing, whether it was at the Walrose Manor pond in Woodstock or on the Gulf Coast during a spring break in Biloxi, Mississippi, or in a rowboat in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. Bob loved sitting in a boat or on a dock in the quiet of a morning – often at first light – or at sunset in the rain. His was a story of patience and challenge and time spent with his son.

Now, let’s move ahead 35 years.

When the pandemic hit and school was suspended this spring, what were furloughed workers or young athletes to do, athletes primed to begin track competitions or baseball games? How could they channel their energy, their sense of purpose, toward another goal while staying socially distanced and following state guidelines?

Joel Bosman, a campus supervisor and an assistant Huntley High School football coach, began to rise around 5 a.m. and to head to Southwind – “our” pond, as he puts it. When I asked, “Why fish?” he answered, “To get out of the house, to settle myself while my wife worked from home, to try to outsmart the fish.”

His father had set the hook for the early rise and shine many years before. And, then, after outsmarting the fish a few times, competitiveness set in. Joel has been a competitor all of his life, whether at Woodstock High School in baseball and football, on the Illinois State University football team or on the Chicago lakefront for co-ed flag football. Now, he pondered how to channel that competitiveness into fishing during the quarantine.

“It’s about trial and error,” he said. “And lost lures. It’s about luck and research – the slant of the sun, the right spot, the movement of the water. That is, until that moment when I caught a 4-pound bass or began to catch bass after bass after bass. Then, the fun had begun.” At that moment, he said, he left his pole and fishing gear at the spot and rushed home to rouse his 17-year-old son.

“They’re really biting” was all he had to say, and the two were off to cast their lines together. And to compete with each other for the biggest fish, weighed, caught on film, and returned safely to the water. The torch/pole had been passed.

Next, the son, Bruno Bosman, invited his friends – David, Grant, Nate and Denny, fellow football players, track and baseball refugees – to join him on early morning or late afternoon fishing expeditions. They found angling to be a way to stay active, to stay connected, to compete safely and to stay sane. They found fishing to be a way to channel their energy and problem-solving skills toward a different opponent. It wasn’t the competition they had anticipated, but it worked outdoors against a crafty foe. And the social media bragging didn’t hurt either.

So what avid fishermen already know is this: Fishing will save your soul as you cope, compete and connect – silently at first light or at sunset, in cloud cover or rain. Finding the spot, managing the weather, outsmarting the fish, connecting or competing with your friends and, often, recording the surprise.

In this story, there is no minimizing the love for fishing passed from father to son to son to friend. This is a story about created and shared memories (Now, my grandson has the tackle box and rusty lures that his grandfather once used.) This story is unique only because of the proper names of the participants, but it is a universal story.

I am only telling fishermen what they already know.

• Jan Bosman taught English and business for 32 years. She also is a published essayist and poet and is a member of the Atrocious Poets of McHenry County.