Tele Aadsen

writer - fisherman - listener

I’m a nosy per­son. My social work­er days allowed entry into oth­ers’ most pri­vate moments, while fishing’s mode of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the VHF radio, pro­vides social­ly accept­able eaves­drop­ping. The Back­door Café’s elbow-close tables are just as handy for my voyeuris­tic tendencies.

One crisp March morn­ing, camped at a cor­ner table, I pecked out sen­tences between bites of peach-rasp­ber­ry pie. When an earnest voice drift­ed over, my steel-ringed ears perked up.

I just real­ly want to go fish­ing! I know it’s clichéd, but I don’t even care about mak­ing any mon­ey.” Men­tal­ly, I mouthed the next sen­tence. “I just want the experience.”

Though the sen­ti­ment was famil­iar, the voice was not. With a casu­al sip of cof­fee, I glanced down the room. A young woman sat among the morn­ing crew. Alaskan men whose hands are per­ma­nent­ly etched with their medi­ums – motor oil, cop­per paint, white-laced trails of long gone hooks and blades – these reg­u­lars dished advice with indul­gent smiles.

First thing you’ve got­ta do is learn to swear,” one said.

Anoth­er agreed, “Learn to swear, learn to fish, and learn to show­er less.”

Long brown hair swing­ing for­ward, she leaned into their words. Teal-accent­ed glass­es shield­ed her eyes, yet excite­ment shone through body lan­guage as she nod­ded intently.

*****

Back aboard the Ner­ka, I told Joel about this lat­est new­com­er in the spring flood of dream-dri­ven green­horns. “I kin­da envy her,” I mused. “Grow­ing up in this, always know­ing the real­i­ty of our busi­ness, I’ve nev­er felt that kind of wide-eyed excitement.”

He frowned. “I don’t know about that – I still get awful­ly excit­ed to go fish­ing. To me, excite­ment with­out know­ing what to expect is just anxiety.”

Yeah… But we know too much to be excit­ed like that, all con­sumed by the fan­ta­sy.” Strug­gling to put my feel­ing into words, I cast about for a com­par­i­son. “Like kiss­ing. Kiss­ing some­one new is crazy-excit­ing, and kiss­ing some­one famil­iar is a dif­fer­ent, qui­eter kind of exciting.”

My part­ner of 8 years smiled. “What’s real­ly excit­ing is kiss­ing some­one you know real­ly well, but haven’t seen in a long time. That’s what com­ing back to Alas­ka and going fish­ing is like for me.”

.*****

I sur­rep­ti­tious­ly fol­lowed this young woman’s updates for weeks. She held a seat among the morn­ing reg­u­lars; her open demeanor and enthu­si­as­tic abil­i­ty to con­nect with any­one impressed me. One day, a thread of uncer­tain­ty wove through her usu­al opti­mism. She won­dered aloud how she’d know if a skip­per was safe.

Her appre­hen­sion echoed in my head as I walked back to the boat, a feel­ing of shirked respon­si­bil­i­ty tug­ging at my heels. Dammit…I should’ve reached out to her. Pulling out my phone, I texted one of the fish­er­men she’d been sit­ting with.

Hey dude – the woman who wants so much to go fish­ing should give me a call. Would you give her my #? Thanks!”

A return mes­sage buzzed almost imme­di­ate­ly. “Hi tele! Aman­da is very excit­ed to give u her num­ber! Here it is: XXX-XXX-XXXX.”

*****

That’s how I met Aman­da. Sev­er­al hours lat­er, she sat in the Nerka’s cab­in. Sur­round­ed by the trap­pings of a for­eign world, she stud­ied the lures hang­ing from the helm and care­ful­ly repeat­ed their names. Hoochies. Flash­ers. Spoons. I could prac­ti­cal­ly see her brain cre­at­ing a new file, tabbed “Fish­ing Terms.”

I hate to see an inex­pe­ri­enced young woman to find her­self in a bad sit­u­a­tion, sure, but my moti­va­tion wasn’t so pure. A friend need­ed a deck­hand. Know­ing that he prefers female crew, I want­ed a bet­ter sense of who she was before mak­ing any offers. Could she actu­al­ly be as gen­uine as she appeared?

Yes. By our visit’s end, I was open­ly schem­ing to land Aman­da a job with my friend. There’s no telling how some­one will han­dle the sea, sleep depri­va­tion, or iso­la­tion, but it was clear that Aman­da had the right attitude.

Such a good atti­tude, in fact, that many oth­er folks jumped to help her in her quest. One morn­ing she approached me with apolo­getic eyes. “I’m sor­ry, I won’t be able to help your friend… I got a job.”

Wav­ing aside the apolo­gies, I cheered her good news. She described her role work­ing for a well-reput­ed cap­tain on a ten­der – a large ves­sel that trans­ports catch­es from the fish­ing grounds to the pro­cess­ing plant. I gave a thought of thanks for the guardians in our com­mu­ni­ty. Gen­tly cradling her fan­ta­sy in expe­ri­enced hands, they’d placed equal val­ue on her safe­ty and the real­iza­tion of a dream.

How will real­i­ty stack up against the fan­ta­sy? Wouldn’t it be fun to hear direct­ly from Aman­da on that? She’s agreed to be Hooked’s pen pal over the course of her first fish­ing sea­son, let­ting us know how things are going. This makes Aman­da our first cor­re­spon­dent, and I’m so delight­ed that you’ll get to meet her. Stay tuned – I’ll post her first let­ter on Mon­day. Mean­while, please join me in wel­com­ing Aman­da to our com­mu­ni­ty and wish­ing her well this inau­gur­al season!

Have you chased a dream? How did it live up to the real­i­ty? What would you like to ask Aman­da about her experience?