We all have to start somewhere

I got hooked on fishing at a very early age, fishing a retention basin near my house with my dad.  We walked around the whole pond as I casted  and retrieved the lure, sometimes with weeds and never with a fish.  When it was time to go I asked for 10 more minutes, and when that 10 minutes were up, still without a fish, I asked for 5 more.  This countdown continued until I begged for just one more cast.  As I reeled in that lure for the final last time, I caught my fist fish - a tiny largemouth bass.  But it was a fish!!  Looking back, I was hooked from the first cast that day.

I was very fortunate to have grown up with 3 sets of grandparents - one had a pontoon boat and took me crabbing, one had a sailboat and took me sailing, and one had a fishing boat and took me fishing.  At 13, I got my boating license and became the family’s de facto captain because I would rather drive the boat than waterski or tube.

Fast forward to my early 20s, and things started getting serious.  I quickly became the “captain“ of my best friends dads boat when we would go fishing, and soon after I moved to Brigantine and brought the boat with me.  It didn’t take long before I was working as the First Mate on the Fishfinder 2.  15 years later, with a master captains license now, I bought my very first boat - the Jenny Lynn!