Panfish #1 by Anthony Naples

In the bleak midwinter with thoughts of more coming snow, I was inspired by a photo from this past summer.   Many of us start our fishing lives with sunfish.  Some of us never leave that warm and comfortable place – watching and waiting for a red and white bobber to momentarily disappear.   My childhood is filled with sunfish.  As a fisherman the small pond filled with willing sunfish is my spiritual home.  I picture my grandfather, a WWII veteran sitting in a lawn chair catching sunnies.  What did the Italian winters of  1943 and 1944 feel like to that young kid from Pittsburgh?  Rain and mud, crossing mountains, the disaster of Anzio, the despair and loss, the uncertainty of life.  Did he think of youthful,  warm summers back home? How far away did they seem? He made it through the war, made it home to his local ponds.  Made it home to pass it all on to my father and on to me and so then  on to my children.

The cycle continues.   Days are getting longer, the sun is gradually getting higher in the sky and we are not forsaken.