Life Is All About the Choices We Make

My next to last cousin on the maternal side of my family was buried a few weeks ago. As noted in her obituary, Sandy was 83, but I can't help wondering if anyone besides me remembers how close she came to perhaps losing her life much earlier--65 years earlier, to be exact.

Sandy was a senior in high school when her boyfriend at the time invited her to join him and some other mutual friends of theirs for a nighttime ride in his car. She bowed out at the last minute, and later that night, her boyfriend lost his life, and some of those other friends suffered life-altering injuries in a head-on car crash. Her boyfriend had decided to play "chicken" with another car just as they reached opposing ends of a big, steel-girder bridge east of my hometown.

I was reminded about this incident and the choices we make as the result of something I learned online recently. Like my cousin, pro bass angler Ish Monroe (right) was a senior in high school when a bunch of his friends was urging him to go to a party with them. He wanted to go, but there was a fishing tournament the next morning, so he ultimately thanked them but went home instead. Again like my cousin, he lost one of his best friends that night.

Ish (short for Ishama) Monroe grew up in San Francisco, where gangs, violence and drugs were the norm during his high-school days. Fishing kept him out of that scene. As he noted, "It really grounded me."

Fishing was a Monroe family affair. Ish recalled his dad pulling him out of grammar school for "dentist appointments" when the fish were biting. As he explained with his million-dollar smile, the only "pulling" he felt during those appointments was fish pulling on his line.

"Dad would pick me up, and we'd go straight to the lake," he said. "I thank him for giving me that base  and teaching me how to fish."

When Monroe's dad retired from a career as a firefighter, Ish bought him a new Ranger bass boat. It was his way of saying "thank you" for instilling a strong work ethic that always steered him in the right direction.

At the age of 14, Monroe went to work at Hi's Tackle Box in San Francisco. The shop had a bass club called Bass Holes. Monroe fished a couple of their events, and when he was 16, a friend name Derek Crenshaw asked him to fish a team tournament. They came in third. He was hooked on competitive fishing and never looked back. At 18, he was fishing pro-am events as a pro. He was the youngest out there.

Many of the other anglers didn't give the young kid much respect, but he paid close attention to successful anglers like Dee Thomas and Dave Gliebe, who were inventing new styles of fishing.

"I had those guys around me, and they talked to me back in the day," said Monroe. "Dave Gliebe gave me a few little tips that I still remember, and it helped my fishing. Dee Thomas, the grandfather of flipping, showed me that style, and it became my primary method for tournaments."

Monroe admits that "fishing as a professional is a ton of work. The preparation, the travel, the sponsor obligations...it all weighs on you."

When the season wraps up, Monroe switches gears. He puts his bass boat to bed and hitches up his 34-foot Bluefin.

"Saltwater fishing is my getaway," he said. "One thing about bass fishing is you're confined to a small lake. I can't tell you how many times the tuna or yellowtail weren't biting, so we would go chase calicos. That's the great thing about the ocean; you always can find something to chase."

When asked if he fishes any saltwater tournaments, he readily shakes his head no.

"I took my hobby of bass fishing and turned it into a job. I don't want to do that again," he explained.

Monroe's passion for saltwater fishing is undeniable. He lights up when talking about it and pulls out his phone to show photos of big grouper, tuna and wahoo.

"To me, there's nothing like that bite," he concluded.