Today's Opinions

Naked in the streets. How long has it been since you've read those words? Let me guess. Sometime seven or eight years ago I bet, in the Cedar Key Beacon. Those words marked the heading of a long-running weekly column written by Van Proctor. The heading featured a picture of Van wearing a broad-rimmed straw hat, a hat few have ever seen, at least not in public. Van was a standard of sorts. He wrote whatever he wanted and he got away with it.

Throughout my fishing career I have always tried to seek new challenges. Challenges are what bring us back to the water time after time to reach new goals or overcome extreme adversities.

I have pursued and won challenges like light line tarpon, huge sharks, bull redfish on 10-pound test, spear fishing, and guiding, all of which can test your skills and patience.

But none of these difficult challenges compares with the task I took on last week on the FFA trip out to Seahorse Key.

Remember how simple it used to be to go on a vacation or any other trip? All you had to do was throw some clothes and toilet articles into a suitcase, throw the suitcase into the car and off you go. Now we have so many other necessities to take along, it is such a major undertaking that you have to start packing days ahead of time.