Catch & Release

Courtesy of WTOC

Back when I was a kid growing up in Savannah Georgia in the 1970’s. There was a journeyman TV news reporter I grew up watching that was a jack of all trades. He was a late night reporter, he worked as a police beat reporter, and sometimes even a morning news anchor. His name was Johnny Cole, and if you grew up in the Coastal Empire through the ‘60’s to the ‘90’s you saw him regularly on WTOC Channel 11.

Now there’s not much I know personally about the man, other than what I saw on TV. But I do know he used to do a fishing segment on the morning news. Covering the best places to go fishing or showing off some kid’s first big catch. His catchphrase was always, “Get hooked on fishing, not drugs.” Now that all sounded a bit hooky, especially for us teenagers back then, but I always felt he was being sincere.

Another thing I learned from old Johnny was about “catch and release “ where you only took the fish you needed and released to rest. Now a pile of my relatives and old fishing buddies think that philosophy is a mountain of bullshit. That you keep everything you catch and freeze the rest. And I’ve had my share of disagreements with one of my dear late uncles about that very subject.

The reason I bring up the subject is to remind y’all. Is that often times you can have you fill of troubles. But eventually those troubles or burdens need to be let go. That putting them up in the freezer only means your putting up anger, fear, and hate for another day. It’s time we gather up the things that trouble us and simple throw them back into the pool of life. Now some of you may not agree. You may say it’s the anger that fuels your passions. But like I said, when you’ve had your fill, let it go. And like old Johnny used also say, “Take a kid fishing”.