Conor Sullivan - Fishing the Wild Waters: An Anglers Search for Peace and Adventure in the Wilderness

Conor Sullivan

Fishing the Wild Waters

An Anglers Search for Peace and Adventure in the Wilderness

To Renee, you will forever be my ultimate catch.

Mom and Dad: The example you set was the most impactful influence on my life. Thanks for all those trips to the bait store.

M y first memory is of fish. I was three years old and living in Charleston, South Carolina. My father and I were crabbing off a neighborhood dock and fishing for croakers. What I mostly remember was testing the claw strength of the blue crabs we caught, using every big stick I could find to poke into our bucket. I was fascinated by these crazy creatures we plucked from the sea. That was the moment a spark was lit and I became a lifelong fisherman. Almost every day since then I have either been fishing or figuring out how to get better at it. Fishing is at the root of nearly every important life decision I have made. I am fairly certain God put me on this Earth for two reasons: to fish and to teach others how to do the same.

There are a couple reasons for my obsession with fishing. The first is my dad. Tim Sullivan is a career Coast Guard officer who rose to the rank of a two-star admiral. If they handed out promotions for fish caught, he would likely be a cabinet member at the White House by now. He grew up in Wisconsin, fishing in local lakes and chasing down rabbits on foot for fun. His family and era looked to me like a scene from the movie A Christmas Story. He was an all-American boy and proof that anyone in this country can have a shot at greatness. He was and is still the best fisherman I have ever dropped a line with. He taught me and my two younger brothers, Rory and Patrick, how to fish as soon as we were able to hold a rod. These three individuals make up the inner circle of the best fishermen I know. You put the four of us on a boat, you will see a bunch of limits quickly filled. You will also likely hear grown men argue like children, complete with a few immature penis jokes, but I digress. My mom can discuss over tea the intricacies of setting a five-bait trolling spread for pelagics and has been known to tangle with a big halibut or two. Even my older sister, Maureen, who doesnt fish much anymore, can pick up a rod and work a stick bait for stripers without a break in the conversation. She has landed marlin and mahi-mahi off of Hawaii with me. She married a great guy named Hayden who also loves to hunt and fish. In short, we are a fishing family.

We are also a Coast Guard family. Growing up in a military lifestyle and eventually serving as a Coast Guard Officer myself has afforded me the opportunity to experience living in twelve different states, and Im still counting. I consider it a rare gift to have lived in some of the best fishing locations in the country, and in the process, I have become a fishing pluralist of sorts. Living in so many states, each for about three years at a time, has allowed me to dial in at the local fisheries level in the oceans on both sides of the continent. By the time I was eight, I had already made weeklong trips into the Pacific, catching offshore species weighing way more than I did. By thirteen, I was working and fishing on local boats out of Niantic, Connecticut, selling stripers to adults who couldnt figure out how to catch any themselves, which in turn paid for my next trip out on the same head boat. When I wasnt doing that, I made trips as a sternman on a commercial lobster boat.

Now in my mid-thirties, I have served throughout this great country, holding unique jobs such as commanding a Fisheries Training Center in remote Kodiak, Alaska, and serving as the captain of a 110-foot Coast Guard cutter in the north Atlantic. The Coast Guard also sent me back to school, allowing me to earn a masters degree in marine affairs at the University of Rhode Island, all because my life still revolves around fish. I have a core group of close friends who share a similar view of the world, as well as my obsession: Josh Boyle, Brooks Horan, Dave Waldrip, Pat Murphy, and my best friend since childhood, Jon Dale, aka the fourth Sullivan brother. I clearly remember the day I met Jon. I was in seventh grade and fishing at the Pattagansett Lake boat ramp in East Lyme, Connecticut. I saw Jon walking toward the same dock I was on with his fishing rod in hand, and I thought to myself, He is going to be my best friend. Since that moment, Jon and I have been as close as blood brothers. He joined the Coast Guard as well and weve had many great expeditions together as weve fished our way through life.

I have angled in most of the major fisheries in America and have an appreciation for all of them, but if I had to choose, it comes down to three corners: Alaska, Hawaii, and New England.

I found Hawaii as a young boy, and New England in my early teenage years, but I had to wait until my nineteenth birthday to discover Alaska. New England is just a great salty place all on its own, where working waterfronts still exist among the creeping tide of gentrification. Hawaii and Alaska are the last two frontiers of fishing. They are full of danger, big fish, and extraordinary adventure. To fish these places is to reach back and stand alongside the first nation of fishermenour ancestorswho plied the wild waters for thousands of years before us. With that in mind, fishing these waters can be a profound experience, demanding of our respect and reverence.

These three corners are both similar and different, and complement each other perfectly. Need a second opinion? In the case of Hawaii and Alaska, just ask the hundreds of humpback whales that swim the meridian lines between the two locales each year, reproducing in Hawaii and feeding on vast schools of fish in Alaska. The human residents of both places are equally as fond of the complementary aspects of the forty-ninth and fiftieth states, traveling between the two often and for similar reasons. New England, and by default our whole country, was founded and funded in no small part by fish, and in hallowed ports like Gloucester, New Bedford, and Point Judith, they still run on this natural resource.

So why do I fish? The fishing lifestyle is a lot of work for what could be picked up more easily at a high-end seafood shop. Realistically, there is no reason to chase down your own meal anymore. A mere dollar will buy all sorts of things at the closest fast-food restaurant. Frankly, most folks just do not understand why you would want to spend your time alone in the wilderness. With each passing year, our speciess connection to our pasts fishing roots grows weaker. Why do we need to get up at 3 A.M. anymore to catch the tide and get that limit of salmon?

Here is my take on why I pop out of bed when that Saturday alarm breaks the silence long before sunrise breaks the horizon: I believe that quietly in each of our souls, beyond the sarcasm, past the consumerism and daily grind, lies dormant a different side of us, the real side of us. For me, its the realization that I feel more alone in a congested city than twenty miles offshore. I feel an intrinsic connection to the world beyond the one that humans created, and I want to maintain that. Both for my inner self and for preserving these open waters for my children and beyond. On the practical side, filling a freezer with salmon and halibut, which provides my growing family with the worlds healthiest proteintruly wild caughtjust feels right. Of all the waters that I have fished, Hawaii, Alaska, and New England are those special places on Earth where I can pull back the curtain, connect to the sea, and gaze into my own soulthe soul of a fisherman.