Food is a social lubricant, a way of learning about cultures and showing that you respect them. It’s also thrilling to find a new ingredient, dish or cuisine that you like. Furthermore, if you’re the dude who will only eat hamburgers, at some point you’re going to inconvenience your travel mates.

I’d never heard of Jessie Jessup Apparel company of Florida until I came across their peacock bass t-shirt. If I haven’t already made it clear, I’m obsessed with peacocks and can’t wait to head back to the Amazon – ideally this December, if the damn virus gets out of the way.

I have fond memories of going to visit my grandparents, who late in life lived on the beach, just about a mile from Sheepshead Bay. “Party boats” which would take you out fishing for a flat fee lined the waterfront along Emmons Avenue, and as a kid I recall later envying the anglers assembled at the base of the Verrazano Bridge as we made our way into Manhattan.

My 30-pound payara was the fishing highlight of a very good year in 2019, and when my friend Leroy Boss got his replica before I got mine I was more than a little jealous. Two weeks later mine arrived from the great white north and it was truly worth the wait.

On our African safari in 2016 we were given an animal and bird checklist and because I’m competitive, it was critical for me to fill my book, to see each and every species. That led me to become really interested in shooting birds (with my camera).

I never imagined that Pete and I would develop a fishing and travel website together. The idea of working with your spouse is scary enough, but writing is his world, not mine. I avoid it like the plague. I didn’t know if we’d run out of things to write about. Would anyone be interested in what we had to say?  And it didn’t seem helpful that we started it two weeks before an unforeseen pandemic hit.

If you’re still stuck on what to get the traveling angler in your life this holiday season you’ve come to the right place. We’ve got suggestions on things that just about any of us can use, no matter where we’re headed or what species we’re chasing. Better yet, for purposes of this piece we’ll impose a spending cap of twenty bucks.

I’m a self-described book nerd and I have been since I was a little kid. Indeed, coming from a non-fishing family, the written word was my entrance into the sport. My parents bought me a subscription to Field & Stream when I was 9, and one to Bassmaster when I was 13. Reading about all of the different tackle, destinations and personalities lit a fire under me that hasn’t come close to burning out.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Half Cast First Cast staff from the Happiest Place on Earth – Anglers Inn Lake El Salto in Mexico! Wishing you a happy and healthy holiday wherever you are, and we hope next year at this time things are back to “normal.”

I caught several roosterfish in Costa Rica’s Gulf of Papagayo in August of 1995, and haven’t had a chance to catch any more since then. That’s not to say that roosters haven’t been a part of my life since then – I married a chicken-obsessed redhead, so we have a kitchen full of rooster figurines, and somehow ended up naming our hyper Australian Shepherd “Rooster,” too.

I don’t remember how I stumbled upon the shirts from online retailer Slackertide, but as an obsessive consumer of popular culture who also happens to fish, it was a godsend. Whether you want Willie Nelson, the Golden Girls, Jonah Hill, Rick James, Magnum PI or Cheech and Chong to accompany you on your next trip to the pond, they’ve gotcha covered.

The musky dudes are a different breed. I say that out of respect and a bit of worry for their sanity. I’ve only chased those figure-eightable bastards a handful of times at Lake St. Clair, and have managed to get some of their slime on my clothing, but the whole experience left me questioning why grown men would devote their lives to chasing such evil fish – and that’s on a place where they actually catch ‘em. Woe be to him who spends countless hours on a musky fishery far less fertile.

I can find no photographic or documentary evidence that famed reggae singer Bob Marley liked to fish despite the fact that he was from a country surrounded by water. In 2012 an Arkansas biologist named a small Caribbean crustacean after him,that’s still not enough to make the connection. Nevertheless, if you’ve been waiting in vain to integrate a little Marley into your fishing game, you can certainly dress the part.

Romney Dodd used to paint clogs for Nordstrom and other retailers, but her latest passion has been to take old skin mounts of fish and repaint them in distinctive and decorative manners.

Two decades ago, when the internet was becoming a more widely-used tool, Aberdeen Bait and Tackle used to distribute an emailed list of lures he’d hunted down, happened upon or coerced some old widow to sell. You could get Japan-only Heddon colors, discontinued crankbaits, and just about any special run Zoom pattern. In principle, that hasn’t changed. On the way to the 2015 Classic at Hartwell, my friend Terry Battisti took me there, but I hadn’t been back since. The trip to Santee gave me that opportunity.

It’s well-known in the bass world that KVD is a big Metallica fan. In fact, my friend Dan O’Sullivan once wrote an article about him called “Master of Puppets.” I have no doubt that some of you share VanDam’s dual interests, if not his skills and access. If nothing else matters to you, and you want to merge those two worlds, there are plenty of options.

Despite my reputation in some quarters as a curmudgeon, I really like giving gifts. Not a sweater or a gift card or some crap like that, but something that I expect to be meaningful to the recipient. I’m sure there have been a few misses along the way, but on the whole I think that Hanna and I do a pretty good job.

I’m not real big on buying hats because I get more than my share of freebies over the course of the year. Besides, I tend to narrow my “game day” selection down to a choice few in any given season. I’m not Steve Kennedy, who wears a single Auburn hat until it wears it, but I know that only certain lids fit my head properly, and I also know that some of them just have bad fishing mojo.

People in the south, east and west may not get it, but up north walleye fishing is a serious religion. Those dudes take their leeches and splash guards and gigantic nets every bit as seriously as bass guys take swimbaits and tungsten and deep diving crankplugs – maybe even more. A lot of them also like to drink, as evidenced by the fact that in most Wisconsin and Minnesota towns there seems to be a bar or two or three. So I decided to investigate the intersection of walleyes and beer and was not surprised by my findings.

Fifteen years later she gets it. The full picture. We fish together. We travel together. Now we write together, too. We may only be celebrating 6 months of blogging harmony, but today – on our 15th anniversary – it’s obvious why we have so much to celebrate and write about.