FEATURES & ARTICLES
Fish or Shutup IV - "Nothing Compares"
by Mike Simms
Summary: Each year, I start planning for the annual Roche Harbor Salmon Classic Invitational several months in advance, by sending my crew a motivational email. Below you will find my 2008 email to the crew ... enjoy!
Gentlemen, I recently stumbled across the following article in Spudfishing Magazine, written by the legendary sportfishing author and TV personality, Hook Poindexter:
It has been nearly 12 months since the Reel Deal team gathered in the studio at Bonefish Ranch to plan and execute one of the most heralded upsets in the sporting world. As the fourth annual Roche Harbor Salmon Classic Invitational began, team Reel Deal: Mike Simms (Skipper), John Marler (Snagmore), & Bob Bostwick (Butcher), were grappling with the prospect of yet another year of failure. In their three prior bids for the coveted honor of winning the largest blackmouth fishing tournament in the world, team Reel Deal (formerly team Bonefish) came up painfully short. Posting a dismal and disappointing zero fish in three years, team Reel Deal were clearly the underdogs. Adding to their self-doubt and growing frustrations, the team’s deck boss, Jeremy Nash (The Face), announced his retirement from competitive fishing tournaments, leaving the team seemingly rudderless in a sea of competitive debauchery. “We’re devastated,” said Reel Deal Skipper Mike Simms during a fall 2006 interview at the American Legion, “The future of our team, and potentially that of the entire sportfishing industry, is now uncertain at best.” The team quickly recovered, however, successfully recruiting Greg Sewell (Bambi) as their fourth crew member. Simms would restructure the chain of command aboard F/V Reel Deal, promoting Marler and Bostwick to the high-profile “co-deck boss” positions, while Sewell complimented the crew as the team’s Greenhorn. Despite desperately thin odds, team Reel Deal returned to Roche Harbor with a new look, a new team, and a new passion to compete. In the days that would follow, under Simms’ controversial and often hostile leadership, the crew known as Snag, Butcher, and Bambi, unleashed their passion and captured the top prize in the sport – First Place in the Largest Blackmouth Tournament in the World! Their pictures graced the covers of newspapers and boating/fishing magazines around the world. Simms leveraged the victory to found the popular San Juan Sportsman series of videos and www.sanjuansportsman.com website. The rest of the Reel Deal crew retreated in exile to their vacation homes across the Pacific Northwest: Marler has been recently spotted on the shores of Lake Roosevelt, Sewell in the hills surrounding Lake Chelan, and Bostwick on his private ranch in the heart of Montana. The Reel Deal crew has reportedly reunited only once during the past year. Surrounded by intense security, the crew gathered at the home of Simms in early summer to preview the world premiere of San Juan Sportsman – Episode One: BLACKMOUTH! – with Marler, Bostwick, and Sewell playing starring roles in the video. Sources close to the Reel Deal crew reported high levels of sexual tension among the crew members during the event. It is clear that the once darlings of the fishing world have drifted apart, succumbing to the rip tides of pop-fishing success. Smothered by the paparazzi and tortured by the haunting thread of competition that weaves through these four sportsmen like a Thai belly-wrap, it seemed certain only weeks ago that team Reel Deal were destined to become a mere footnote in the annals of fishing history. However, recent electronic chatter between the four has fueled speculation of a potential reunion. Simms denied this speculation, calling it “f*&^ing stupid dumba%$ reporter bulls^%$!” But is it, really? Recent satellite imagery suggests F/V Reel Deal may have been moved quietly under the dark cover of night from its hailing port of Roche Harbor to an isolated indoor storage facility owned by Granite Boatworks in nearby Mt. Vernon, Wa. Could it be that Simms is secretly preparing his vessel to defend his team’s first place title? And if so, is it possible that Snag, Butcher, and Bambi would agree to reunite with Simms to structure a repeat bid? The next several weeks will provide the answer. Until then, the fishing world is literally on the edge of its seat, or fighting chair as it were, as we wait, and watch.
This article not only infuriated me, it inspired me. Through the scandalous lies and dangling participles embedded deep within the inaccuracies above, I found a kernel of truth. Stripping it down to its bare-assed essence, we are champions. Despite what Poindexter called “desperately thin odds,” we overcame our potentially terminal disease called failure, returning to the sport we love to claim its top prize. Through shear passion and determination, we showed the world that we still have “a little captain in us.”
The question that consumed me for weeks after reading Poindexter's’ article is this : How do I motivate the Reel Deal crew to return this year with the proverbial “eye of the tiger” I so eloquently described in last year’s email? How does a skipper inspire his crew to endure the harsh competitive environment of this derby to accomplish that which has already been accomplished? I needed a theme. I needed a breakthrough. I needed help!
As I considered this year’s crew email, my thoughts gravitated back toward Rocky. How did Rocky defend his title, and what could we as a team learn from the iconic Balboa? I finally came to grips with a bitter & egregious reality … I needed to find a new figure for this year’s email. I needed to search for someone to serve as team Reel Deal’s inspiration for this year’s derby. Not Rocky. Someone else. Someone who, like us, is a champion. Someone who, like us, overcame incredible odds to climb the mountain of success in the face of his critics to defend a title many claimed was impossible to recapture. But who?
After exhausting my options, I decided to travel East in search of the answer. My travels took me far from home, to a strange and chaotic land where sportsmen brave the frigid waters off Long Island Sound to hunt big Black ducks and massive flocks of Bufflehead that swarm in waves into ice-encrusted decoy spreads, pre-destined to death-by-Benelli. It is there, at the East Coast headquarters of San Juan Sportsman in Clinton, CT that I met up with E. Coast San Juan Sportsman Sr. Field Correspondent, Al “The Clinton Kid” Mennone. We spent several days together discussing the intense challenge I faced to conceptualize a theme for this year’s email. We drank gallons of homemade-hooch, and smoked boxes of cigars, as we ruminated on this topic. The answer, however, continued to escape me.
One evening, the Kid & I travelled to Foxwood’s casino, one of the largest casinos in the world. He’s a big gambler, the Kid, desiring the dark and smoky caverns of a Racebook to the non-smoking Poker rooms which he believes to be over-popularized by television shows for which he has nothing but disdain. It was here, during the Game 7 broadcast from the Dania Jai-Alai fronton that I would finally get my answer. With a pair of ¼ Quinella receipts centered on the carrels in front of us, we cheered as Ochoa underserved Altuna to position #4 as the odds-on favorite to win the Spectacular 9, and force a playoff for second place between the #1 and #8 players. I swiveled in my seat to high-five the Kid, but what I saw sent shivers down my hairy back and chilled my very core. The Kid had transformed somehow. His eyes were fire-red with bloodshot, rolled back deeply into their hallowed sockets. He now hovered above his seat, his legs folded and his arms crossed squarely and confidently across his chest. His clothing had disappeared, replaced by long, flowing robes that draped from his body, blowing gently in a breeze that seemed to stir and swirl up and around the Kid. Stunning … The light in the cavernous Racebook dimmed gradually, eventually turning to complete darkness. Except around the Kid. A soft glow seemed to surround the Kid, illuminating his flowing robes and creating an eerie visual as the combination of light and smoke from our cigars encircled the Kid, wafting in white streaks around his elevated body and diffusing the soft glow of illumination that surrounded and supported the Kid like a pillar.
The subtle outlines of people in the darkened room around us seemed to advance in slow, heavy, deliberate motion, oblivious to the occult revelation which had materialized and transformed the Kid into some kind of translucent, floating Dhali Lama. I reached out to him tentatively, but feeling electric tingling sensation in my hands, I drew them quickly away. I attempted to speak to the Kid, but his fire-red eyes glared back and down at me, erasing my words from the air. “I know the question you intend to ask, San Juan Sportsman,” the floating Lama-Kid thing bellowed at me in a deep, rumbling growl. “There will be no trophy for your Reel Deal team this year,” the Lama-Kid thing sneered. “But on your death bed, you will receive eternal consciousness.”
Was he serious? “So, I’ve got that going for me, which is nice” I replied, giving what I thought was a witty, Caddyshack-inspired response.
“Silence!” the Lama-Kid howled. “In the future, I see an empty mantle in your studio, with a well-preserved trophy base above your TV, with no trophy upon it,” the Lama-Kid sang his words in deep, gravelly tones. “If these events are unaltered in the present, you will surely lose this year’s derby and your crew will die.”
The Lama-kid had my full attention now. “Are you saying that I can change the outcome of the future, spirit? Please tell me, O Spirit, that my crew will not perish!”
“Silence!” he screamed as loud as a tornado. I smelled the dank, foul odor of death and cheap cigars on his breath, as it blew my hair back into an unintentional comb-over. Hmm… not a bad look, I thought to myself briefly. The Lama-Kid lifted his right arm, and I noticed his robe had turned from white to the darkest black I had ever seen. His arm stretched forward, protruding from the black cuff of his robe. The flesh on his elongated fingers and been charred away, exposing the bone. He pointed his charred, bony index finger to the front wall of the Racebook, where only a few moments ago we were watching Dania Jai-Alai on the main screen, which was flanked by smaller images of horse racing from various tracks across the country – Hollywood Park, Mountaineer, and other venues, on either side. The screens continued to wrap around us, displaying horse names, odds, minutes-to-post, and other pertinent wagering information for each of the racing venues. But that was a few moments ago. Now, the screens were completely dark, and barely visible.
Without warning, the screens came to life. In a blinding shock of light, L-A-N-C-E appeared on the wall above me in giant, red, letters. The bright lights startled me for a moment, and I struggled to focus my eyes. L-A-N-C-E scrolled to the left and were replaced by flashing blue letters, equal in size. A-R-M-S-T-R-O-N-G pulsated in the darkened room. The intensity of the illumination burned into my eyes, and I lifted my hands to shield them from the glow. At that very moment, the room darkened again, just briefly. The large letters faded, as the flanking screens began to fill with volumes of what appeared to be statistics of some sort: …resting h/r: 32-34 …VO2ml/kg: 83.8 …max pwr @VO2: 600 watts … max h/r: 201 … lactate threshold h/r: 178 … time trial h/r : 188-192 … pedal rpms: 80-85 …1999: 1st Place TdF … 2000: 1st Place TdF, 1st Place GP Eddy Mercx 2-man w/ “Eki” Ekimov … 2001: 1st Place TdF, 1st Place TdS … 2002: 1st Place TdF, 1st Place TdS … 2003: 1st Place TdF, 1st Place Dauphine Libre … 2004: 1st Place TdF, 1st Place Georgia …2005: 1st Place TdF, 2 stage wins …
The amount of data was overwhelming and difficult to read, even for me. Data scrolled rapidly across the screens, moving faster and faster until the screens were filled with red streaks that blurred in front of me like illuminated stripes of a gigantic flag. I struggled to keep my eyes open, but the blinding brightness of the large screens was overpowering. I closed my eyes again, covering them as tightly as I could with my hands. Conscious thought seemed to fade away from me and I slipped languishly to the floor.
When I awoke, the Kid was standing over me with a cocktail in one hand, and a Nat Sherman in the other. Gone were the long, flowing robes, and pillars of light. His eyes had returned to their normal shade of bloodshot, yet he looked smug, knowing. He smiled down at me as I lifted my hefty frame from the sticky floor.
“What day is it?” I asked the Kid.
“What are you talking about, Big Man?” he shot back.
I gathered my thoughts and peered out across the illuminated Racebook. Everything was back to normal. Gamblers were placing bets. Waitresses were serving watered-down cocktails. The screens were filled with horses. The spirits had done it all in one night!
Lance Armstrong. I now had my theme for this year’s crew email! The more I thought about this theme, the more I liked it. A guy with one nut who overcame all odds by fighting his way back from testicular cancer which had also spread to his lungs and brain.
After the doctors gave Lance only a 50/50 chance of recovery, he elected to undergo an aggressive form of chemotherapy, and clawed his way back to the top of the sport he loved, winning its holy grail. And then, Lance returned 6 more times, and recaptured the title 6 more times … this is our guy.
In 1999, upon completing his chemotherapy, Lance returned to the sport of cycling with a specific goal: to win the Tour de France. With a mixture of power & aggressiveness, Lance achieved his goal. Much like team Reel Deal, returning from 3 years of enduring our own chemo-blackmouth-therapy to win the 2007 Roche Harbor Classic. We had suffered 3 years of no fish. We lost our deck-boss. We managed through a vessel change, requiring us to completely re-outfit a new fishing platform. We had to train a new Greenhorn. And we nearly exhausted our supply of cigars.
Lance credits team strategy for his victory, again much like our own race up the blackmouth mountain. We dug deep, training hard and perfecting our individual roles on Reel Deal, fully appreciating that to win this bad-boy required us to look, think, act, and smell like a team.
And while I could draw analogies between Lance and team Reel Deal all day long, the question I was attempting to answer is very simple: How did Lance motivate himself to work so hard to defend his Tour de France title the first year after capturing it? With a little research, I found the answer. In Lance’s own words: “I realized that the tour is the one race that makes me tick. It’s the one that wakes me up in the morning. And it’s the one, when I’m suffering like a dog in training, that makes me dig that much deeper. Nothing compares.”
And that, Reel Deal crew, is why we will compete in the 2008 classic this year. Because Nothing Compares.
In conclusion, I’d like to quote Dan Osipaw, the Director of Communications at Tailwind Sports. During an interview about Lance, he was asked a similar question to the one we face: Why does Lance work so hard to win a tour which he has already won? The answer: “He’s not going over there to half-ass this thing … he’s going to win.” And that says it all , crew … we will not half-ass our bid to recapture the trophy this year. We will full-ass it.
Skipper – CT, Dec 2007.