Page 14 - FEB2023

Page 14
NEWFOUNDLAKELIFE.COM
February 2023
Off the Hook
the high seas so I decided to get educated on it and also , at the same time to get some fishing in on the side as much
as possible anyway. At
this point I have managed
to travel about 1500 miles south and have caught the same spe- cies ,more often that not, that I could have travelled two hours to the coast and caught, Blue- fish. They are not as big as in the New England waters, but
Being Sterling
By Jim nute, exeCutive DiReCtoR
On June 24th last year, Ster- ling – a 1991 Mayhew alum – stopped by with his family for an out-of-the-blue visit. It was won- derful and energizing, especially
they fight just as hard pound for pound. Did you know that the Bluefish is it’s own spe- cies, I did not until recently, no known relatives, whacky It was associated with the Gbomefish, bit the got sepa- rated, wonder what that means, are they now divorced? They
are known to live upwards of 9 years and grow as large as 55
since the last time we had caught up was exactly six years before, when he called in tears with the tragic news that his older brother Mike – also part of the Mayhew family – had passed away. Mike’s different presence now and all the hard, joyous and surprising moments since were with us as we walked the trails and watched
inches. They can be found along the east coast of the United States and as far off as Austra- lia and Africa, world travelers I guess. It does provide a helluva fight though. Just don’t get your digits anywhere near it’s mouth or you may pull back a a bloody stump.
Well, that’s it for now, will up- date from the sunny, warm, dirty south, till then, get out on the ice and have fun.
the boys in their Island moments. I’ve long admired how Ster- ling has carried his moments and built his story. This has been true since the summer of 1990, when I was a rookie cabin coun- selor and he was a leading force for The Time Bandits group and the larger Island community. It was true when he and Mike re- turned to the Island in 2011 to share their Mayhew stories with
the boys and staff. Here’s a bit of what Sterling shared back then (For more, please go to: You- Tube.com/mayhewprogram, “Sterling”):
“[Mayhew] made me want to become a better man, to be a positive father...and to be a good husband...because I never had that and I think without May- hew, I may not have yearned to do that, because of the fact of living in a broken home with abuse and everything else. It was almost impossible to see that type of light until I came to a place like Mayhew.”
Eleven years later, here was Sterling, being all this and more – for himself, for his family. It was very special walking the Island, being a small part of these new Mayhew moments with them. On the boat back to the main- land, though he didn’t say a lot, it was easy to feel Sterling carrying these new moments and already beginning to weave them into “his”story. At one point, he com- mented about all the zooming boat traffic and showed some of his weaving: “Look at this chaos of boats and right in the middle of it all is this island of calm.”
Maybe Sterling was referring to Mayhew in that moment but he could have just as easily been describing the boy, now man I’ve seen him be for over thirty years. So very thankful to be Mayhew with you, Sterling!
By mJC
Once again, the winter blues have set in and not much fish- ing getting accomplished, so I decided to head set south and get some sunshine and educa- tion. I have been boating my entire life, as far back as I can recall anyhow and yet I never
really received any kind of for- mal training. My knowledge to this point has been a collection of what my Father initially had shown me and life experience on the water, both fresh and salt. I have always wanted to learn more about navigating on the ocean and how things worked on
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