“Stephen and Cat want more description. I don’t know what else to say about that night,” Janet Messineo-Israel said, as we drove home from our Wednesday Writer’s Group.
I glanced over at her and laughed. “Seriously? You talk about fishing all day long.”
“That’s different,” Janet replied, not at all comfortable with the task before her. ‘Writing a book is different than talking on the beach.”
“Want me to record you tomorrow night when we go to Quansoo?” I teased.
Over the course of a couple of years, Janet brought every chapter of her then-manuscript to the writing group multiple times. She tweaked, rewrote, added, deleted, and then added a bit more. When Janet’s friend Jenny connected her with a childhood friend who happened to be a vice president and senior editor at Knopf Publishing, Janet had to start the rewrites over.
Janet wrote “Casting Into the Light” with the same tenacity that she exuded for decades in her sobriety, her fishing, her taxidermy, and living her best life as a human doing. She asked others for help, she wrote with friends, she wrote alone, and she went with her gut, as all good fishermen do.
During the past decade, I had the good fortune to fish with Janet many times. Whether we were fishing the Derby or spending a summer afternoon on Chappy or a winter sunset trying to snag a few perch for dinner, we always had fun.
Over and over, I heard Janet say, “Don’t give up until the miracle happens.”
By gosh, Janet never gave up — in life and in fishing. Long before she had a diagnosis, she had incredible pain. She lived with it, and pushed through it. She modified her fishing. Some of us became willing sherpas, lugging her gear and learning from the master.
In the fall of 2017, after the Derby, Janet was determined to teach me how to fish with live eels. She absolutely loved slinging eels. Many nights we’d been out fishing, her with an eel and me with a plug. I really hadn’t wanted to pick up a slimy eel.
Janet persisted. Said a real fisherman would fish with eels. I relented. I wanted to be a real fisherman.
On Halloween night, we headed to Tashmoo — with eels. Only eels. Can we say, “Not sure this is a treat?”
Janet patiently showed me how to pick up an eel so it didn’t bite me. Janet used her hands. I used a rag then, and still do, because I still don’t want to touch a slimy eel. She taught me how to hook the eel, how to cast, or sling, and to leave the bale open with my finger gently on the line, and then to wait.
The fish gods blessed us that night. I landed a striper. It wasn’t my first striper, but it was my first striper with a live eel. Definitely a treat!
A year later, in the 2018 Derby, I weighed in a bonito, an albie, a bluefish, but needed a weighable bass for a Grand Slam. I’d caught plenty of stripers, but they were all short. A friend recommended a location. I went to Coop’s Bait and Tackle, bought a bunch of eels, and headed to the beach. I carefully selected the first eel, put him on the circle hook, slung him, let him swim, and waited. Within five minutes, my line was peeling.
I reeled in a weighable bass. The eel was still alive, so I released him and headed to weigh-in. Of course I called Janet. Slinging eels had become my favorite way to fish for bass, and Janet reminded me once again how long I had resisted. She knew better.
I never saw Janet give up. She battled addiction and won.
She pioneered the way for women fishermen when, from her many stories, most guys thought she wouldn’t last a week, never mind 50 years. And few were keen to help her or offer advice.
As her body began a savage decline, Janet fought back. She fished every day she could, where she could, and how she could. The 78th Derby was her last competition, and even with undiagnosed ALS ravaging her body, she weighed in fish.
I suspect Janet is fishing right now, with Charlie Cinto and Ed Jerome, two of her besties and mentors. As I’m typing now and the day you’re reading this column, I bet she’s standing on a shoreline in Heaven, a new celestial rod in her hands, and she’s casting into the light. The image in my mind is so clear. Janet is strong, vibrant, laughing, and waiting for the miracle to happen on the end of her line.
We all need miracles in our lives — big and small ones, personal ones and family ones, friends and co-workers in need, or, on a grander scale, a world in need. I hope we’ll each take Janet’s advice, and “never give up until the miracle happens.”
Come June, I’m taking a bunch of eels and heading to the North Shore, to a place Janet and I fished often. I hope the bass are there. Janet will surely be in my heart.
I hope to see you on the beach, and I hope you’re believing for a miracle.
