While many of my friends are fascinated by my late-in-life discovery of fishing, more than a few of them get agitated by one aspect of my addiction: They can’t understand how and why we catch and release all of our fish. To make them happy, check out our seared tuna.

Our retirement dream is to travel the country in a fifth wheel to fish and explore. Pete will tow the RV with one vehicle and I will tow the boat with another. I guess that means I better learn how to tow the boat. I’ve done it a few times out of necessity, but I’m still not 100 percent comfortable with the process.

When I interviewed FisheWear founder Linda Leary a few months back, she hinted that despite the fact that she lives in a state with no reproducing population of bass, my beloved largemouth was the next fish on her design schedule. Well, she’s brought out a new “Basstacular” collection and it exceeds expectations.

If you’d told me 20 years ago that fishing would become a huge part of my life I would’ve laughed, but it has. It has been integral to boosting my confidence and my skill set. The memories we’ve made and the artifacts we’ve collected are the evidence of lives well-lived….and we want you to join us.

I typically don’t eat desserts but I always save room for tres leches cake when I am fishing at Anglers Inn. “Tres Leches,” which means “Three Milks,” is a rich, fluffy creation found in just about every Mexican restaurant. Tres Leches is a celebration cake, a must have during birthdays, graduations and even weddings – or to celebrate lobina grande. Here’s how I made it at home.

With 50 species of fish to be caught in the Gulf of Chiriqui, I still wasn’t certain I’d catch my bucket list species, but I put in my time targeting them inshore. We went inshore and targeted them. We cast, we trolled and we CAUGHT my rooster. In fact, I caught two of them.

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.

I met Donna Gaunt on August 18, 1986, during our freshman year of college, which makes us antiques. We were roommates from our sophomore year until we graduated, and then a few year later we moved back in together and it was just like old times. Her college degree was fashion merchandising. She didn’t need to take home economics because she could have taught the class.

My first time alone behind the wheel of a car was at the age of 13. After a long hot day of working on the farm I was asked to go pick melons for dessert. The look in my eyes must have said, “Over my dead body!” but I was told to just take the truck and go and get them. I got a second wind and tore out of the house, jumped in the truck, turned the key, put it into gear and off I went. I had a sense of freedom out there all on my own behind the wheel.

Pop tarts, Clif bars and PB&J (make sure it doesn’t have too much jelly, can’t have it dripping down your arms while flying down the river) are all great, easy, fast options for a day on the water….if you are in your 20s.

Because of my dad’s job, most of my childhood summers were spent in the back seat of a sedan driving someplace across America. I’m not sure I appreciated spending so much time with my family and seeing our great country much at the time.

They say that 50 is the new 40 and 40 is the new 30 and I believe that because I feel and “think” I look pretty darn good for 51 (yep, I said it).

I get asked all the time: “Why don’t you eat the fish you catch?” The large majority of the fish Pete and I catch are released. Catch and release fishing is a conservation practice developed to prevent overharvest of fish stocks in the face of the growing human populations.

It’s not often your husband asks you to work the pole, but recently Pete made that request in order to ensure that we’d have a perfect fishing trip to Guatemala. Shortly before we left we needed to make sure that we knew how to get spectacular coverage of our sailfish with our GoPro as the lodge doesn’t take the sailfish fully out of the water and into the boat in order to take pictures.