With covid-19 diminishing the value of their educational prospects, two students from northern Virginia decided to skip school and go fishing.
Luke Konson and Daniel Balserak graduated from high school in June and intended to enter Clemson University in August 2020. Two weeks before they were scheduled to move into their dormitory, however, Clemson announced it would delay move-in for five weeks, and that all classes would be online, Konson said.
"We didn't want to pay full tuition for online classes, so we decided to defer admission to next year," he said.
Facing a "gap" year, Konson and Balserak explored their options. An extended fishing trip was attractive to the enthusiastic anglers, but creating a unique concept was challenging. The pair wanted to fish all 50 states, but a lot of people had done that in various forms.
"Some have done it in pretty impressive ways," Konson said. "One guy caught a trophy fish in all 50 states. A father and son had done it. We came up with the 'state fish' idea. As far as we could find, nobody had ever caught the state fish in all 50 states."
After considerable cajoling and negotiation, Konson and Balserak said they persuaded their parents to approve the junket. Then came the planning.
"Travel with the virus is kind of a sketchy situation, so we were thinking about how we could drive around and go to all 50 states," Konson said.
Konson and Balserak got their feet wet, so to speak, and reassured their anxious parents by conquering the state fish nearest to their homes. Those were fairly easy because brook trout is the state fish for Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Vermont and West Virginia.
Striped bass is the state fish for Maryland, Rhode Island and South Carolina. All that's left undone on the East Coast is to catch an American shad in Connecticut. Konson said they will have to return there for the annual shad run.
The list got more difficult farther inland, where states honor the walleye (Minnesota) and the muskellunge (Wisconsin). The muskie is so hard to catch that its nickname is "The fish of a thousand casts." People that fish for muskies don't talk about it, and they certainly don't tell outsiders where to catch them. Fortunately, serendipity smiled upon the anglers when they met a kindred spirit that offered to take them to what he said was the best muskie hole in Wisconsin.
"He said it's his secret spot, and he swore us to secrecy," Konson said.
Konson and Balserak caught big muskies at the same time. Doubling on muskies is a blue moon event.
"After we took pictures and released the fish, we all just kind of fell back in silence," Balserak said. "Nobody said a word for the longest time. It was like, 'Did that just happen?' It was awesome."
Arkansas has been the toughest test so far. We don't have an official state fish, but we do have an official primitive fish, the alligator gar. It is hard to find and hard to catch in the best circumstances. Catching one in winter is a Star of Bethlehem event. Konson and Balserak have been in Arkansas for about two weeks trying to catch a gator gar in southeast Arkansas. Despite assistance from several local experts, there's no escaping the fact that gar fishing is a warm weather exercise.
"We're probably going to have to come back later for that one, too," Konson acknowledged.
Konson and Balserak did not bite at the suggestion that since the alligator gar is not THE state fish, that maybe they could cross that off their list and claim victory with 49.
Naturally, a 50-state fishing trip costs a fair amount of money, especially when an alligator gar stretches a visit long past expectations. Konson and Balserak avoid lodging expenses by sleeping in their vehicle -- a Toyota Sienna -- but food and fuel are unavoidable. There are laundromats to visit and, of course, they must also buy 49 nonresident fishing licenses.
"A West Virginia fishing license was like $3," Konson said. "Rhode Island was $10 for an annual pass. That's one thing where there's no way to get the cost down. It is what it is."
Crowdfunding takes care of a lot of it. The pair has a GoFundMe page that has raised about $5,000. It is accessible from Konson and Balserak's website, www.fishallfifty.us.
"That's been super key," Konson said. "That's really what's making this possible."
A year-long fishing odyssey is a life-defining event, and the young men will not enjoy this degree of freedom again.
"We've been thinking about that," Konson said. "I think that's (re-entry) is going to be pretty big. We've lost a lot of our 'smarts' that we learned in this. I don't think we can do sophomore math anymore. It's definitely going to be a bit of a transition. This experience is really good for us. We're learning a lot of things, and we've gotten a lot of experience that otherwise would have taken I don't know how long to get."
It has also bonded an unbreakable friendship. Konson and Balserak were going to be roommates at Clemson. So far they have roomed about 150 nights in a car. A dorm room will be like a palace in comparison.
"I've never been in this close proximity to anyone for this amount of time before," Konson said. "Honestly, I don't know that we have any other friends that we'd be able do this with. It was 35 degrees in Vermont, and we only had summer clothes. We have to go out and fish at nights. This would be a very tough thing to do alone."
When it's over, they will have done something nobody has done before, even if Arkansas' alligator gar fail to cooperate.
