Several times over the years, real professional fishermen have gotten in touch about writing a column. The problem was they couldn’t write. One even suggested he would “tell” me things and then I would write it up and put his name on it. Yeah, right, happens all the time in journalism. People are just dying to write things up and give the credit away. At any rate, a fishing column just never happened.

Then I remembered a colleague I used to have when we produced glorious copy for another publication. John Ledbetter, Esq. no less, had taken a hiatus from the practice of law to be a lowly paid, overworked journalist. It was no particular mystery that one would want to take a break from the law. The best description of the profession I ever heard was having a job with a lifetime of homework. Sounds right to me, but I digress, as I am wont to do.

Anyway John and I were the two oldest of the toiling journalists in the newsroom. The majority of the staff was fresh-faced, idealistic young journalism grads with their first job. We were also united in copious amounts of cynicism and sarcasm. We traded bon mots at a pretty quick pace and huddled on the back porch to abuse our lungs with nicotine.

One of John’s favorite pastimes was reading Roget’s Thesaurus. Sounds nerdy, but it wasn’t, just serious curiosity about the wealth of words available for describing all manner of things. He often tossed out a word and a contest was begun to see who could legitimately use the word in a story first. We were about equal in our winning ways. As I recall, it was unfair to use the word in a column, because a column could be custom built to accommodate the word. It had to be used in a news or feature story. OK, maybe it was nerdy, but it was still a lot of fun and what do you expect from writers anyway?

Back then; John would often come to work after rising at or before dawn to go fishing. He loves it. He knows a lot about it. He can write and now he will be writing once a month for us about fishing. His columns, Fishing Better With John Ledbetter, might not be nuts and bolts, how-to stuff, but then again they might be. I have more or less given him carte blanche to write about fishing as he pleases. It doesn’t hurt that he is an award winning outdoor writer either. His awards and his love of the sport make him an ideal candidate to provide information on a subject dear to the hearts of many hereabouts.

John no longer writes on a regular basis, having returned to doing homework at Matthews & Hawkins, where he rights wrongs in court, instead of exposing them to the harsh light of newsprint. That means we now have two lawyers writing for us, as Bruce Collier has also strolled away from the practice of law. I’m not sure what that says about the practice of law, but law school must surely be good at teaching people how to write clearly and precisely.

So check out his first column in this issue and feel free to make suggestions on fishing topics for John to explore.