Boys in Boats

You can be an angler your whole life and still need a teacher. That was the case 20 years ago when I first met a publisher named Adam to discuss a book project. That business meeting morphed into a fishing and boating chat. I was a trout guy, fishing rivers in Vermont, Montana, and Colorado. I’d only caught a few bluefish trolling, and that was from a charter boat. Turns out Adam was a striper guy who knew the in-shore waters along the bay side of Cape Cod.

So when he surprised me by inviting me fishing, I accepted, curious to learn what all the buzz was about catching striped bass.

We launched our kayaks in Barnstable Harbor, and I followed Adam as he paddled out to a sandbar. The sun was low in the sky creating pink and gold hues near the horizon. In the distance was an island with a small lighthouse, and I remember thinking how beautiful Cape Cod looked from the water.

As we paddled, Adam seemed like a different person than the one I’d first met talking business. He gave me tips about where to cast, what speed to work my lure, and he warned me to be aware of tide strength or my next stop might be France. How were our odds to catch stripers, I asked.

“Mike,” he laughed, “I’ve already seen stripers race under us and two have broken the surface. If you can’t catch a fish today, I’ll double your royalties!” Gone was the serious, reserved man I’d first met. Fishing together can do that, loosening you up and lightening your emotional load. Boats allow us a private, encapsulated world where old habits and inhibited styles can be safely replaced with genuine, heartfelt conversation.

I trolled my lure behind my kayak and my rod jerked and almost popped out of the rod holder. The fish stripped line from the reel, and I hoped it was a striped bass. Here in this kayak, so much more directly connected to the fish, I could feel it thrash, using its tail for power. In the shallow water, the fish came to the surface in a swirl and pulled my kayak in a semicircle until I finally gained more line.

Shouting for Adam, I got the fish to the kayak, took the hook out of its mouth, lifted it up, and let out a whoop of joy. It was a striper alright, about 25 inches long, one of the biggest fish I’d ever caught. It was not, however, large enough to keep, as the legal size is 28 inches. I started lowering it toward the water.

“Wait!” said Adam paddling his kayak next to mine. “Let me get a picture of you and your fish.” He took the picture, gave me a high five, and I let the fish go. In those moments a friendship was cemented. Little did we know then that it would be a much-needed anchor when life threw storms our way and crucial decisions had to be made.

Joseph Conrad, a British novelist regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language, wrote that “… the sea brings men together and makes them know each other as they could never do ashore.” Without a mutual passion for fishing, two people as different as we were might not have become friends at all. Adam and I needed a shared activity to bring us together – an opportunity to really talk and share our thoughts. Fishing was that activity and the ocean the setting, both of which afforded us the opportunity to exchange ideas, lower our guard, and get to know the true measure of the other person.

A week later, we were back at Barnstable Harbor, this time in Adam’s center-console. He could maneuver it into the shallow productive spots he’d discovered during his years of fishing from a kayak, with me at the bow scanning for fish. That boat gave us the chance to really hang out and talk.

Our outward personalities were so different, but we each had an entrepreneurial streak and liked to fire ideas back and forth. Independently we may have lacked the know-how to turn those ideas into successful ventures, but we were both energetic and together gave each other more confidence. We knew the other person would give honest opinions, and slowly, over many fishing trips, we built a trust beyond business talk.

Over the next few years boating together, Adam and I helped each other navigate life’s shoals. We’d each gone through divorce and illness, and on the boat we candidly talked about those struggles. We spent considerable time sharing how we were raising our children and the efforts we were making to be better fathers and better people.

The key, I’m convinced, to building a friendship of real depth, is one-on-one time together while engaging in an activity – preferably outdoors – where you can talk. That’s the beauty of fishing on a boat. You’re out there and in it together.

It’s no secret that loneliness is a national problem. In 2023, former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared that loneliness is a public health crisis. “In recent years,” he wrote in his advisory, “about one in two adults in America reported experiencing loneliness. And that was before the COVID-19 pandemic. … Loneliness is far more than just a bad feeling; it harms both individual and societal health. It is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death.”

Deeper studies show the problem is more pronounced in men. The Survey Center for American Life reported in 2025 that American men do not have the friendship support that women do: “Men are far less likely than women are to have received emotional support from a friend. Four in 10 women (41%) report having received emotional support from a friend within the past week, compared to 21% of men.”

Young men suffer from this problem the most, according to a recent Gallup poll, with 25% of U.S. men ages 15 to 34 reporting that they felt lonely a lot of the previous day. This is significantly higher than the 18% national average of all people. And it’s significantly higher than the total for young women (also 18%). The isolation caused by social media versus in-person shared activities only makes the situation worse.

In 1898, the first man to sail around the Earth alone grew to understand the power that the sea and boats can have over people. In his worldwide bestseller about the epic voyage, Joshua Slocum wrote, “The sea has a way of compelling men into sincerity.”

Boating together sets the stage for deeper connections with others. On a lake or ocean, the vastness of the setting contributes to feelings of awe and sharpens our awareness of being alive. With so few distractions, that quiet allows for more introspection, honesty, and sharing between two people. It’s happily inevitable. So invite one friend out on your boat and experience the magic that can take place when two people have the quiet time and the inspiring setting to share their ideas, emotions, struggles, and joys. It can change your life and theirs.