The Lowell Sun gave this scribe an opportunity to bring the outdoors to the public over 34 years ago.
Then Sports Editor Dennis Whitton gave me the chance to flex my wings in many directions on hunting, fishing, camping, shooting sports and much more.
I met many hundreds of you over the years and hundreds more of you wrote to me and sent in photos — many we were able to use on these pages. My favorite pictures and stories were always and will always be of kids who caught their first fish or bagged a pheasant, deer or perhaps missed, but had a great memory.
After all, kids are the future of the outdoors.
The Greater Lowell Fly Fishers are all but a memory now. The leaders are passing on and no one will take their place. One member still here and a very good friend now is a man who introduced the club and himself to me just after I started here, Bob Simard.
Simard invited me to a meeting and had me speak to 60 or 70 of the members present. Then they tied up some flies and discussed the big fishing event on the river. The meetings were all open to the public.
They also held the biggest fishing event on the Merrimack River every year with over 1,000 people entering and camping on the shores of the river. The targeted fish were smallmouth, largemouth and, of course, the carp.
Some of you have caught fish and posted pictures here on this page since you were small like Scott Osmond. He has grown up to be a fine adult and father. Osmond is also the best carp fisherman in all of New England, recently catching a 50-pound beast, easily besting the Massachusetts state record. But he chose to release the fish rather than kill it. A true sportsman.
Mike Peeples and his bride sent me a great striper picture they took in the Merrimack or Concord River. Then this year, nailing another beast in the Merrimack River, a 200-pound catch and release sturgeon.
It was also a tough time when several Lowell and Reading police officers I had hunted with for bear went on a hunting trip to Anticosti Island and never returned. As their plane went down in New Brunswick on their flight home.
My kids Sandy, Lori and Brooke grew up in these pages and watched their old man in print each week. At first it was a big deal seeing dad in the paper, then like an old pair of slippers they get old and worn out.
I promised Tom Shattuck I would not take an entire page here. But all of you know this is the hardest article I have written in 34 years. You have been a great captive group. But the time has come my friends to say goodbye.
I wish you all tight lines, straight arrows and God Bless.
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