NEVER FORGET YOUR FRIENDS!

 Ed Stalling & Joe Pysa take a break on a Rhode Island Beach!

I'm not sure just when, probably mid-1960's, but I remember taking this picture of two old friends on a Rhode Island beach when then let me tag along for a day of surf fishing.

Ed & Joe were friends long before I knew them. As young guys, they loved taking the drive to Lake Willoughby in Vermont where Ed had a cabin---and where he caught the big rainbow trout hanging on his wall for many years. They fished the salt water together too. They knew more about fishing the Norwalk Islands, the when, the where, the tides and weather to catch the biggest and the best.

Joe was a Game Warden. That's what everybody called them in those days and they eventually became Conservation Officers. Joe worked his way up to Fisheries Biologist. He worked closely with many other conservationists and scientists on early striped bass studies in Long Island Sound and on a Coastal level with Legends like Bob Pond. 

Ed was an ex-Marine who enlisted right after Pearl Harbor, fought ad was wounded in the Pacific, but made it back to raise his family in Westport. Three sons, followed him in the Marines, his youngest son Tim,  fought in Iraq.  Ed was my closest fishing buddy until a few years ago when cancer caught up to him. I fished with Joe a number of times too and  often ran into him on stocking days during trout season.

I miss them both and still stay in touch with families and while I'm in no big rush to get there, look forward to sharing some fishing tales with them when we meet again.

DWA