For those who are social media savvy, there’s been a trending flashback to one decade ago with the tagline “2026 is the new 2016.” With so many social media users falling into the millennial category, 10 years ago marked a remarkably different time in their lives. Jobs, partnerships, homes and families were merely distant goals and thoughts.
Obviously, much has changed since then. A look back tells me I was in the second year of my master’s degree at North Dakota State University, dating my now husband, and spending plenty of time on the water. In those days, fishing seemed to win the battle in my heart. This was perhaps out of accessibility as I was closer to Dad’s boat and 10,000 lakes, easily offering me the opportunity to be readily outdoors.
The hard water season began with a few trips to Devils Lake, which, in North Dakota road trip distances, felt like a stone’s throw from my Fargo apartment. Back then, I crashed guy trips with my high school crew primarily in search of pike to spear. Growing up in the cities, we would waste away our winter breaks on suburban ponds where 22-inch pike were trophies.
Devils Lake was a magical land where we could spear our limits and maybe spot an elusive 30-inch “Wizard” or the unthinkable 40-inch “Gandolph.” Don’t ask me how those names were determined. We weren’t wise enough to look at maps or talk to locals; we drilled holes in sandbars and walked across fields with our gear only to find closer access points.
We talked about life as we stared over the hole, and I specifically remember having conversations about how one day we’d be sitting there talking about house projects and doing our taxes. Speaking of which, we should probably get on that.
In spring 2016, I fished the Rainy River in northern Minnesota for the first time in search of lake sturgeon. The weather was pretty miserable but I did finally land a small 38-inch, tagged male. But I recall enjoying our plan B of targeting spawning pike in nearby Zippel Bay being a lot more enjoyable. We laid dead smelt on the bottom and waited for our slack lines to go tight. We reeled in Wizard after Wizard, never quite finding a Gandolph but we came close.
I do remember being bitter much of the summer of ‘16 as I watched and netted many muskies for Scott, but despite my best efforts, including trips to some of the top muskie destinations in the state, several swings and misses and plenty of lost fish left me muskie-less. Scott knows better than to out-fish me these days.
As I rounded out fall, the fishing gave way to a few duck hunting endeavors and my first marathon. And I ended 2016 shooting my first pheasant, alongside my brother on grandpa’s farm on New Year’s Eve. Perhaps it was the very beginning of the tides beginning to shift in favor of hunting. You could never have told 2016 Cayla she’d be moving to North Dakota six months later and still live there. There aren’t even that many muskies.
While social media trends seem pretty inconsequential, perhaps we could actually all use a little flashback to 2016. No Tik-Tok, forward-facing sonar, talking about taxes or any of the mounting negativity all three seem to bring. Maybe we could all benefit from taking a breath, going outside and reeling in a fish or two, just not more than me.
