I’m writing this article the weekend after the president declared a national emergency. COVID-19, or the Novel Coronavirus, has taken the United States to a very strange place. In the past century, the only comparisons might be the responses to world wars and terrorist attacks. A lot could be said about the virus, the government’s response, the media’s role, and dozens of other variables that won’t be truly understood for months – if not years.

Many fly fishers are just choosing to head outside. Quarantining in nature. Social distancing on the water.

I did that very thing. My family and I spent an afternoon playing outdoors. The big boys plinked targets with their pellet rifles and climbed trees. The little ones ran around and picnicked. The weather was beautiful and there was nothing  felt either constricting or contagious.

Then I picked the first tick off my hand.

I went over to tell my wife that we need to check the kids, and she found one that had already started to bite our 5 year-old. All said and done, I found five of them. This is in Massachusetts. In the winter. In a field of mowed grass.

My reaction to tick #5 was much stronger than any response I have had to the current global pandemic. That is not to say that I am not concerned about Coronavirus or that I don’t feel for – am praying for – those who are suffering from the disease. This virus is real and it is doing real damage. Statistically speaking, my healthy wife and myself stand a good chance against it. My four boys, all under 9, would also probably weather it pretty well. But Lyme disease? That is close to home.

I’ve had Lyme, and I’m not a fan. The worst thing about it is that the threat of an undiscoverable tick is always in the back of my mind (and perhaps literally in the back of my head) whenever I go fishing or hiking. And the little hellspawn don’t discriminate by age or level of outdoors acumen. I might be covered, and my toddler makes it out no problem. Or, what makes me shudder: the opposite happens.

All of this to say, the first ticks of 2020 lead me to a few conclusions:

• Safety is relative. There are a lot of urban folks whose lives have been thrown all sorts of sideways by the Coronavirus. I’m not bummed out that I can’t gather with hundreds of people in some city venue. But it isn’t like I’m avoiding serious illness by laying down under a pine tree.
• I’m reminded to be empathetic. Again, the statistics lead me to a pretty comfortable place regarding my family and COVID-19. Could we be the exceptions? Sure. But my reaction to this new tick season softened the edges of my perception of those who are having a hard time adjusting to an uncontrollable pandemic.

So I think you should still go fishing. I think that I should still go fishing. But whether it be in a dense patch of streamside undergrowth or after touching every surface in the gas station, being smart and considerate is the best thing any of us can do.