The Fanatic: Janet Messineo

Looking back, Janet Messineo thanks the higher powers that she took up the sport. It saved her life.

The guys called her “Mess”—a perfect nickname for her in the 1980s, when Janet was still struggling to kick the drug and alcohol habits she picked up during the sixties. She would abandon her old yellow Scout if she drank too much, fearful that if she wrecked it she wouldn’t be able to get out to the beach to fish.

She did a stint in rehab in 1984 and fished the derby sober for the first time. She wound up landing the biggest bass she’s ever caught, a 45-pounder, during a bass blitz on bunker at Tisbury Great Pond. She took second place, then fell off the wagon, went back to rehab and returned in 1985 to have the best derby of her life. “I was on a roll. That’s when I had a huge bluefish. I was leading the grand slam. My name was everywhere.”

This time after the derby ended, she stayed sober. She got married and took in a special-needs Wampanoag child and started the taxidermy business. Her fish are real works of art that sell in Vineyard galleries for mind-blowing prices. Although she’s managed to stay clean for two decades, the horseshoe pin she wears on her ball cap is accented with two amethysts, reputed to protect alcoholics from relapses—just in case.

But these days, fishing feeds her craving. “The people who are really good fishermen have obsessive-compulsive behaviors right? It’s like we do something and we do it to death.”