You’ve got to look up Patrick Jenkinson, people told me when I first started reporting my book on the famed fishing derby on Martha’s Vineyard. Patrick is a tireless angler, they said, and he’s also due: for all his years of trying, he’s never won it all. One chilly April day on my first visit to the island, I stopped by Patrick’s gas station, Up Island Automotive in West Tisbury, and we made plans to fish in the fall.
A few months later, I learned that his wife, Wendy, had been diagnosed with brain cancer and faced months of intensive treatment. Obviously, I thought, this was not the year to talk to them about something as insignificant as a fishing tournament. But I discovered that in between Wendy’s treatments, Patrick was taking his son, Wyatt, out to fish the derby, and to my surprise, when I ran into him on the dock in Menemsha one day, he generously invited me to go along. The chapter I wrote about fishing with the Jenkinsons illustrates how integral the derby is in some islanders’ lives: During their months of turmoil, fishing made everything seem normal for Patrick, Wyatt and Wendy, if only for a few hours.
Wendy died nine months later. A few days later, I noticed that her husband had just caught a 41-pound striped bass, one of the biggest of his life. I knew the story of that fish would have to be special to Patrick, and when I came calling again, he graciously shared it with me. The piece appears today in the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine.
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