Kerchal Tragedy

I doubt I will ever forget the telephone call late on the night of the 13th of December, 1994. Among my freelance writing activities is the outdoors column for The News-Times in Danbury, CT...the daily paper covering Bryan Kerchal's home town of Newtown. I was in my office that night, pulling together notes for a "year in review" column for that Friday. Given what had gone on in the fishing world that year, it's not surprising that most of those notes were about Bryan's accomplishments.

When word of a terrible plane crash came over the wire services and it was learned that there was a possibility that Bryan was on the plane, one of the staff reporters called me to find out if I could verify it. I couldn't, but I did recall that Bryan had planned to stop in North Carolina on his way back from Mexico. I'm not sure when I started breathing normally again.

Four-and-one-half months after winning the BASSMasters Classic, on his way back from a fishing trip to Mexico, Bryan Kerchal stopped in Greensboro, NC, to fulfill a commitment to one of his major sponsors, Wrangler Rugged Wear. He spoke at their "employee appreciation day" celebration, then caught a shuttle flight to the Raleigh-Durham Airport, from where he was to fly home to meet his girlfriend.

The shuttle flight— American Eagle flight 3379 —went down in a wooded area near Morrisville, some 15 miles short of its destination. Bryan was killed in the crash.

Here's my column from the News-Times, that Friday, December, 16th, 1994...

Bryan, We'll All Miss You
© 1994—Rich Zaleski   Last week, I started to pull together some notes for my annual "year in fishing" column. It had been such an exciting year in one aspect of the sport, with Connecticut, and Connecticut natives enjoying unprecedented national recognition as regards to bass fishing. But so much of that recognition involved Bryan Kerchal, and now I'm instead faced with the most difficult column I've ever had to write.
   All Bryan wanted out of life was to be a successful bass fisherman, and for three days last July, on High Rock Lake in the North Carolina hills, he was the best bass fisherman in the world. Winning the Bassmasters Classic as an amateur — the first ever to do so — propelled Kerchal into the bass fishing limelight and set the stage for what he was hopeful and confident would be a long career in the sport he loved. Ironically, it was in the same North Carolina hill country, not more than a hundred miles from the site of his most glorious moment, that his career and his life were cut tragically short on Tuesday, when he was among the 15 killed in the crash of American Eagle Flight 3379.
   I keep trying to convince myself that there is some small solace in the knowledge that Bryan got to live his dream — beyond his dream, actually — even if it was only for 4½ months. That's a lot more than most people get out of life. But Bryan was more than just an associate in the fishing industry. He was a friend, and the personal sense of loss I feel overwhelms that rationale.
   Bryan was a special person. The times we spent together in a boat, the pure joy he found in every bass he caught, the talks we had about his goals and ambitions will be cherished memories.
   Bryan will be missed. By family and loved ones. By the many friends he'd so quickly made in the business. By the grass-roots level bass anglers who rooted for him and vicariously reveled in his unprecedented achievements. And certainly by those who knew him and called him friend.
   I've been asked many times the past few days, what the loss of Bryan Kerchal will mean to fishing. So many in the industry were counting on him to be the role model for the next generation of anglers, and to provide an ongoing inspiration to club level fishermen. The fact that the question is even being asked indicates the he had already made more of a mark on the industry than he ever could have imagined.
   Ray Scott, founder of the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society and the man who ‘invented’ the career that Bryan aspired to, was shaken. “Bryan Kerchal at age 23 was a most exceptional young man,” Scott said. “His loss hurts me more than any pain I think I've ever felt. I never saw Bryan when he didn't show poise and he always wore a smile with a gentle shyness. Bryan's inspiration to all of us who dare to dream big dreams will be with us always.”
   Of course it's not just the biggest names in the sport he'd so recently taken by storm who are heartbroken. In the words of Bryan's fellow professional fisherman and fellow member of Housatonic Valley Bassmasters, Terry Baksay, “There was nothing fake about Bryan, and he made everyone around him feel special.”
   The wake is scheduled for Monday, from 3 to 5 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. at Honan's Funeral Home, in Newtown, and Tuesday's funeral service will be at The Meetinghouse, near the flagpole in Newtown, at 10 a.m. We'll get to say our last good-bye then, and afterwards, I think Bryan would have suggested that we all go fishing.

Time passes. A couple months after Bryan's death, I suffered a heart attack. Bryan's dad, Ray Kerchal, was one of the first to call to check on my condition. I think that says something about the kind of caring people it takes to raise a son that turns out like Bryan had. When my health improved, I offered to help with the Bryan Kerchal Memorial Fish Whistle, and ended up designing and laying out the package header for Ray and the Bryan Kerchal Memorial Fund, where all the profits from the whistles go. So I guess I got to finish that project that Bryan had envisioned after all.

As the first anniversary of Bryan's death approached, Bryan's family and friends got together to remember him, and to dedicate a memorial plaque in his name, at the small lake where he perfected his craft, and where his ashes were strewn. My News-Times readers once again got to share in pain of remembering the tragedy as well as the joy of recalling the exuberance that epitomized Bryan's life. Here's my News-Times column from that week...

A Year Later...Bryan Kerchal Remembered by Friends and Family
© 1995 — Rich Zaleski
   The approaching anniversary of Bryan Kerchal's untimely and tragic passing last December 13 has stirred a lot of memories. It was a couple months into Bryan's brief tenure at the very top of the bass fishing world that we spent an afternoon taping radio interviews, and recollections from that day came into much clearer mental focus last Sunday afternoon, when friends and family members of the late BASS Masters Classic Champion gathered at Taunton Lake, to dedicate a memorial plaque there in his name.
   Most every good angler I know of has a lake or section of river somewhere that holds a special attraction. Often, it's the place where the answers started to fall into place for them ... where they "came of age" as fishermen, so to speak. For Bryan, that special place was Taunton Lake, just a few miles from his home in Newtown. Listening to those who knew him best talk of what Taunton had meant to Bryan, I recalled something from those radio interviews, and felt a need to listen again.
   It was when I asked if there was a down-side to his success that Bryan's reflective nature came out. "Between the travel, and the seminars, and the sponsor obligations and everything else," he had said, "there's not a lot of time left to fish just for the thrill of fishing or to just enjoy being out on the water with someone. I'd like to think I'll still find time to fish a few Federation tournaments and club outings here in Connecticut, but I know it's not realistic. It seems like every time I go fishing, I've got to allow extra time to deal with people coming up to shake my hand or ask for an autograph. I'm really thankful for their interest and all, but I have to find a way to limit it, because there's just so many demands on my time now.
   "What I'm going to miss the most, is just going out by myself or with a pal on Taunton. That's the one place where I can feel totally at home, with no pressure of any kind. I don't have to worry about my hat being on straight, or whether my sponsor patches are showing. It doesn't even matter whether or not I catch fish. Well, yes it does, but only to me, not to somebody else's expectations. It doesn't matter how drained out I'm feeling, at Taunton, I can go out alone to just catch fish for the fun of it and to get away from whatever is hassling me, and when I come in, I feel recharged. It's the one place I can sit in a boat for hours without fishing, and not be bored to tears."
   Don't let that last thought give you the idea that Bryan's relationship with Taunton wasn't about fishing. A little later he said, "Most people don't believe me, but I swear I can remember every detail about every bass I've ever caught at Taunton. Exactly where the cast hit the water, what the lure bumped across, how the fish hit, and how I hit back. How it fought, and which way it swam when I released it. Every one is different, and every one is exciting."
   Here was a young man who had set a goal to become a full-time professional bass fisherman. As anyone who aspired to that life might, he had hoped to someday win the BASS Masters Classic. Then, barely into the apprenticeship stages of his bass fishing career, he won the Classic as an amateur. In so doing, he leapfrogged right across all the years of hard fishing and learning-the-ropes that are "supposed" to go into the building of a Classic Champion.
   It became clear in listening to him talk about it, that Bryan actually felt a bit cheated by his short route to the top. To him, his career choice was more a route to a lifetime of fishing than fishing a route to a career. Instant success had robbed him of all those years of trying ... and the trying was a major part of what he was after in life. "I guess I'm doing it kind of backwards," he told me, "but winning the Classic sets me up for 3 years or so, to prove I belong where I am. If I can't do it in 3 years, then I guess I don't really belong there anyway."
   There had been others before Bryan who jumped from relative obscurity to a shot at celebrity with a Classic win. But none of them was able to sustain the level of performance needed to turn a year at the top into a life-long career. Some are still around the fringes of the sport, but they're certainly not the recognizable names that the anglers who worked their way up the ranks to a Classic victory have become. Yet there wasn't anyone in the industry who didn't believe that Bryan Kerchal would do exactly that. He had the skills. He had a burning desire to improve and increase those skills. More important, he had the personal charisma to be in demand as a spokesperson for everything from lures to boats, and for the sport of fishing itself.
   Tragically, Bryan never got the 3 years to prove himself, as his time at the top was to end only 136 days after his Classic victory, when he perished in the crash of American Eagle Flight 3379, in Morrisville, North Carolina. But make no mistake about it ... he belonged. He belonged because to him, fishing was the goal, not the means to get there. He belonged because of the skills and the love and respect he had for the sport...attributes he developed at Taunton Lake, where his friends and family gathered last weekend to remember him, and where his spirit still lives.

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