When Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr. isn’t making catches on the gridiron, he’s attempting catches on the water.
While Pittman was growing up in Southern California, he and his cousin raided their grandfather’s tackle box for fishing poles and snuck off to a nearby lake. They couldn’t always nick supplies from their grandfather, but they were resourceful. Sometimes they dug up worms for bait and built makeshift rods out of sticks and used line.
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“We’d actually get caught most of the time and get yelled at, and then we’d find ways to sneak off and do it the next day,” Pittman said. “We didn’t know exactly what we were doing. We just knew if we could find hooks and we could find line and worms, we could catch fish.”
As Pittman grew older, he used birthday and Christmas money to buy his own fishing gear. He fished lakes, oceans, even sewers. He continued fishing throughout college at USC and when he was drafted to the NFL. This offseason, Pittman was with his brother on a fishing trip in Uganda when he found out he’d been traded from the Indianapolis Colts to the Steelers.
Pittman is hooked on fishing – and he’s not the only one.
Randy Moss, Michael Pittman Jr. find peace on the water
“It’s more therapeutic for me,” said Hall of Famer Randy Moss. “You don’t have people screaming, wanting your autograph, wanting a picture. The phone is not ringing, things like that. You’re out there just really enjoying yourself, enjoying your day. … For me, to retire from the game and find something that I love to do, that’s just being out there on the fresh water just trying to catch a bass.”
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Fishing is a popular hobby among professional athletes, including NFL players, but there are those who take it to the next level. Pittman is sponsored by Lund Boats and wants to fish competitively after he retires from football. Moss, the six-time Pro Bowl wide receiver, is starring in a new unscripted bass fishing YouTube series. Former NFL linebacker Joe Cummings now runs a fly fishing lodge and guide business in his home state of Montana.
On its surface, fishing seems about as far removed as possible from the chaos, physicality and noise of a football field. That’s part of its appeal, players say.
“I think it’s a universal stress reliever for most players because it’s something that you can get into a flow state,” Pittman said. “You’re not thinking about, ‘Oh, I got practice’ or ‘Oh, I got to deal with this.’ It’s something that you can be there right now and you’re immersed in it, and you’re in nature, too.”
At the same time, fishing mirrors football in that it has a defined outcome and can deliver a shared emotional experience.
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“It’s a very exciting business with a very determined win and lose, right? You either catch ‘em or you don’t, which helped me transition out of football,” Cummings said. “As you get better at it, it turns into hunting for large fish and that’s very exciting. The cheers in the boats are as big a cheer as you’d get from someone sitting in the stands.”
Deceptive bait, secret spots part of fishing’s allure for NFL stars
Moss grew up fishing on West Virginia riverbanks with live bait – mealworms, liver, dough balls – and said that he now loves using artificial bait to outsmart bass, an act of deception not unlike what he pulled on the field to mislead defenses.
“Going out there and trying to fool the fish with something fake, I think that’s intriguing to me,” he said.
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Moss was introduced to bass fishing when he played in Minnesota and a retired Vikings player invited him out on the boat on his day off. Moss found himself enamored with the adventure of being able to explore new waters and learn about different species of fish.
“I fell in love with it,” he said. “It was my own little getaway, and I haven’t looked back since.”
Pittman goes fishing as often as he can during the NFL season while balancing his football schedule with his family. He loves to take his wife and three kids out on his Lund 2075 Impact XS boat, though he wouldn’t divulge his favorite Pittsburgh-area fishing spots.
Pittman said teammates are often surprised to find out he’s such an avid fisherman because wide receivers don’t typically have reputations as outdoorsmen, but then he invites them out on the water. Pittman said he’s already talked to Steelers rookie lineman Gennings Dunker about a fishing trip, and several of his former Colts teammates previously took him up on the offer.
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“I’d say Tyler Warren is a better fisherman than what I thought,” Pittman said. “And then a guy who claimed to be a big fisherman that actually stunk it up was Riley Leonard – another rookie last year who was talking a big game, and then we went out and he didn’t catch one, so I’m putting him on blast.”
NFL stars find connection, community on the water
Fishing can provide solitude for some and community for others. After a major neck injury ended his football career in 2001, Cummings founded Missoula River Lodge and transitioned full time into the fly fishing guide business, the resumption of a hobby he started as a kid growing up in Stevensville, Montana.
Guiding is a more social way to fish, whether it’s in the locker room with other guides or out on the water with clients. Cummings said a fair number of his clients are current or former NFL players.
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“Once the lights turn off, whatever level, they’re in some version of identity shock, probably financial shock, ego shock,” Cummings said. “And having a very intense solution to that time that’s now on your hands for me was really useful.”
Moss fishes three to four times a week. His new show is called “Chasing 10” and follows Moss across the country as he attempts to catch a 10-pound largemouth bass. The first episodes will drop in late May and at the end of the season, Moss will donate his boat to a charity raffle benefitting the Children’s Cancer Research Fund in Minneapolis.
Each “Chasing 10” episode features a different guest, many of them football players. Moss said he’s seen first-time fishermen discover joy in a new sport and witnessed other guests reconnect with a childhood hobby. He believes they’re all drawn to the same thing.
“Peace,” he said. “When you look at pro athletes, celebrities, their life is full with chaos. And I think that when you’re able to get out your car, get on a boat and not worry about a lot of that for hours, that’s refreshing. That’s what I get from it.”
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Pittman also used the word “peace” to describe his feeling when he’s out fishing. He beams when he talks about his proudest catches: a 400-pound Pacific marlin and 260-pound bluefin tuna in saltwater, and a 48-inch muskellunge in freshwater.
Pittman said he’d like to test the waters of professional bass fishing someday. Cummings and Moss, however, have no desire to fish competitively. While they relish the thrill of hunting trophy fish and reeling in a monster catch, they want fishing to remain primarily relaxing.
“I was a pro in my sport playing football for 14 years,” Moss said. “I just enjoy the people, the camaraderie and just being out there with nature.”
Whether done alone or with others, Cummings said fishing can become all-consuming and bring you into harmony with your surroundings. The longer you fish, the more you learn the personalities of the rivers and fish around you.
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“It becomes really intimate,” Cummings said. “There’s a term we use, we say, ‘He breathes the water.’ What that means is, you’re on it so much that (the bodies of water) start to have personalities. Trout don’t really move so the more time you spend around them, it’s like traveling through a banquet room of people with the lights out and the more time you travel, the lights keep coming on and you talk to more people.”
It’s that sense of wonder and exploration that motivates Pittman to keep fishing. No matter what happens between the lines on the field, he’ll always be able to cast a new line and start fresh on the water.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Michael Pittman Jr., Randy Moss among NFL’s fishing-obsessed stars
