Tournament fishing can be a grueling sport, especially in the summer. The temperature ranges from hot to sizzling, and the humidity-laden air barely stirs. The only relief you get is when you run from one spot to the next. As tough as it is for you, though, imagine what it must be like for Adam Koch.
Koch can’t remember a moment when he could draw a decent breath – just fill up his lungs with good, fresh air and then let it go, in and out. He has cystic fibrosis (CF), whose symptoms seem to show up worst in the warm months. If you spotted the 26-year-old Ohio angler at a BFL Buckeye Division tournament, you wouldn’t think there could be anything wrong with him. Tall and lanky, he’s the picture of health most of the time, but if he forgets his medicine or skips one of his daily therapy sessions, mucus fills up his lungs and sinuses and he goes through long bouts of hacking coughs.
One in about 5,000 Americans suffer from CF, a disease that typically manifests itself in the children of parents who carry the dormant genes. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. A person carrying one of the genes that causes CF – and it’s estimated that one in 29 people do – meets up with, and marries, another person carrying the same sort of gene. The result is somebody like Koch. When he was 3, his mom and dad took him to the hospital because he developed a sudden case of pneumonia. Turned out that wasn’t all that was wrong with him.
There isn’t any cure for CF, but endless and expensive treatments can control it to some extent, especially in younger people. Eventually, age and physical conditioning become factors as well as how long tortured lungs can survive respiratory infections and the heart ailments that accompany them. On average, a person with CF lives to between 35 and 40 years old, but, to paraphrase Scriptures, no man can know the hour or the day.
Koch is fine with that. When it comes down to it, life is an up-for-grabs proposition for everyone. As long as a person is physically able to do something he likes, why shouldn’t he? Which brings us to this year, and Koch’s determination to fish the Buckeye Division. It’s not his first season. In 2002, after he turned 16, he fished one event, on Grand Lake, and blanked. That’s it; between then and now, Koch never fished another BFL, but he never stopped wanting to either.
A year or so ago, he purchased a vintage Ranger 325, and started fishing again in local club tournaments of the Mid-Ohio Bassmasters. Koch also got married and in December he convinced his wife, Jessica, that a Ranger 185 in mint condition that somebody told him about was really a good deal and a good investment. For a few weeks, he owned two boats, which didn’t thrill Jessica too much, but in mid-January he sold the 325 to fund his 2012 BFL campaign as a boater.
“My stepdad, Dave Slonaker, sort of talked me into fishing the BFL, but it didn’t take much convincing,” says Koch. “From the time I fished in that BFL in 2002, I’ve wanted to get back in it because I’m the type who really enjoys tournament fishing.”
It doesn’t end there, though. Koch plans to fish to win, but he’s also taken on another mission. He’s in the process of building a website, Reel for a Cure, that will draw attention to CF and solicit donations to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. His boat will wear a sign with the website address and, Koch hopes, at least some of the people who see it will be curious enough to learn more about CF and how to combat it.
“At first, I didn’t really know what I was going to do, but I was sure I wanted to raise awareness and get the word out about CF,” says Koch, who manages a cell phone store. “It’s really a widespread disease, and people need to be aware of it. The earlier a person with CF is diagnosed, and the quicker he or she gets treatment, the longer their lifespan. Maybe by raising awareness, I can somehow help lead to a cure for CF one of these days. It’s bad stuff; it’s like you have a nonstop cold, and if it turns into pneumonia, it’s really hard to recover from it.”
To keep CF at bay, Koch goes through a lung-clearing therapy session every morning. An electric therapy vest that resembles an inflated life preserver pulsates and breaks up mucus in his chest. Then comes a mile run on a treadmill to help clean out his pipes. The rest of the day, he relies on a nebulizer to get him through the rough spots. When there’s a sudden change of temperature or humidity, especially in the spring and summer, the CF reminds Koch that it’s not gone anywhere.
Koch copes and tells people to watch out for CF; that’s all he can do. Otherwise, fishing in the BFL’s Buckeye Division is the best medicine for him; fishing is as close as he’ll come to a cure.
