As ‘First Fisherman,’ Bush Relaxes With Gusto

The soon-to-be First Fisherman dropped anchor in the Florida Keys Friday, casting aside international concerns in search of more perplexing catch: the “wily bonefish.” The “elusive tarpon.” The sneaky “snook.”

George Bush will not be the first sportsman to inhabit the White House. Dwight D. Eisenhower played golf. Richard M. Nixon bowled. Ronald Reagan rides.

But Bush may eclipse the others in pure sportsman’s gusto. The nine weeks since his election look a bit like episodes of “The American Sportsman,” with the President-elect a persistent presence in hunter’s camouflage and fisherman’s hip-boots.

Twice, Bush has traveled to Florida to fish, the latest trip beginning Friday and scheduled to end Sunday. Last month, he hunted quail for three days in Texas and finished off that post-Christmas trip by casting for bass at a friend’s stocked Alabama lake.

Continue Pursuits

Both to escape the pressures of the presidency--and in a stubborn attempt to maintain what little normalcy he has left--Bush has made it clear that he will not abandon his pursuits.

“Why go fishing? Contemplative environment, total relaxation, peace of mind!” he patiently explained Friday to 60 reporters, mostly non-fishermen, who traveled here with him.

“I love sports,” he declared. “I’m one of the classic fishing conservationists.

“We’re going to prove that over the next eight years by going fishing, demonstrating a keen personal interest in going after the wily bonefish or the elusive tarpon or the redfish or the snook that may be lying up under that branch in the river up the Everglades.”

All optimistic references to a second term aside, Bush owns a sports resume nearly as long as the government job-list that he takes with him to the White House.

At Yale, first-baseman Bush was captain of the baseball team. He plays tennis and heaves horseshoes, shouting “Remember Iowa!” when he is losing to those who might remember his 1988 post-Iowa political comeback. He runs daily and plays golf, although admittedly well above par.

In New Hampshire earlier this year, snowbound at a Nashua hotel after a pre-primary blizzard and at a loss for activity, he rounded up reporters and pitched snowballs at a signpost.

Even his insults can take on a sportsman’s nomenclature. In August, in the first throes of controversy over his running mate, now Vice President-elect Dan Quayle, Bush mockingly referred to reporters as “bluefish,” then described the species’ unbecoming frenzy while feeding.

Groups of Friends

His own activity illustrates much about Bush, from his self-mocking sense of humor to his gregarious social nature. While Ronald Reagan preferred more solitary vacation activities like clearing brush and riding a horse at his Santa Barbara ranch, Bush gathers his friends for sporting trips with the verve of a boy engineering his first overnight camp-out.

Except now, the friends carry impressive titles. Secretary of State-designate James A. Baker III and Bush’s brother Jonathan accompanied the vice president on December’s hunting trip. Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady, Wyoming Sen. Alan K. Simpson and three other friends came along for the pre-inaugural fishing excursion on the 17-foot boat Backlash.

George Hommell, Bush’s guide, called the vice president an “excellent” fisherman who throws back all his catch.

“In April he caught two tarpon over 100 pounds in one day and he caught two bonefish over 10 pounds,” Hommell said.

This time, Hommell added with the grace of a diplomat: “If we don’t get any fish, it’s my fault.”

No political chatter fouls the mood on the seas, Hommell declared. Bush himself made it clear Friday, as he typically does on his vacations, that he is loathe to make news. Except for responding to a few questions, he had only one brief domestic proclamation to make.

“I can announce that our dog is pregnant,” Bush said, shining the spotlight on 3-year-old Millie, an English springer spaniel. The dog was sent to a Kentucky breeder several weeks ago to meet a spaniel named Tug and will return to the Bushes shortly after the inauguration.

“We expect puppies in the White House,” said Bush, in a tone usually reserved for Cabinet announcements.

As Bush tells it, the flinging of horseshoes and flicking of fishing rods are restorative antidotes to the relentlessness of Washington.

“This is a part of my work experience,” he joked Friday. “Because it’s here that I get new ideas--creative, clearing the mind of underbrush. I’ll be able to think anew, as Abraham--uh, Teddy Roosevelt once said.”

But equally important is the continuity afforded by such everyday, everyman activities. Holding onto the routine, Bush acknowledged, will be difficult when he assumes the presidency. But he has made it clear that he intends to try.

“Barbara and I are determined to keep it as down-to-earth as possible,” Bush said shortly after his arrival at a sun-splashed airport near here.

“I’m here with the same group of friends that I’ve fished with the last couple of years and we’re going to try to do that kind of thing and I think I can.”

In balmy, 80-degree Florida on Friday, Bush even seemed to forget for a moment the pending inauguration and his upcoming role. Asked if he was hoping to ban oil drilling offshore from his fishing turf in the Keys, Bush wondered aloud:

“What does that have to do with fishing?”

Then, remembering his status, he somberly renewed his campaign pledge to assure that drilling would not harm marine life.