Tuesday, April 21

Shane McClanahan (left) and Captain Jake Rogers / Photo courtesy of Jake Rogers

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ST. PETERSBURG -- It was around this time a year ago that Nick Bodeker, a home clubhouse assistant for the Rays, convinced Shane McClanahan to make a life-changing decision.

Give saltwater fishing a try.

McClanahan was about a month removed from suffering a freak nerve injury in his left triceps, a setback that kept him from returning to the mound after already missing a full season while recovering from his second Tommy John surgery. He spent some of his initial downtime fishing in fresh water, occasionally taking one of the rods hanging by his locker at George M. Steinbrenner Field to a pond on the complex.

Eventually, Bodeker won McClanahan over and talked him into booking a fishing charter with fellow clubhouse assistant Jonah McElwee. McClanahan scheduled a trip with one of the most experienced captains in the area … who had to cancel because of another commitment. That captain passed along McClanahan’s reservation to Jake Rogers, who had been doing the job for about five years.

Rogers was so unfamiliar with baseball that he wasn’t initially sure what job the two-time All-Star starting pitcher held with the Rays. Upon arrival, McClanahan’s first thought was, “What are we getting into?”

Thus began a friendship that helped McClanahan find peace, on the water and on the mound, through his newfound passion for fishing.

“It's been the best thing for me,” he said.

Shane McClanahan poses with the catch of the day, a tarpon. / Photo courtesy of Jake Rogers

While waiting for his nerve to heal -- a process that wound up requiring season-ending surgery -- McClanahan took a few weeks to try freshwater fishing. He'd dabbled in it when he was a kid, because his friend’s dad owned a boat, but that didn’t last long.

The Rays’ athletic training staff encouraged McClanahan to give it a shot, hoping it might restore some of the strength the injury had sapped from his left wrist and hand.

He would’ve preferred to be pitching left-handed, baffling hitters with his four-pitch mix, but reeling left-handed was an acceptable alternative in the meantime.

“You know,” he said, grinning, “doctor’s orders.”

The next step in that journey led McClanahan to Rogers, a local captain who grew up in the Shore Acres area of St. Petersburg, fishing day and night, and now runs Triple Threat Outfitters out of St. Pete Beach, offering trips all around the Tampa Bay area.

Their first trip went well. So well, in fact, that McClanahan texted Rogers the next day: “Hey, can we go again?”

“He loved it,” Rogers said in a phone interview. “He likes fishing more than probably anyone I’ve ever met.”

Rogers figures they fished together 25 times over the following three months, and they’ve gone out on the water at least 50 times over the past year.

McClanahan was -- pardon the pun -- hooked.

“The first hit of a snook grabbing the line or a red[fish] bumping it, it's addicting,” McClanahan said. “There's nothing else in the world that matters at that moment besides this line, this rod, this reel and me landing this fish. It just takes your mind off everything.”

Fishing charter captain Jake Rogers poses with a tarpon. / Photo courtesy of Jake Rogers

A relationship that started by accident has turned into a close friendship.

Rogers, 25, didn’t really watch baseball before meeting McClanahan. As he put it, “I was as much of a newbie to baseball as he was to fishing.” But as Rogers helped McClanahan appreciate fishing, McClanahan turned Rogers into “quite the baseball fan,” he said.

McClanahan, meanwhile, quickly went from inexperienced to all-in.

It didn’t take him long to build a 26-foot Yellowfin hybrid bay boat, which he customized with Rogers’ assistance. Now, he can proudly reel off details and terminology he knew nothing about before -- the Minn Kota trolling motor, the Seakeeper trim tabs and the saddle tanks that let him seek fish farther offshore.

“You feel like you're on top of the world, the expert of everything, when you're on the baseball field,” McClanahan said. “Then you get off it, and you delve into a new hobby, and you're like, 'I don't know anything,' and it's like square one.”

“Honestly, that's kind of how I feel out there [on the mound] right now, too. It's like, 'I was at square one. I've got to relearn, I've got to build up everything and get that knowledge back.' It's been really fun.”

Shane McClanahan (left) and Rays home clubhouse assistant Jonah McElwee pose with redfish. / Photo courtesy of Jake Rogers

Clearly, the appeal of fishing to McClanahan is wide-ranging and multifaceted. He can draw comparisons between his hobby and his job, noting the similar challenge in appreciating the things he can control -- like his preparation -- and what he can’t -- like opposing hitters and, well, fish.

It is also, in a sense, incredibly simple.

“Have you ever seen anybody really unhappy on a boat?” he asked.

There’s more to it, of course. He loves the “pure sport” of catching tarpon, and proudly tells the tale of his 45-minute effort to reel in one that weighed an estimated 180 pounds, his biggest catch to date.

It’s also another outlet for his hyper-competitive nature. Rogers recalled a time he hooked a snook and tried to hand the rod to McClanahan, who was struggling to catch one that day, but McClanahan wouldn’t take it.

“He was like, ‘I’ve got to do this myself.’ It’s the most Shane thing ever,” Rogers said. “He brought his competitive side to fishing because he just wants to be so good at it.”

Finally, it provided somewhere else for McClanahan to channel his energy and focus during a challenging period of his career. Facing an uncertain timeline for his return to pitching, fishing immediately had what he called “a really calming effect on my mind.”

“You could tell he needed it, for sure,” Rogers said.

After sustaining the nerve injury in his final Spring Training start last year, McClanahan struggled with a number of emotions. He was frustrated. He was embarrassed. He felt like he had lost a big part of his identity: being the dominant pitcher he was for Tampa Bay from 2021-23, before injuries interrupted his ascent.

It took time and perspective to realize that life would go on whether or not he was pitching.

A little time on the water helped, too.

“Regardless if I'm having the best season of my career or the worst season of my career, if I'm not even playing, the clock keeps ticking,” McClanahan said. “I chose to make a decision to be happy, to live my life and kind of find out what's important to me on and off the field, too.

“I found fishing, and it's been amazing since.”

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