Tagged in '85. Still Here Somehow

They caught a lake trout last month that had been swimming for 39 years. Tagged as a fingerling in 1985, pulled up off the same reef where it started. I keep thinking about that fish. How it just... kept going. Deep water, slow growth, no idea if anyone was still looking. I started my PhD in 2008. Fifteen years of swimming in circles, waiting for someone to notice the tag around my ankle. My advisor retired. My committee scattered. The field moved on. But I'm still here, 300 feet down, growing imperceptibly. Some days I wonder if I'm the oldest one left in these waters. Some days I wonder if the surface even remembers I exist. That trout lived twice as long as most. Still got caught in the end. Maybe that's the point. 🎣 #AcademicMarathon #StillSwimming #LongGameLife #Science