Bio
CTF name: fuzzy2u
Real name: Mark Sanner
Age: 51
Current city: Groton, CT
Hometown: Minnetonka, MN (original home of Tonka Toys)
Family members: Single, two cats, no kids that I know of.
Occupation: 21 years in pharmaceutical research, currently unemployed.

1.You recently moved on from your longtime career in the pharmaceutical industry. What's next?
What? Me worry?

Right now I'm taking an extended vacation. I need a break and much of it will be spent fishing.

The future of the pharmaceutical industry is pretty bleak and I'm fed up with big corporations, so I've decided to pursue a new career. I'm not sure where I'll end up, but small business and local products or services are key. I expect to begin with a real estate license, a captain's license, and maybe a contractor's license.

One thing is certain: If I end up owning my own business, I'll be guaranteed to have an a-hole for a boss.

2.How did you first get interested in fishing?
I did a very little bit of fishing as a kid, and really got into it when I moved to upstate NY for my first job after college. Two of my best friends were avid anglers, one bought a house on a lake, and then bought a bass boat. I started buying tackle and kept it in my car all summer. The three of us would often hit the water after work as well as weekends. That was the start of my addiction.

3.Where'd you get the screen name "fuzzy2u" from?
When I was married, there were two Uncle Mark's in the family. My brother-in-law was a clean cut businessman and I had the mad scientist look with unkempt curly hair and a full beard. In order the avoid confusion, the nieces and nephews called me Uncle Fuzzy (usually followed by giggling).

For an internet user name, "fuzzy" was already in use by a several people, and with only 5 characters, it was too short. I added "2u" to make it longer and unique. It stuck.

4.As a longtime moderator, you've experienced many behind-the-scenes stories and sagas of ctfisherman.com. Do you have a good story or incident you'd care to relate that most people probably don't know about?

Most of the noteworthy behind-the-scenes stuff is not pretty, and some of it is downright ugly. I'm sure most of the CTF membership has no clue what we have to do sometimes to keep things running smoothly on the surface, and that's the way it should be.

Moderating at CTF is mostly about dealing with immature jerks who get into petty squabbles with each other, or a troll who's just there to push people's buttons and get a rise out of them.

Occasionally, someone who knows nothing about what we do complains online about the "moderator's power trip" and the "glory" of the job. I have to laugh at that because being a moderator is a lot like being a bathroom monitor at a public middle school. Oh, yeah, it's a really glamorous power trip, all right. I have to beat the paparazzi off with an Ugly Stik, right after I finish cleaning the toilets.

The best stories are from the CTF Banquets and involve excessive consumption of food, cigars and alcohol. Unfortunately, I ate too much, smoked too much and drank too much, so I can't remember most of them.



However, there was the banquet when our host for the evening, Steve "Reelnice", raided the hotel kitchen at midnight and dragged a bunch of us along. Steve pulled a 25 lb roast out of the fridge, tossed it on a meat slicer, dug out a couple loaves of bread, and we had an assembly line going making sandwiches with T-Man slapping on the condiments and Fishbag61 running them down to the late night partiers. It's a good thing there weren't any health inspectors around that night. I took some pictures and we all came out looking blurry. It might have been some mayo on the lens, but I think it was because we had all achieved an altered state of consciousness.



5.What's the hardest thing you've had to overcome in your life?
Several years ago, my wife became very ill and she passed away in January 2002 at age 49. It was the kind of unbelievably tragic story you might expect to see on Oprah. Fighting through the complexities of the health care system was a nightmare, too. Fortunately, I had lot of help and support from friends and family, and managed to work through it. It's the kind of experience that gave me a whole new perspective. I don't mind talking about it, but it's a story best told over beers or blackfish.

6.What's going on with your Beyond Bait company?
Beyond Bait LLC is no more, I gave it up last December. Too much work, not enough profit, and I wasn't interested in investing the time and money it needed to turn it into a real business. I have bigger ideas involving bigger money, bigger risk and bigger profit.

7.What is your favorite target species in Long Island Sound and your top three tips for catching more and bigger of them?
As much as I love stripers, albies are my favorite. They're pocket rockets, like smallmouth bass on steroids.

One of my favorite early memories of saltwater fishing was at the rocks near Ocean Beach (New London). I was a novice saltwater angler with a crappy spinning rod/reel and was casting a popper. Midway through a retrieve, I noticed a loop sticking out of the spool, so I stopped reeling, opened the bail and pulled line off the spool until I freed up the loop. Just as I was bringing in the last of the slack, I watched an albie hit my idle popper and take off. ZZZZZZ zzzzzzz ZZZZZ zzzzz ZZZZZ!!!! All I could do was hold on and squeal like a girl as the albie took me for the ride of my life.

I was hooked.



Tips for catching ablies:

Get out there when they're here, especially mid-week when there are fewer anglers chasing them. It won't last, so call in sick if you have to.

When you're ready to head back for another drift, choose a course that's a wide swinging arc around the outside of the school and the other boats (not through the middle) to avoid putting them down.

Whatever lure you use (I like Super Fluke with a 1/4 oz bullet or egg sinker or a Deadly Dick), use 10 feet of 20 lb fluorocarbon leader tied to your main line with a uni-uni knot.

8.Do you have any good stories about a CTF member aboard your boat?
KooBird is a piece of work who is insanely addicted to fishing and is always good for a laugh. He brings a ton of stuff, including a tackle box full of bricks (or maybe it's hand grenades) and a couple other bags and buckets that clatter and rattle and slide all over the deck. I refuse to touch them. Remember when you were a kid and you'd clip baseball cards to your bike to flap in the spokes? KooBird has a spinning reel that sounds like that accompanied by a metallic, "Ting, Ting, Ting!" He once brought his fixed mount GPS with a 12 foot extension cord and plugged it into the cigarette lighter on my boat to steal my tog spots. He set up on the bow with it, so I couldn't see what he was doing. Midway through the day, I unplugged it. It took him an hour and a half to figure out what was wrong. KooBird gets my vote for CTF Member Most in Need of a Wardrobe Makeover.

9.Do you have a dream fishing trip destination?
Someplace warm fishing for bone fish, tarpon, or permit during the day. Return to a four star hotel for a shower, then gourmet meal with great wine and companion in the evening. Repeat as needed. Take a day off from fishing now and then to spend the afternoon playing craps in the casino or lounge under an umbrella on the beach reading a novel. Repeat the companion thing again.

10.You lived on the left coast for a while. Did you do any fishing out there?
Nope, never did any fishing in California. However, San Francisco and northern California is a great place to visit and one of my favorites. It'd be a great place to live if there weren't so many freeking Californian's there.

11.What species of fish have you never caught that you'd like to catch?
Permit, bone fish, tarpon, rooster fish, mahi mahi, bluefin tuna, yellowfin tuna, muskie.

12.Did you have any heroes or people you looked up to when you were growing up?
Bugs Bunny, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepe Le Pew, Yosemite Sam, Road Runner & Wile E. Coyote.

13.What is the last concert you attended?
The Stones at Rentschler Field in 2005 especially the part when 50,000 people sang "Honky Tonk Woman", very badly, but nobody cared. Most memorable was The Who at the Oakland Coliseum in 1981.

14.When you look back on all of your fishing experiences, which one stands out the most?
There are many days that come to mind, most involving great fishing with good friends.

I guess the most recent one was when I took my dad striper fishing one night with Blaine. We arrived on the reef just before sunset with the tide already moving. I didn't even have my eel in the water yet and my dad hooked up with a 36" striper. A little later, he landed a fat 40" striper, the biggest fish he'd ever caught. Blaine really put us on the fish and we ended up boating nine bass that night, including a double that made for one of my favorite photos.



15.Outside of fishing and boating, do you have any hobbies?
I love good food and wine. The shoreline is loaded with great restaurants that aren't outrageously priced. I'm on a first name basis with the bartenders at a couple places. Is that good or bad?

I play casino craps. As quickly as you can, answer this question: How many dots are there on a die? If you don't know or have to figure in out, you're not a serious craps player. I've been a student of the game for nearly 30 years, and have attempted to write a book on the subject more than once. Unfortunately, my impression of craps players is that they don't read, so it would have to be a comic book. Sigh.

Writing. I've written a couple articles about fishing, one was published in "On The Water" and I hope to pick this up again.

Women -oops -this is still a family site, right?

16.What's the best fishing product you've bought in the last 5 years?
T-man tubes. They've added a whole new dimension to the way I fish for stripers.



17.You're appointed CT DEP commissioner. What three things do you do right out of the gate to improve the fishery in CT?
Only three things?

I'd ask the men and women working in the field for DEP what they need and how they think we could improve the fisheries. Since this is government and I have 21 years of experience with big corporations and I'm in charge, I'd ignore everything they said. Ha!

I'd shine a very bright, very public light on commercial fluke fishing practices in and around Long Island Sound.

I'd personally pester all of our congressmen and senators in Washington until they got sick of me ranting about how commercial fishing for menhaden, herring and eels offshore and in the Chesapeake Bay impacts game fish populations.

I'd do a lot of PR work to improve the image and visibility of DEP with the public, and especially with the sportsmen who use and appreciate the natural resources the most. The goal would be to foster a sense of partnership between the agency and the users.

I'd find a much more reliable way to estimate the number of fish taken by recreational anglers.

As my last official act, I'd round up the guys on CTF who complain the most about the DEP, regulations and enforcement and put them in charge of the DEP. Then I'd hand in my resignation and say, "You think you can do it better? Great. Have at it. It's all yours. I'm going fishing. Bye."

18.What three items would you take to a deserted island?
A satellite phone, a hammock and Angelina Jolie.

19.Would you trade all of your fishing gear and give up the sport for a $10 million dollars?
What's the point of having $10 million if you can't go fishing?

20.You've organized a few CTF outings, including Blackfish Bashes at Boats Inc. What would you say to a guy who is curious about meeting people from the site in person but never has?
CTF outings are absolutely the best way to meet people and make new friends. I've made many new friends this way. Sign up for the outing, get a couple guys together, go fishing the morning of the event, show up for the picnic in the afternoon, and introduce yourself to as many people as you can. Don't forget the beer.

We usually hand out a few little trophies for the three biggest fish, some of the guys make side bets, there's tons of food, but it's mostly about the camaraderie.

ctfisherman.com is an example of how the internet is such a powerful vehicle for bringing people together with diverse backgrounds and common interests.