Steve Knight

Jeff Turner and his son, Taylor, are on a quest.

A conversation a year ago about what the two could do on their summer vacation has turned into a fishing trip. Not your normal fishing trip, but one that upon completion will have taken them to 50 states in 50 days, or, with a little luck, 48 days.

The Virginia residents started the trip June 13 on Pennsylvania's Susquehanna River, fishing for smallmouth bass. On the final day of the trip, hopefully on July 30, they will be fishing off Hawaii's Kona Coast for blue marlin.

The two will park their cozy 24-foot motor home on the banks of Caddo Lake Monday morning and Lake Fork that afternoon for a Louisiana/Texas doubleheader.

"We are a little tired," Jeff Turner said last week from the road near Shamrock, Fla., where the two were headed from a morning of tarpon fishing out of Homosassa to Lake Seminole, Ga., to bass fish. "It looked a lot easier on paper than it is in real life."

The trip, which has drawn sponsors and seeks supporters to donate money for every fish caught, is billed as "Fish 50 Trophy Waters In 50 States In 50 Days: An Epic Father and Son Adventure."

Even in its first week it has been full of adventure, if not exactly a big revenue generator for three charities it is supporting -- Grace Ministries, the National Fatherhood Initiative and Trout Unlimited.

"So far we have only gotten pledges for about a dollar a fish and we have only caught 24 fish. So we have only raised about $24," Turner said with a laugh, more at the two's fishing prowess than their lack of ability to raise money.

The idea for the trip began the summer before Taylor's junior year in high school. The father-son team was looking for a way in the 21st Century to have a great American adventure before Taylor headed off to college.

Taylor wanted to see the country by RV. Jeff, who works for a defense contractor making 3-D laser mapping systems for the Army, wanted to do some fishing. So they merged the two.

"I had a buddy who passed away and he was all about leaving legacies. I thought it was about time I left one with my son," Turner said.

Turner said he hopes that in some way their tour will help inspire others especially in regard to a father and son relationship. Despite a successful 25-year career in business, Turner said he couldn't point to anything that he has done in life that has had a significant impact on others. This, he felt, was his chance.

"A lot of the baggage people bring in their relationship with the Lord begins with the relationship they had with their fathers," he said.

The Turners aren't the first to try a 50-day, 50-state adventure. Once they started planning their trip they found a number of others who had done it playing golf and two who last summer ascending to the highest peak in each state.

For the Turners the challenge was to fish, an interesting choice since they aren't exactly consumed by it.

"We fish quite a bit, but we are not hardcore or anything. In the summer, spring and fall we fish about twice a month," Turner said.

He said most of their fishing is for bass, but he has also spent time fishing for stripers in the Chesapeake Bay. More recently the two have picked up trout fish, enjoying their time wading the streams of Virginia.

In just a week they have added to their fishing resume with days fishing for tarpon, catfish and crappie. Before the end of the trip they will have fished for, if maybe not caught, 24 species including six types of freshwater trout, mahi mahi, sturgeon, musky, northern pike, walleye, four species of salmon and closing out with blue marlin.

The elder Turner is the more traveled of the two. He has been to 48 of the 50 states, and estimates he has fished in about 35 of them. However, for this trip they are returning to only one, Gunnison, Colo., that he has fished previously.

"It is not much of an adventure if you go back to some place you have been before," he said.

Turner said there was no science involved in organizing the trip. The two spent a lot of time on the Internet looking at the Web sites of various fishing guides and then contacting them to ask if they would participate. A big part of the decision of who they would go with was based on the pictures the guides had posted.

"Alaska turned out to be one of the easiest to set up. I sent an email to a float plane operator. A couple of weeks later I emailed him back to ask if he got it and he said, 'Count me in.' He went out and found us a guide and is going to pick us up from the Anchorage airport and fly us to the base of Denali," Turner said.

In Hawaii, Jay Lighty is coming out of semi-retirement to host the two fishing for marlin.

During their Louisiana/Texas trip, the Turners will fish with Louisiana guide Paul Keith on Caddo and John Tanner on Fork.

After Texas, they move to Oklahoma to fish for trout in the Mountain Fork River with Quitman-based guide Rob Woodruff.

There are a lot of things that have to come together to make this road trip work, and already there have been problems. They got lost driving across South Carolina one night and made a dozen U-turns to get back on track, only to be stood up by their fishing guide on Santee-Cooper Reservoir.

To continue the quest, they quickly inflated a small boat they are carrying and fished the best they could just out from the marina.

"We have had a lot of Murphy's Law in this already," Turner said.

Turner said there isn't one state in particular they are the most excited about fishing. He said the cypress swamps of Caddo Lake and the trophy bass potential of Lake Fork both rank high on their list, but so does fishing the Androscoggin River in New Hampshire, the birth of the nation's Clean Water Act. But that only slightly trumps the opportunity to fish with guide "Musky Tom" on Minnesota's Lake Vermilion.

Racing from state to state, the Turners pass the time looking at new scenery and reading the emails of support they are getting from people around the country.

To keep up with the Turners' trip, to pledge to one of the charities that are supported by the trip, or to contact them, go online to http://www.fish5050.com.

(Steve Knight)