When going out to the woods on an early weekend morning, you are given the privilege that can only be described as “watching the woods wake up,” said Nolan McShane ’25. First, it’s the birds, then it’s the squirrels, and then the deer slowly start to emerge, and once they are in range, McShane “can’t even explain the feeling.” But he doesn’t think catching a striper is too bad either!
Recent SCH alum Nolan McShane ’25, now a member of the Class of 2029 at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, is enjoying the benefits of going to school on the Cape Cod Canal for one main reason: Fishing. He’s recently enjoyed fishing with his fellow Mass Maritime baseball teammates, and a stop back home for the latest long weekend gave him time to go out and hunt, where he was unlucky due to the weather.
Nolan began hunting at 12 years old when his Dad brought him out for the first time. Since he has a mountain house in Susquehanna County, he and his Dad would go hunting up there. His dad specifically introduced him to archery hunting, which is hunting using a bow and arrow, and another overlooked subject of hunting, how to “be able to get up close to bigger animals.” He harvested his first deer right next to his dad, which was a “really cool moment,” McShane said.
On the fishing side of things, his Dad taught him the ins and outs of catching big fish. Fishing has been something that McShane and his Dad have bonded over throughout the years. “I still text him my catch,” he told me. He and his dad have taken trips throughout the United States, including to Oregon, Tennessee, and Georgia.
During this past summer in Sea Isle, Nolan and some friends ended up with six stripers to bring home to eat for dinner. He also visited Will Pownall ’26 up the mountains at his house, where “he caught seven fish,” Pownall told me.
McShane is also a member of a deer management program, which he explained as necessary for the other animals in the environment because “if people don’t hunt, especially near the city, there isn’t really a predator that’s going to harvest deer,” he saidToo many deer leads to overpopulation, which leads to there being fewer resources for other animals in the environment.
Nowadays, McShane can fish “10 feet out from his dorm,” he told me, and he enjoys doing so often. The proximity of Massachusetts Maritime Academy to the water was a big part of his decision to attend the college. It is becoming the time of year when stripers begin to migrate south from the colder water in the north, so a ton of these fish naturally pass through the Cape Cod Canal. McShane has been taking full advantage of that, catching plenty of monsters, like a “30-inch striper,” he told me.
McShane plans to continue this hobby by hitting some check marks off his bucket list, mainly including Elk and pheasant hunting with his dogs in North Dakota or South Dakota. He has only ever hunted in Pennsylvania, and he wants to “hunt out west, or anywhere really,” he said. He also wants to go tuna fishing in Massachusetts, and he and his friends at school could “definitely make that happen,” he stated.
It isn’t all about harvesting an animal for Nolan. “I enjoy being out in the woods. I enjoy sitting in a tree stand for five hours in the freezing cold. And even if I’m not harvesting something, I still enjoy it,” he said.
