# Farewell to a great Fisherman



## fishbone4_14_74 (Feb 7, 2005)

‘Peace’

I find my peace out on the sand
Beside the sea- not beyond or behind
But on the edge, on the border of foam and grit
Where sandfleas scatter among the crashing froth
And the plovers scurry along in front of each dying wave
Probing after some unseen morsel.

I find my peace in the damp salt air
Blowing in from the tropics or the Stream
Carrying aromas of fish and marsh and memory.
Days long past return as just yesterday-
Recollections triggered by a wafting scent,
Only to dissipate with the changing breeze.

I find my peace in the red-orange sun
Rising from the watery abyss once again as before,
Throwing warmth and brilliance against morning clouds
An endless fantasy fueled by fire-
The phoenix rising again to fly across the sky
And plunge back into the depths.

I find my peace casting among the breakers
With the same hopes of those who fished before me:
The limitless optimism and simple faith
That some morsel of bait or metal trinket
Will bring the surging run of a bull redfish
Or the glimmer of a seatrout in the wash.

I find my peace in thoughts of days gone by,
Time spent with friends I may never see again.
Images fill my mind on the flood tide,
And with the rising sun, and on the evening breeze-
Scenes that can never, will never be repeated,
But each time there is one less memory.

Someday the sun will rise, the breeze will blow,
The plovers will run along the tideline,
And I will be just a memory on the breeze.
Perhaps some passing fisherman will see my face
Briefly in the foam, before it scatters on a new wave,
And find his peace out on the sand.

- R. A. Britt

aka Subourbon aka Darkness

Sub, alot of us will miss you and your great posts and knowledge. Till we meet again on the other side, always tight lines and the mist of the sea in our faces, Farewell.

June 29th, 1978 - October 13th, 2005

The link to his obituary.
http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbc...0436&Selected=5


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## Hat80 (Sep 22, 2002)

*It's truly a sad day.*

My prayers go out to family and friends. Russ you will be missed. May your days and nights be filled with calm seas and tightlines....Hat80


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## the rhondel (Feb 6, 2003)

I'm at a loss for words...God bless you Russ.Our prayers to family and friends...the R


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## CrawFish (Sep 23, 2003)

*Sad day indeed..*

Russ, I have'n't met you, but have read and enjoy lots of your posts... you will be missed...  prayers are out..


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## Tuck (Oct 29, 2003)

Russ, you will be honored with every trip I make to the Banx. Thank you for your knowledge.
Your spirit is OBX to me.


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## fishloser (Jul 18, 2002)

Didn't know him, but passing at 26 yrs of age really makes you sit back and think.

My condolences to all his friends and family.


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## clinder (Mar 2, 2005)

26 thats to young to go. does anyone that knew him mind sharing the circumstances?


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## RuddeDogg (Mar 20, 2004)

*no f---n way!!!!!!*

    My thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family. Although I never met him face to face he helped me out with alot of thigs fishin wise. A very sad day indeed.


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## NTKG (Aug 16, 2003)

cancer. service on saturday


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## DERFM (Jun 19, 2004)

...........  
we all lost a good friend .....


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## db prater (Sep 27, 2005)

God bless you and your family, keep fishing he will be watching.


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## Cdog (Mar 18, 2002)

I'm at a loss of words. We will all miss you Russ.


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## sand flea (Oct 24, 1999)

Damn. That is the saddest thing I've heard in a long time.


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## Bad Tater (Oct 6, 2004)

Russ had been fighting colon cancer diagnosed in october of '01. After some successful surgery, chemo, and treatment he enjoyed 2 years of remission before it came back violently. His last bout had lasted 15 months.

He was my friend.

God Bless


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## rattler (Jul 3, 2004)

lord keep him in your hands and jesus show him where the big ones are...R.I.P....


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## jerseysalt (Jul 8, 2005)

*sub*

rest in peace........i will see u on the beach in the wash...it is a sad day........


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## Dixie719 (May 12, 2003)

This has been a rough year for P&S!  

God Bless....


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## Drumdum (Jan 6, 2003)

Met Russ 2yrs ago. Invited him on a fishing trip this spring,but his health wouldn't permit.. 

I never knew Russ that well,but from the post he made and the conversations we had he was one h#ll of a human being. So young,it's just sad. One of the things I did notice about Russ though,was his upbeat personality. The poem above typlifies that..

My sympathys and prayers go to his freinds and family..


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## flathead (Dec 18, 2003)

I think that this was Russ at his best.One of his Mowire posts:

Rumors of my demise...
...are somewhat premature.

Just got back from my consult at Wake Forest/Baptist Hospital. 3 weeks ago, we found a number of small tumors developing on my abdominal wall. They appear to be escapee cells from the first go-round that have finally become large enough to show up on scans. The vaccine protocol I was in at NIH in Bethesda may or may not have worked to a small degree. That's still pending. I have a date with the knife on 30 June 04, and again 1 July 04. Things are in motion to once again filet me like a trout, monkey around with my innards, and bleach 'em out. They're going to split me pretty much from kisser to kiwis, sandpaper my abdominal wall, cut away the bad spots, toss out the spare parts, spotweld me shut, and send me on my merry way after 10-14 days in the cooler. From my perspective as patient and yours as friends and family, it should be pretty much the same as the first time. For the medical professionals, however, things will be quite different.

Somewhere in between the hacking open and stitching shut, I'm going to have a procedure that they lovingly call the Shake'n'bake. It sounds more like a chinese stir-fry to me, but then again, I haven't been to med school. They are going to fill my abdominal cavity with a chemo solution, crank up a heat lamp, and simmer me uncovered for an hour or two (salting to taste, no doubt). They drain that stuff back off and duct-tape me back together, and with any luck, the little microscopic 'stealth tumors' (they said that) will be toast.

Just like before, I'll be 3 months (Sept) at least before fully operational, and maybe 6 (Dec) before I can do a whole lot of physical activity. Lucky for me I have some handicapped-accessible duck blinds in Hyde County- now I just need a good retriever. Hopefully I'll be back in casting/paddling form sometime around the winter striper runs at Hatteras, but I'm not going to push it. Odds are high that I'll have some sort of chemo follow-up after I recover from surgery, but at this point I don't know what kind or how long.

That's where we're at right now. For those of you in eastern NC, I'll probably be down there this week. New Englanders, I'll be invading next Friday for a little striper action around Newburyport. Hopefully I'll make one more run to BUX and tag up on a crabcruncher. We shall see.

Peace and Chicken grease.

--Russ


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## sand flea (Oct 24, 1999)

That guy knew how to put a sentence together.

If there's any justice in this universe the only thing he's worrying about now is why the marsh he's duckhunting in is suddenly filled with stripers and drum and he can't decide whether to shoot or cast.


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## NTKG (Aug 16, 2003)

hey guys

i've spent all day thinking of trying to not think about what happened... getting the wake up call of the news... and finally while i was doing the dishes tonight i broke down, and told my girlfriend what was goin on. i figured id post something cause i consider many of you on here my brothers as well...


its really hard sometimes trying to understand why shit happens. i spend alot of time telling people that things happen for a reason, that god allows things to happen for a greater good. times like today really make that hard for me to keep believing. how a nice young guy like that dies, and all these trash people in richmond keep living and killing and raping and still get three squares a day if we're lucky enough to lock them up. you know what? that guy still is twice the man i will ever hope to be. His willingness to share all the things he had, his willingness to help every idiot on the beach that i'd be two seconds away from fighting. i'll be on fish and only tell my buddies, or never post locations or any of that shit, and this guy would basically tell you where his rod was so u could borrow it. a guy much better than me had to deal with so much bullshit. i watched him that week i went cobia fishin, cause i cant ever sleep, and unfortunately he couldnt sleep when he wanted to either. i watched him stick a needle in him and have to let a damn 12 hour drip happen so he could get a damn calorie in him. i had to listen to him tell me how good that food smelled and watch him unable to actually take a bite in fear of what was left of his stomach might do to him. i watched him break and take a bite of some of the food i cooked and have to go to the bathroom ten minutes later, and see that all the little dumb SHIT that i take for granted everyday was a struggle for this guy. i watched as this guy never made one damn complaint, never once said he was in pain, never once say anything negative. THAT is a man. that is a man we should all strive to be. that is the man that for some reason i cant understand right now god will not let me fish with ever again. i wonder why people like me or anyone else, or all the shitheads in this world go on living and these great people that we are all literally blessed from knowing get taken away from us. despite how strong i am and want to be, it hurts, and it gives you this nasty sick feeling of anger and resentment because for the life of me i cant figure out why he had to go when he did. i remember thinking.... why doesnt he just give up he can just go to bed and not wake up again and die peacefully. why does he struggle, why does he fight? why does he go through the pain? god i feel so horrible for thinking like that. he did it because he is the man we should all strive to be. goddamn, he was so selfless. if you told me or damn near anyone else on this earth what they would do if they had a year to live or a week or a day.... i wonder what they would say. I wonder what kind of selfish desires would come up out of their souls, what laws and society kept them from doing without the fear of death. this damn guy decided he was going to continue being a selfless and humble individual. how many of us can look ourselves in the mirror and say we would do that???? i shudder to think because im not sure if i could do that same thing. im not sure if i could never make a complaint about the pain. im not sure if i would want to fight that fight. but russ was a real man and he was a great man. he chose to fight every day of his life and never milk anyone or anything bc of his disease. he was twice the man i hope to be. i want all of you to think about what this life is, bc for the first time im so proud of the way someone else lived, that i want other people to learn from it. this is the kind of man we all want to be. may god watch over him and may he NEVER KNOW PAIN AGAIN. and may i humble myself and learn from the great things he did with his life.


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## Xpierrat (Dec 4, 2003)

*Fond memories*

Of a great fisherman and an even greater MAN.

I have had the fortune of fishing on the beach a few times with Russ and he was always a pleasure to be with.

He dropped by for one of our classes and casting gatherings a couple of years ago.. For those of you that wine about casting a SHV30 check out what Russ was tossing..... I have met only a few that could actually "cast" a 6/0 with a pound of bait, and he was one of the best

I will copy this post over on DD's board with photo's as I can't post photos for some reason... if anyone can.... feel free to copy and use as needed.

Da Rat


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## hooper (Mar 20, 2004)

Neil,I think you have expressed what most of us feel but could not put into words.
It just don't seam fair.

Rest in Peace, Russ.

hooper


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## bluerunner (Jun 30, 2003)

wish i could have met him, all we con do is save all teh red ones and big sharks we can in his memory


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## Bad Tater (Oct 6, 2004)

Here's the link to the Obituary.

http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbc...ss=12&Type=CAT0040&Lopenr=51000436&Selected=5


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## Lipyourown (May 11, 2005)

I met him once by chance a while ago at night fishing Cape Point. I was alone between two groups of guys fishing. A gull snagged my line and I was having trouble getting it untangled and keeping my reel out of the sand. I'm a loner and was somewhat of an outsider on the OBX and didn't want to ask questions. This guy walks up and just starts helping me untangle the bird without harming it and he said his name was Russ.


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## Big Worm (Mar 29, 2005)

It is a shame there are not more people like Russ in the world. I would have liked to have been able to fish next to him.


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## fisherkid (Jun 30, 2005)

I looked at his profile and he had been on P&S the night before


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## fishbone4_14_74 (Feb 7, 2005)

fisherkid said:


> I looked at his profile and he had been on P&S the night before



Funny how things work EH! i had seen that also and i still cant beleave that it has happened,,, Russ was one of a kind R.I.P. Brother.

Neil thanks for expressing what alot of us want to say and how we feel.


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## RuddeDogg (Mar 20, 2004)

*Right on the head Neil.........*

I can relate to what you said Neil. I have been a 9-1-1 dispatcher for 18 yrs. In that time I have seen and handled every call that you can think of...EVERYTHING!!!!!! Like a brother officer and friend being killed on duty in 1994, my partner losing her 8 month son to SIDS on christmas eve that same year. These are just some of the calls that I have personally handled. I think the question is "Why do bad things happen to good people?" I think that when my time comes and I get a chance to ask the Big Dogg up stairs on question, I think my question will be "WHY?" 

Yeah we all know things happen for a reason but that answer ain't good enough for me. We all have gone through hard ships and losses in life and I have never been able to understand why someone like Russ or my fishin buddy Buddha who passed away in march of this year at 39 yoa, who never had a bad bone in his body and no one that ever knew them had a bad thing to say about them, why in the hell were thet taken away? It just doesn't make sense, does it? Look at our lives that we have lived so far. Why have we had the experiences that we have had. Myself for instance......I lost my parents when I was young. My father at age 9 (his b-day is today), my mother at age 12. mt step-sister and her husband who were just married the year my father passed took me in as their own when my mother passed. They raised me the best that they could, had two boys of their own, now 26 and 25. For the past 10 yrs may sister as I call her has been dealing with MS. I have seen this woman go from a vibrent lady who was one of the most prominant realestate agents in our area to someone who is wheel chair bound and can hardly get up in the morning. She has never once cried woe is me or played the poor pitiful pearl act. She has her good and bad days. She lives with me now. It really does test ones faith when you see all of this happen not just to me but all of us. You watch the news and see and hear all of the madness and mayhem that goes on in the world and you wonder why. In line of work you see the hurt and pain that the victims go through and wonder why a life sebtence at least in this ass backwards state is only 33 yrs. I guess we will never know the answer to that "WHY" question until it's our time to meet our maker. If there is one thing that I have learned growing up from a little pup to the "RuddeDogg" that I am it is this. You get out of life what you put into it. Good or bad you get what you get. I never understood why my parents or my friends always said do for me now not when I'm gone. It's taken a while, but now I know.


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## RogueRon (Nov 4, 2003)

Truly sad to here this, and my condolences to his family and many friends, for he obviously is a good one that touched many. NTKG,Fishbone, thank you for your posts. I am sure your friend is smiling down on you now. He touched both of you and vice versa. That is what is important in life. All the other stuff is BS.


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## fishloser (Jul 18, 2002)

*Never met him but*

from what you guys say, he was one helluva man. Hopefully his Legacy will be carried on by all he touched.


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## shaggy (Jun 18, 2003)

Damn, another P&S fisherperson joins the ranks upstairs to fish elbow to elbow with the Big Guy, but figure there, well, plenty of elbow room. Thoughts and prayers to freinds and family.

Tight lines, calm waters, and light, east to nor'east winds my friend!

Have Jeep will travel


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## Drumdum (Jan 6, 2003)

*Ya'll need to click on this,*

if for no other reason than to see Russ in action with a 6/0.. That youngen dearly loved sharkin..

This is the link that Xpierrat was talking about from "the other" board..

I've also edited this link in,he was quite a young man..

http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbc...s=12&Type=CAT0040&Lopenr=51000436&Selected=5


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## 1fishinmusician (Jun 8, 2005)

My condolences go out to his family and friends. Cancer is a horrible thing, I lost my Dad (the man who taught me how to fish) in 93 to it, my Mom this past June 19th to it, and on Sept. 26th my wonderful and beautiful wife Melina to it.  I hope all P&S folks and everyone in general will do whatever they can to support all research to help rid us of this horrible disease.


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## Tuck (Oct 29, 2003)

*Neil, Rudde, others, It may not mean much.....*

but I believe that people like Russ and, Rudde, your friend Buddha, are just the kind of greatness that God is looking for out of all of us. I feel that life is a batch of lessons and how we handle the lessons and deal with the outcome of whatever is involved, is how we are graded by the Almighty. I mean, our Captain in the big sky is looking for those extraordinary souls to be His best mates. ( it just sucks that the only life that we know, the really good ones have to serve up there instead of down here). These are the ones that we look towards for advise and guidence; these are the ones that we want to mentor our own childeren. It just goes to show that we all are able to identify the outstanding and wonderful, so we all have it in us to be just as they are. We just somehow let our own self will dictate our daily existance and we can't fully allow God's will to direct our lives. 

Unconditional compromise, completely humble, without guilt, remorse or resentment, brave and secure, passionate about giving to the end, enduring without grief, selfless; just a few character awards cast among the few who can honor all without the slightest of hesitations. 

And we wonder why those who are just the opposite are free to keep on living? I consider this life that we consciously recognize, like you said Ruddedog, to be what ever we make of it. You live like a compassionate humanitarian, like our dear friend Russ Britt, and you ascend to forever be immortal and be a teacher of good faith. You live life as a taker, full of hate, desceit, deception and lie, then you are left here to deal with your hell till you get it figured out. ( I personally do not believe that hell as most of us know it really exist. I feel that if you are not deserving to reside in Heaven when you finally pass, you are sent back to try it again and if you are lucky enough not to be a human this go round, you got a dag'um good chance of makin' it)
Those of us that fall somewhere in between, hopefully pick up on some of that Saintful knowledge along the way and clean up some of our character defects, so we to can have a mess of folks with nothing but loving memories of us when we come to our final rest.
It hurts like hell, too, and I only met Russ once for about five minutes back in May. But from knowing of him nearly a couple of years before I met him, from thread communications, almost seemed like we had always been friends. I guess that was the kind of man Sub will always be to everyone. A dear friend. I'll miss his humor and wit, but I will always be reminded of him everytime my feet hit the sands of OBX. I think I will always be reminded of him when saltwater fishin' get talked about.


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