Every year has one. This year's, like nearly all last times on the water is intentional. Not looking forward to the one that isn't. Water's cold. Ice up coming on. Time's always short. I like working the water when most every other outdoor dude is oiling the shotgun. Like cheating Mother Nature. Been a good year. Spent more time in a canoe than any non-Canada year. A fair amount in the solo. Come next Spring I'll be a Medicare drawing baby-boomer. Must mean something. Guess in '12 when I impale myself with a treble hook it'll be the government picking up the tab. When the new year rolls around, God willing, I'll still be able to get my old kiester out of the boat after it's supported me for three hours. Can't picture the time when I give it up but from all I've heard, that will happen. Maybe next year Allan will be able to spring loose a few days. Something to dream about this winter.
Been unseasonably cold for the last week. Turnover's in the past. Water temperature's probably high forties. So's the air. I'm as old as I've ever been, as young as I'll ever be and the weather has a mind of its own. That's why I've got the rain gear along. Rain or shine, I'll wear it. The last three things Lois said before I drove off were, "Be careful." She knows me too well. I'm reaching the age when I should have Do Not Operate Heavy Machinery tattooed on my behind.
Lonely drive up north this time. I was thinking Thursday'd be the day to leave. That's what the Weather Channel told me. End of the week warm up. Lois had a better grip on our reality and egged me into a Monday departure. We'd gone out to lunch with my sister. After getting home, Lois said "Go." So we packed me up and I did. Sounded good and bad at the same time. Can't have it all I guess. Didn't want to leave, didn't want to stay. Wouldn't have worked if she'd come along. I had some fishing to get out of my system. Mid-day fishing. With drive to and from a lake, time on the water. That's a four or five hour hole in ten hours of daylight. I'd have the car. She'd be stuck in a place she'd rather not be stuck in. Yup, can't have it all. Or did I already say that? I'd make a lousy hermit. Be sitting in my cave thinking I should be somewhere else. Doing something else. Like becoming one with a large dark roast and a blueberry muffin. Or up north, late in October, looking for clues about next year. Learned to daydream when I was a kid. Working for a living made me an expert. Spent a lot of time drifting along in the world inside my head.
Been up here for two and a half hours now. Finally warming up inside. One of the beauties, and also one of the downfalls, of the cabin is its insulation. Holds the warmth of day into the evening. And the night's coolness into the afternoon. When I arrived today it was forty-six outside and forty-five inside. First order of business after the off-load was feeding the Franklin stove. Not an efficient box but neat looking and a piece of history. Took two high school football tackles to move it up north and into place. Ain't moved it since, mostly 'cause I can't. Ben eats wood at an alarming fate. He's an omnivore. Pine, aspen, birch, scrap wood and oak. Lately, his diet has been provided by the Crow Wing Electric Co-op and their right-of-way clearing along the road out front. Their easement, our wood. And forty of Lois and my hours sawing, moving, splitting, moving and stacking. And moving inside to finally move into the stove. Whoever said, "Heat with wood and you are twice warmed," never gathered their own fuel. Actually, I left out a step. Kind of embarrassed about it but that's the way I am. A person's stuck with being themselves. So long as it's not damaging to anyone, being yourself is a good thing.
Most of the world's been moving toward efficiency and speed since day one. Outside of us hardheads that is. Lois and I always burn our own wood, gathered by hand and rarely motorized. Cut it in the woods. Deadfall only. Pitch it, or if too big, carry it to the road or nearest path. Load it in a ten cubic foot wheelbarrow and cart it to the splitting area. It's physical nature makes me sweat, puff and, in general, feel good. I can't say how it makes Lois feel. She's always in the thick of it whether I ask her help or not. Don't know what it is about work but it sure seems to do a body good. And occasionally call for a few stitches.
Night arrives on wings of numb noses. When I'm up here by myself, a cushioned window seat I fabricated from a teak child's trundle bed that once held our children, is now my bed. Head near cracked window, cool draft keeping my sinuses open; my happiness. 'Til 2:30 in the morning. That's when that old fart Franklin starts crying like a baby with dirty diapers. Wants to be changed and fed again. If not, he punishes me with cold feet come morning. Stoking the stove's just an inconvenience really. 'Bout that time my bladder's telling me to go outside and mark my territory anyhow. Check out the stars, maybe Orion's waiting for me. Might as well throw some kindling in and watch it blaze. Add a chunk or two of oak and head back to wander through my dream world.
Morning. It's not as easy coming up with new water when you've been working an area for thirty years. But it's there. Just doesn't exactly fit my definition of acceptable surroundings. Gotta learn to live with a few cabins and a boat or two. Don't want to. Really don't want to. Maybe if we make next year's trip in late October? Nobody on most any lake at that time of year. Unfortunately, October and fishing don't seem to get together in most sensible minds. The thought of drowning in cold water has no appeal for Iowans. Or Minnesotans for that matter.
So I'm up here with new ideas in mind. New spins on old lakes. And old spins on a new one or two. Maybe throw smallmouth bass and trout into the mix. But not this first day. Today, the DNR is my friend. They post fish counts for most of the lakes in the state. A fair number of the one's I like to fish are long outdated. Guess the State has better things to do than give away the locations of my favorite spots. The Nasons' numbers go back to the '60s. The lake I'm looking at for this afternoon's a 2008. Nearly a bass only lake 'til recently. The DNR suspects some local yahoos illegally dumped in a bucket of sunnies and crappies. Shame on them. Don't know if the bass like to eat panfish. Not having seen any before, the bass might not know either. But they'll figure it out. This is an experimental lake. For us and the bass. All bass have to be immediately released. The new sunnies and crappies are a different story. Whoever put 'em in probably figures they'll look good filleted, bear battered and in the pan. And break up the monotony of bass, bass, bass. I've got two rods rigged. Made a vow to only use the slip bobber rig. But I'm morally weak when it comes to the catching part of fishing. The second's got a spinner. What else?
The actual fishing part of my day was originally written from the point of view of a Spanish adventurer. Can't say why that came to mind. Seems Marcos Ramos was seeking the legendary 'fish of the sun.' His guide was Coolfront of course. Went on to explain the moniker. As in, not as bad as a cold front, but close. Never mentioned I've also dubbed myself Snakecharmer for my talent of catching small northerns. I'd have included the entry here had it not nauseated me on the reread. I did like the fish of the sun part. Seems to fit bluegills and pumpkinseeds well. Allan says they're the closest to tropical fish found in our lakes.
Mid-day, light northerly breeze and general overcast. Got the lake to myself. The push off is always a moment of relearning balance. You'd think I'd have that down pat after all these years. But caution tells me I don't and know the most likely spot to roll the boat is during the launch. Besides the panfish I'm gonna work on the j-stroke. It's basic and arguably the best way to steer a canoe. I've developed methods based on my inability to understand what I've read and then apply that misknowledge to what I'm doing. My visualization sucks. What my mind sees as a J ain't what the paddle's supposed to be doing. My version looks more like a C. Jumped to that when A and B looked insanely difficult. Went to the internet, found a good site with pictures, think I've got the idea and am gonna give it my best shot. The author says my arms will hurt tomorrow but am doubtful of that. After all, I'm a manly man of great masculinity.
Gadzooks, I've done it again. Paddled nearly to the lake's far end almost like that's what I'd intended. Must finally be learning patience. The deep water's down here. Figure that's where the bluegills will be hanging out. Set the bobber at five feet and drift the shore with the breeze. Not a human sound in the world 'til I hear a boat approaching. Deep throated roar coming through the channel behind me. I look and see nothing. Takes a minute to realize I'm hearing a semi cruising the highway two miles north. That's two miles of hill and forest north. Quite a sound baffle to penetrate.
Woods are nearly naked. Clumps of golden aspen and tamarack the only accompaniment to the dark green pines. Couple of squirrels get into an argument as I pass. They go on and on for twenty minutes. Must be a nut problem. Figure if I could remove theirs, the matter'd be settled. Bobber goes down. Zip, gone in a flash. The weight on the rod says bass but I'm hoping walleye. It's a bass, chunky one. Fights like twice its three pounds. Takes me under the boat several times. Not expecting that. Got a lot to learn about cold water bass. Thought they were only warm water fish. Over the next ninety minutes this happens a dozen times. Then stops dead. Nary a sunnie. Not so much as a nibble. Can't say I'm disappointed or mystified. Would have been fun to find a few. Ain't I humble? What would have been fun would have been forty, nothin' under a half pound. Tuckered out by bluegills.
The true highlights of the day all had white heads. Always a pleasure to watch an eagle spiral up in a thermal. Or chow down on a road kill whitetail as I pass, homeward bound. Back in the yard another shoots by on the treetops over the center of the cabin. Saw my first in '89. Now they border on the commonplace. A story like that, though rare, is cause for hope.
Don't usually carry a cell phone. However, when alone at the cabin, Lois lends me hers. Don't take it on the water. Yet. But I do call every evening to pass on an all's well with the world. 'Til a couple of years ago reception at the cabin was non-existent. Was that better? Can of worms for sure. L. Dean heads a manufacturing firm. One that can't run without him it seems. Knocks a hole in any wilderness illusion I'm spinning when he's making business decisions on a cabinless lake off a forestry road. Think back on the time when me and Al ran into the boys from Flin Flon. Thirty water miles off the road. Lord knows how far from the nearest cell tower. Being asked if we had a satellite phone so they could call in sick at work 'cause the walleyes were biting and they had liquor left. If that doesn't lighten your heart you've got a problem.
The weatherman on public radio tells me Day Two will be an encore. Peak of the day in the upper forties. But which lake? Today I'm thinkin' smallmouth bass. Two lakes fit the bill. Well, one does for sure. My memory says the other does too. I know what to look for once on the water. Simple process. Cruise the shoreline in about three feet of water. Look down. If you see nothing but rubble, baseball sized mostly, you're there. Throw in some boulders and deadfall and you've got yourself a genuine hot spot. Seems there's crayfish in those rocks. And in the bellies of the smallies. Mudbugs are smallmouth candy. When you lip one, take a look down the bass' gullet. Don't be surprised to see a couple of claws alongside a pair of black, beady eyes looking up and seem to be saying, "Hey buddy. How'd you like three wishes?"
Back in '90, when Allan and I first hit East Pike Lake, we learned a lot. And saw something we haven't seen since. Took a bit to figure out what it was. The bass were in the post-spawn. Males still on the nests, ladies off to recover. We were throwing small floating Rapalas. The method was to let the lure sit for at least a half minute then give 'er a twitch. Worked like a charm. If you let it sit for a full minute, the lure would start to bounce around on the calm water a little bit. Had to be the smallies comin' up and giving the Rapala a nudge. And telling us it was twitch time. Bam!
Lakes around the cabin are different animals. Been on a few that looked right. Got me to saying, "Somebody ought to throw a few smallies in here." Kinda disappointing no one has. And I'm not that kind of boy (said in a voice like Groucho Marx). Not that I have anything against largemouth. But, in my mind, they're not in the same league as their relatives. Blame East Pike Lake and my cousins up in 1957 Melrose for that. Fishing Big Birch Lake - of course there's also a Middle Birch and Little Birch. Not to be confused with the chain up near Detroit lakes of Big Dick, Little Dick and Jack the Horse Lakes. Ain't Minnesota the best? - one of the Ahlers landed a smallmouth. Made a big deal of it. Bent my twig. Turns out, according to the DNR, most every lake outside the Boundary Waters has largemouth bass. Smallies, maybe one in ten. Top that off with smallmouth not actually a native of the Boundary Waters. They were introduced late in the 1930's and have spread like any other exotic species. Unlike zebra mussels and big head carp, smallmouth are my kind of vermin.
Mann Lake has them for sure. Are muskie food in those waters. Four pound bait fish. Two out of three muskies say their as tasty as walleyes. Other choice is Portage Lake, one of four with that name in Cass County. My brain says the DNR website showed Portage being ripe with smallies. But my ten year old guide says otherwise. I'm in doubt. Mann's the choice 'cause it's twenty minutes closer. Time off the drive being time on the water. Been there before. It's a bowl. No character. Ah, been spoiled by Canadian lakes. Points, bays, islands, always something unexpected around the corner. Each lake seems like several in one.
Blue sky today. Light northerly breeze makes for easier paddling on Baby Lake this time. The connecting channel, no longer a mystery. Ten minutes and I'm on Mann. Where to go? The guide's told me the south shore flats are prime water, I hang a right. Flats they really are. Shallow flats. Don't look fishy and my spinner says the same. Not anything like the smallmouth territory I've seen. Time to take a break and scan the lake. This time of year they could be suspending near a mid-lake bar. Yeah, like that helps. In my mind, canoes don't do lake middles. A game of hit or miss that eats up time by the yard. Plus I'm a shore fisherman. Always have been. Not a matter of deep water fear. Mostly a matter of the fish. They head to the shallows 'cause the plankton piles up there, and also game fish that eat the bait fish eating the bugs that eat the plankton. Little Old lady Who Swallowed a Fly Syndrome. And it's prettier being close to the trees.
The shore's where the fish meet me and my limited abilities half-way. Just need to find the right shore where the smallies have immediate access to deep water. And my spinner. Ain't thrown a purposeful lure or bobber yet and I'm already pissing and moaning. Descend into frustration. Slide sideways into despondency. And the j-stroke's not as easy as it looks. Makes me pay way too much attention to what I'm doing. Don't mind learning a new trick so long as it comes quickly. One minute I've got it. Easy as pie. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I'm cruisin' now. Then, poof! It's gone. Drift left, curse and it's looking like I'm gonna hurt for sure come morning. Shoulda bought a longer solo. The zig-zag can't be my fault. Need a better paddle. Not as young as I used to be. Crap! That means it's gonna get worse. All my fretting helps pass the time as I head across the lake. Constant negativity is my friend, my happy place, my meditation. Zen and the Art of Knowing the Whole World Has It in for Me. But I'm hip. So I curse the heavens.
I've chosen a goal. A steeply sided hill on the east shore. From a quarter mile it reminds me of the Boundary Waters, birches hanging, some in the water. Visualization of a several tiered drop off. Multiple shelves descending into deep water. Smallies hanging out in itty-bitty wolf packs on each drop, fattening up for the long winter. Here I come boys and girls. Papa's got something for you to chew on. Of course that's not the reality. Though the hill is thirty feet of near cliff, the lake bottom is shallow. No indication of a drop off in sight. Ah so, the hoped for rubble is there. Picture perfect. Small, less than fifty yards of shore line.
Don't want to waste a foot of it. Paddle a hundred yards north. Drift and cast. In toward shore and parallel to. Sneak up on 'em. Throwing a brass blade, squirrel tail. The first hit is a shock. Stays deep for a few runs then heads to the surface. None of the largemouth did that yesterday. Been so long I won't commit until I raise it. Right color and the red eye ring is the clincher. Holy smoke. Don't know what to think. When I actually figure something out it comes as a surprise. Makes me feel like a real fisherman for a few seconds. 'Course I slap that thought down. Ten minutes later it happens again. Definitely not a fluke. Almost as neat as catching trout. Ten minutes later nothing new's happened. Should switch to a tube but have learned what I wanted. Besides, my arm is now getting sorer from back patting. Next Spring, me and the Deans will give Mann a shot. See more of the lake. Could be another jewel to fish every year. After the re-cross, I fish my way to the access.
Departure morning cleanup always gets my mind churning. Finality breeds a swarm of evil sprites. When I was in my youth, post-Vietnam, I was cock sure. Had no fear of saying my piece. Didn't matter if I was right or wrong, I was confident. At least confident enough to stick my neck out constantly. Can't say I was wrong about everything, just short sighted. Aren't we all? I still lack an accurate long term view but it ain't gonna get any better. Comin' up on 65. Gathering wisdom and knowledge on one end. My brain melting out my nose on the other. Sneaking up on becoming a wise-assed old man. My apologies to Carl Jung.
Is the world going to hell in a hand basket? Probably. At least the human part. We've been on an out of control bubble for sixty-six years. All indications point toward some form of bursting. Global warming; paper today says the last year has been an unexpected spike of greenhouse gasses. Beyond worst case scenario numbers. When's the tipping point on that? Smart money says we're within spitting distance. Globalization's a damned if you do or don't situation. Fewer jobs, less money, look for a bargain. Bargains ain't made in the USA. Shop elsewhere. More jobs dry up. The playing field's leveling. Don't see a win-win coming up anytime soon.
All this spins around in my incoherent head as I wash the dishes with heated pump water. Sweep the floor. Vacuum, clean it up for the next trip up. Love it here. Deer hunting's coming. Time to not be in the woods with an army of armed amateurs wandering around. Lois has been shot at while working in the yard. The hunter said it was her fault 'cause she wasn't wearing enough blaze orange. And she shouldn't have been in the woods in the first place 'cause that's where he'd been hunting for years. A half million in the woods and plenty of them total bozos. Didn't have that many armed infantry in Vietnam even at the peak. Scary. Be back mid-November. Next time on the water mid-May. Half a year's a long time.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
The Four Deans
Six weeks ago I went fishing with my grandson Jakob. He's my daughter and son-in-law's oldest. That is if you can consider a five year old oldest at anything. In his mind we were off on either an expedition or another one of Grandpa's waste's of time. Lucky for me he's an understanding kid. Willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. S'pose he'll eventually outgrow that.
The drive was a five blocker to a small city lake. My plan was to be a good grandpa and bend Jake's twig in the right direction. Maybe throw a couple of bluegills in for good luck. Bought him a half-decent spincast rig, about the right length for a half pint and wanted to see if he could handle it. Yeah, he's a tad too young to hold his own in the front of a canoe on a Canadian lake yet and by the time he can I'll be wearing Depends. But that doesn't stop me from dreaming. Seems there's still a maybe swimming around in my head. Something about him being twelve years old and me being seventy-one. After all, Allan was only twelve when we did the Boundary Waters the first time. As for me…. Well, guess we'll have to wait and see how that pans out. Just maybe, the good Lord willing, me and my grandson can still catch us a few smallies up on East Pike Lake, sleep in a tent and sip a little Jim Beam. Probably best drop the last part. I don't much like whiskey.
One thing about grandkids is they'll give you your third go around on learning the concept of time and distance. Learned it myself. Watched it dawn on Annie and Allan. Now Jakob. So when we pulled up to the little lake after two minutes and fourteen seconds on the road, Jake asked, "Are we at the cabin?" A simple, "Nope, the cabin's a lot farther," worked nicely. It's tough on me dealing with such innocence. Sarcasm runs in my blood. Always has. Probably always will. However, the idea that we might be at the cabin and Jakey wasn't phased by the idea, bodes well for next summer or one of the next.
Of course I had to take the first cast. Old guys like to play too. The next five were Jakob's. Went so well he must have been practicing when I wasn't looking. Deceitful little bugger. Good distance and pretty much on the mark. But no fish. We'd have moved around till we found 'em but he laid something on me that couldn't be ignored, "I've got to pee Grandpa." Since the City of Minneapolis frowns on grandparents allowing five year olds to urinate in a park or pretty much anywhere outside, we headed home. Don't remember Lee Wolff, John Gierach or Roland Martin ever using that as an excuse to stop fishing.
The point of this intro and the reason for the title has to do with Jakob's middle name, Dean. When his mom and dad came to naming him there was no choice as to what Jake's middle one would be. His dad's was Dean and his dad's dad was Dean. Coincidentally, Jakob's Uncle Eldon, not in the line of fire at all, carries the middle name of Dean. Where the idea for Dean arose I s'pose only a traveling salesman and many a lonely house frau in Northwest Iowa know. But that's just my guess. No offense meant.
For the last five or six years - by now you might have noticed that I lean toward guesswork when it comes to time. Continually throw around words like about, around, or so and of course, five or six, a lot. And to think I've managed to stay clear of six of one, half dozen of the other for nigh onto a year. Seems I've become more approximate than more accurate as I've grown older. No doubt the scars of having been wrong so many times. Those kind of erroneous numbers weigh on a man. On the other hand, a whole lot of stuff has happened in my lifetime. It all tends to jumble together in the oatmeal that is my brain. Should have taken the time to document it all. What a waste of my life that would have been. So my history tends to break down into the recent, five or six years ago and a long time ago. The long time ago I typically have no problems with. e.g. New Years Eve 1967 had a windchill of sixty-five below. Ain't that swell?
Let's give it another go around: For the last five or six years I've been doing a June, cabin-centered, fishing trip with in-laws. As in son-in-law, his dad and his uncle. Ryan, Larry and Eldon respectively. First off, though Ryan lives in Sioux Falls, all three of them are Iowans to the bone. As most everyone knows in this part of the world, an Iowan is a Minnesotan with a little more dirt under the fingernails. We're a little wetter behind the ears. Stands to reason, we've got the lakes, they're buried under deep rich soil. Minnesotans like to make fun of their southern neighbors. Mostly that's 'cause we're hopin' to high heaven, while knowin' it ain't the truth, that someone out there is more hinterlandy than us thirteen lined ground squirrel lovers. Our disagreements were summed up unintentionally by The National Lampoon with two figures of death fighting over a pickle. Not sure what that means but it seems to fit.
To me, in the context of this essay, what matters is that Iowans fish for bullheads. Period. No doubt that's my ignorance and prejudice, but I doubt it. Also figure they'd fish for lakers, muskies and walleyes if they could. But, like I said, they've got bullheads.
Oh they try to pooh-pooh that notion. Over the years the three Deans've told me time and again about Grandpa Dan, Iowa personified, and his quest for walleyes on Spirit Lake, Lake Okoboji or some other God forsaken, overstuffed farm pond down there. But to the best of my knowledge no walleyes were ever hooked or landed. All I've heard about are sinking boats and the incredible length of Grandpa Dan's cigarette ash. Seems the cigarette was always dangling from his lower lip, the wind was always up, the boat was always sinking and the ash always at least two inches long. Not a walleye was ever mentioned. Watching that ash no doubt took my future fishing partners' minds off skinnin' a bucket of bullheads.
During the few years our knowledge of each other overlapped, I met grandpa Dan a few times. Always seemed a mellow old guy with a permanent smile on his weathered face. Weathered's an understatement. One look told you that man had spent his time out in the weather. Good way to look. Also seen photos of him as a much younger man. Looked like a man on a mission and you were in his way. Attitude in work clothes. First time we met he said, 'Heard you're quite a fisherman." Made me feel good. But I had to be honest with him even though it'd sound like I was being falsely modest, "Nope. But I've spent a lot of my time finding lakes where the fish are dumber than I am." Meeting Grandpa Dan got me to thinking. In the old photos of him he had the look I've seen in black and whites of canoemen back in the '50s. No pretense in their dress. Stringer of lake trout tying them together. Not much giving a damn how big the fish looked. They were big and there were plenty of them. Those guys were a different breed. And Grandpa Dan would've fit in nicely.
Don't remember exactly how the up to the cabin trips came about. So here's my guess: Back in the early days of Ryan entering our family, he and Annie used to come up north once in a while. Ryan seemed to like it in the woods. For fun we played golf. No resort courses for us thank you. Dirty blue collar, back in the woods, courses. If your ball strayed into those woods you left it there. Too hard to play out of the poison ivy. Also, in Ryan's case, golf didn't bring bullheads into the equation. Anger, frustration and mosquitoes maybe, but definitely no bullheads.
Then, magically, one day he found himself in the front of my canoe with a bass on the end of his line. Ooh, bass. Not a whisker on its head and it was okay to throw it back in the lake. No more nailin', slittin' and skinnin'. A fisherman was born that day. Or at least uncovered. Ryan had so much fun the next thing I knew his dad was along for the ride. The great June Fishing Trip, with food and beer, was born. Larry was instantly hooked. That first year there were two trips. The second one in the fall included Ryan's uncle Eldon. Also hooked. So it came to be. R. Dean, L. Dean, El. Dean and me.
That first year it was Ryan and his dad in the canoe together. Logical and a chance for gettin' out the pointless bitching a father and son need once in a while. Being ten feet apart in an Alumacraft can sometimes be a little close for comfort. With the weight bein' on the guy in the back. Gotta learn to drop that rod tip when the man up front is buggy whippin' pointed steel on a side-arm cast. Also a tad nerve wracking when that rod tip's pointing between your eyes. I've been behind Ryan and found it fascinating the way his rod tip figure-eights right at me on the back cast. Comes so close on occasion that I find myself checking out the wraps on his squirrel tail, cross-eyed. Hasn't drawn blood yet but I've given some thought to buying him a five foot rod.
As for Larry, it was both a fatherly and a self-sacrificing act taking the back seat. They've done well together over the years considering their initial lack of canoe experience. Learned a lot even though they still zig-zag even more than two drunks trying to walk a straight line. Never really asked them how they felt being the only canoemen on the Minnesota lakes we've fished. And they've never actually said anything about it on their own. I hope it's made them feel a cut above all the noise, nonsense and pollution. Though, for them, it might actually be an exercise in humility.
As for the fishing, like I said, they were bullheaders not game fishermen. Whether they asked me or whether I forced my will on them, "My cabin, my way of fishing. Like it or lump it." Either way, I figured they'd have a lot more fun catchin' than being skunked. I knew their predicament. When I was a kid, bullheads were a way of life during the summertime. Red and white bobber, hook and and worm. So I set 'em up with a slip bobber rig. The slip bobber was as much a revelation to them as it had been to me when my wife's cousin turned me on to them. Thanks, Gary. No single hook though. Sixteenth ounce jig and a tiny power tube. Set it shallow, fish it in the pads and horse 'em out. It ain't pretty. No grand fight and acrobatic leaps. They eventually came to putting the canoe in so tight as to be shore fishing. Holey-moley did they catch panfish and bass. They still tend to fish that way as a means to learn a lake.
The second trip was in the fall. And Eldon came along to add a little more color to the already colorful woods. El. Dean had this thing about canoes. Didn't like them one bit. Something about ending up in the lake every time he was briefly in one. What a whiner. So he ended up as my partner 'cause I promised him in as casual a manner - like rolling a canoe had never happened to me and never would - as possible - in a voice like Chuck Yeager would've used to explain that the wing had just come off his experimental jet - that he'd be okay. And catch a washtub full of fish. Now, the truth was, I was pretty sure we'd be okay together. But saying never is like dancing with the devil. Set him up with the same rig as the other two Deans.
Being partnered up in a canoe too many times with the same person is a lot like being married. You have to watch what you say. Don't want to be too domineering or you'll piss your partner off. Too passive and you piss yourself off. Like me. El. Dean gets me to swearing quietly to myself once in a while. Partly my fault, partly his. His end rides a little too deep in the lake for me. Simple navigation, a trim boat rides a little high in the bow and gives the paddler in the aft a little more control. Ours moves nose down. Plows the waves, pivots at the front. I figure if I paddled hard enough, we'd rotate like a pinwheel. If we were kids on a see-saw, I'd be the one on the up end, legs dangling, crying, "C'mon, let me down!" Guess gravity likes El. Dean more than me. Why not? He's a likable guy.
The my fault part is partly Allan's fault. We've got a few thousand canoe miles behind us. His idiosyncrasies and bad habits have become my standard for a front man. Al motors, I approximate our direction. I flail both sides of the boat, he paddles on the right. Always. Says the left side pains him. So I never a need to call out directions unless it's an emergency in big waves. Since he's always on the right, he never steers from the front. If we veer a bit off course, he knows we're okay 'cause my mind is wandering and all's right with the world.
El. Dean and I have never worked out our mental balance. Paddling a canoe seems a simple task and it is. But it's a teamwork thing. Two people moving one boat. El needs direction but I don't do that well. Like I said, never had to do that. Don't know where to begin and don't want to piss him off. Too good of friends to squabble over near nothing. Not that big a problem really. We don't fish big water together. Rarely travel more than a mile. So it's not much more than an annoyance. Still, I'll occasionally descend into mumbled cursing. As much at my failure to communicate as toward him.
Maybe I need to throw a fifty pound boulder in the stern. Or introduce El. Dean to Jenny Craig. Look what she did for Marie Osmond (I think she's a Jenny Craig grad). Religion and politics aside, if El. Dean came out looking as good as Ms. Osmond.... Or get him away from his wife, who's way too good a cook. Her pastries are an invitation to an early but happy death. So I guess the odds of us doing a real canoe trip together are directly proportional to his chances for divorce. Doubt very much that "too good in the kitchen" would constitute acceptable grounds for divorce.
Besides difference of bulk, our pasts carry a lot of shared weight. Both of us were in the Army at the same time. Creates a bond that goes beyond throwin' lures in a lake or having shared relatives. El. Dean never made it to Vietnam. But that's the crapshoot of the military. Some go, some don't, but we all wore olive drab. And all had to put up with the same shit. By and large career soldiers weren't a happy lot in those days. Just ask El. Dean. Yup, it does flow downhill in the Army. Both of us married, two children, grandchildren. Seen a lot of the same things. We make for a good fit.
He's an easy going man. Likes his time up north. Looks forward to it all year. I can relate to that. He'd be the first to tell you that what he needs is more time in the woods and on the water. But there's no spare time burnin' a hole in his pocket. No sir. He works for a living. And Lordy how a time clock'll put a crimp in your time. Personal experience tells me the only thing that sucks more than workin' for a dollar is being unemployed. You've got a job these days, you don't walk out on it. Odd how that works.
So we find El. Dean, a family man with bills to pay. And not lookin' forward to retirement anytime soon. It's a dilemma and looks never ending. Enough to make a thinking man a bit bummed once in a while. Don't know about him but I sure didn't see it coming when I punched in at age sixteen. Thought I was the Golden Child. Dame Fortune would take care of all my problems and leave me roses. Most of us have been through that drill. Most of us know it could have been a whole lot worse. Don't think El. Dean would disagree but that doesn't buy him an extra minute of spare time just for being grateful. So we get along fine. Unless he spills the corn. Or anyone else does for that matter. I like home packed sweet corn. You come to the cabin, don't spill the corn and we be just fine.
For my part, I'm among the fortunate. Retired, not starving and finding my time up at the cabin with the Deans one of life's pleasures. Always is. Gives me another fixed point on which my life turns. But, you see, Barb Lake is still up there in Grass River Provincial Park. Unseen, waiting and eight miles paddle and two miles of swamp portage away from the Iskwasum lake access. As Bob with the Black lab told me and Allan, "It's a walleye a cast, eh." Yup, it's sittin' up there, waitin' on me and I'm down here watchin' my window of opportunity slowly close. The cabin's fine but not where I really want to be in the first half of June. I miss the tingle of adventure.
Last note before we go and catch us some fish: Canoe fishin's about partners. Besides Allan, there are few I'd care to drive nine hundred miles with, much less spend a day or two paddling deep enough in just to get a taste of wilderness. Grass River's not what I'd call wilderness but you can smell it from there. I'm not asking for the real deal, just something close enough so I can pretend. As for the Deans, I'd go with any or all of them. L. Dean in the back of their canoe knows his limitations. That and his innate honesty are about all you can ask of a canoeman. R. Dean can motor, listens to instruction and loves to fish. It'd be a thrill watching him tie into a thicket of walleyes or three foot pike. El. Dean, like I said, would need to push away from the table. But his laugh and companionship would be worth a creative canoe trimming.
Last June's trip had it all. From a hundred fifty bass day to a four man near skunkathon. Two days in particular:
Back in the old days, the Road to Every Lake days, touted by characters that would have fit nicely onto Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis, a Minnesota man, a few of those lakes were missed. Small, out of the way, bullhead infested ponds deemed unroadworthy. What the Chambers of Commerce had in mind was a photo of fifteen red and black plaid covered hunters standing in front of fifteen gutted, steer-sized bucks hanging on a rack festooned by garlands of ten pound walleyes. Caption reading, "Come and Kill Your Share in Minnesota." They weren't looking for a bunch of on-the-cheap SOBs like me and the Deans. Those roads were made for Packards and full wallets. That they left a few sloughs untouched was a Godsend to us canoe boys.
In the following decades - now this is purely my fantasy and may not have any connection to reality. You have to remember, I came of age in the sixties. reality was optional. Groovy! - the locals came to feelin' squeezed out on the accessible lakes they grew up near. Also, the fishing wasn't as easy as dad and grandpa said it'd been. A thousand acre lake with a couple of dozen motorboats trolling about didn't seem to have much 'away from it all' to it.
So they took matters into their own hands. On a good day they'd keep some of the bass, pike and panfish they caught, stick 'em in a cooler of water and dump the lot into some out of the way bullhead pond. They knew just the right ones. Got the pickup stuck on the two track logger's roads while rumbling in for some duck hunting last fall. Small but deep enough to not freeze out. Tough enough driving to get you thinking about your oil pan. Kept the riff-raff in their Lincolns and Cadillacs out. Usually had the water to themselves. And if they did have to share, they knew each other and their dogs by name. Might be a hundred or two such ponds scattered across the North Country.
Those are the lakes I seek. It's my talent. Remember what I told Grandpa Dan. Besides, it's much easier pretending you're in the boonies if the lake you're fishing has no cabins. So if you live in Blackduck, MN, decide to head out for an evening's fishing on a nearby hidden pond and find an old fart in a plastic canoe, give him a wave. Might be me. Promise I'll put 'em all back and won't tell anyone where we are and what we're doing.
So it was on one of those lakes me and the Deans found ourselves. Been there before. Knew what to expect, a good lake. But me and El. Dean were playin' with a new deck and, since it was my deck, I was hoping I'd remembered to pack all fifty-two cards. Wasn't so much passing on knowledge as I was experimenting. And using El. as a guinea pig. Didn't let him know that though. Of course our usual plan of attack was throwin' a #3 spinner tight to shore and starting to crank before she hit the water. El. Dean never took to that tactic as he's a right hander all the way and has to switch hands with the rod. Churns the bottom before his slack is on the spool. Catches a lot of weed and branches that way but not many bass.
Our angle of angling this time be tubes and jigs. Don't drag me into the great controversy of polluting with plastics in pristine ponds. Cutting it to brown sparkly tubes is as close as I'll let my delicate northern soul approach the purple worms of the Great South. For now. Tubes are mostly weedless. Since you work them slowly along the bottom, El. Dean's already got the technique down pat though he's highly skeptical. Man of little faith.
We leap frogged R. and L. Dean and headed a ways down the beaver-branch strewn shore. Overcast, pockets of lily pads throughout the twenty acre bay we're in, surrounded by pine and birch tight to the water. Could be in the western Boundary Waters for the way it looks. And we're alone on the water. Perfect. El. Dean's got the general drift of what to do. Picked up a small bass right off and put a look on his face that says, I sure didn't see that coming. Then settled into casting practice for a while. I'm catchin' a few. So El. moved into the comfort of business as usual on a great bass pond. Got lazy and didn't work the tube like a real fisherman ought, instead simply threw the rig and let it sink to the bottom. Then didn't do squat for a half minute, maybe a minute and settled into enjoying the scenery. Finally, more out of boredom than anything else, started to reel slowly, real slowly. And began two hours of bass catching like I'd never seen. Not big bass. This lake holds nothing much over two pounds. On the other hand, few are under a foot. Looked like he was catching the same fish over and over. Around his fifth bass we began to count figuring El. was in the beginning of a day of days. We quit counting when he hit fifty.
Hate to admit it but after a dozen or two I realized he was onto something beyond my ken. Time for me to learn from the student. I sucked it up and asked El. his method. So simple. Tells me it's all in the feel and drag. When he starts reeling sometimes he feels a soft nibble. Like a bluegill messing with your worm. If so, he lets it sit than waits a few seconds and sets the hook. Bam! Like Jimmy Houston without any bass kissin'. Different laugh also. If no immediate nibble he drags the tube slowly. Any nibble along the way is cause for a few seconds wait. Then it's bam time again. El. Dean was a true bass-o-magic that day. Not like like the one in Dan Ackroyd's routine. Ackroyd's a Canadian. And they don't know diddley about largemouth.
Oh yeah, it was fun even if they all were thirteen and a half inches. You have to question our sanity. Like a couple of pre-pubescent twelve year olds. Days like that one can spoil you for a long time. We finally had to pull the plug and seek out R. and L. Dean. Tell 'em how wonderful we were but had no effect. They were doing every bit as good as we were and had the same goofy smiles stuck to their faces.
The next day we finally found it. Not where it was supposed to be according to the DNR. But a two minute hike told the tale. Couple of years earlier we'd tried the same game on what was supposed to be the right two track only to dead end at a wall of woods. Done that a few times in the past. Back in the late '90s, Allan and I gave what we considered our best shot toward finding a lake named Bag. A thirty acre pot hole really. None of our maps showed any type of deer trail or forestry road heading that way. But I knew in my marginal bushwhacking heart of hearts there had to be a way. This was Minnesota. Bag was a lake deep enough to not freeze out. Been there since the Ice Age so there must have been plenty of folks as idiotic as me who'd have forged some kind of way in.
We started off in the right general direction. Found a two track. Almost too easy. Off we went on a trail that had a mind of its own. Five minutes in, our direction was in doubt and the track narrowed to a hair under a Jeep's width. It seems hazel brush has a thing about running sine wave tattoos down the sides of slightly lost vehicles. When the path opened up, it also disappeared. We found ourselves looking down into a pristine valley pretty as all get out. Birch, red and jackpine. Old, mossy floor with columbine, dogwood, ancient singed jackpine stumps that could've been there for many decades. Gnarly, tough buggers, thick with pitch, they'd be there for many more. Their nut like cones wouldn't think of opening without a forest fire. See, fire's our friend so long as it doesn't get too cuddly. The valley was pretty enough in the filtered light to get out and dally a minute before backing slowly out. Figured there must be another way.
That last paragraph was more or less true. Problem was I tried to get all poetic and don't do that well. Just ain't me. Poetic is supposed to come from a fertile mind and eye. My fertile's a lot closer to compost without the aging process. Get to readin' other authors - oops, gotta remember, I'm a writer not an author - and thinking damn, I sure wish I could write like I knew what I was doing. That leads to all kinds of what I consider profound thoughts. Then I write them out and see their naked reality. Time to whack myself across the knuckles a couple of times and stand nose to the wall in the corner for a half hour. Guess I've finally grown enough to no longer need nuns. Mea culpa.
Over the next twenty minutes we dead-ended twice more. "Got a problem city boys? Most anyone 'round here could find Bag with their eyes shut in the dark, on a moonless night, stone drunk. Sheee-it. Maybe it'd help if you got outta the fancy jeep once in a while for a look-see." The wisdom of age takes failure in stride. We packed it in and headed for the Nasons.
Me and the Deans must've passed the access road/mud hole five times that week before L. and R. Dean finally walked in. The track wasn't but a couple hundred yards of pot hole and rock. Ended at a sign saying the road that had been, wasn't there any more. But enough room to park. The lake sat thirty feet below us down a path nobody, but nobody could back down with a trailer, much less pull it back up. The lake was as tiny as advertised, sixty acres, but looked nothing like my mind's eye thought it would. So what else was new?
Let me tell you about what the DNR reported and what I'd heard some locals describe about what we were looking at. The lake is a Y-shaped cut in a valley. Fifteen years ago it was described as a "great place to take to take kids fishing." Nothing but bass. Small bass. Lotsa bass. Then a dozen years ago someone dumped in a few pike and bluegills. I suppose the intention was to thin out and increase the size of the bass. For a few years it worked like a charm. Not as many bass but some were pushing four pounds. The pike grew like they were on hormones. That's why we were there. Big bass, big pike. Some fun, eh?
The access was perfect for us. If you couldn't haul it down by hand, you'd best go somewhere else to wet your noodle. I was pumped. Hope floats on new water. This pond was shallow but we expected that. A minute on the water, El. Dean was reeling in his first small pike. Then his second, his third, fourth. All pike, all small. And so it continued. L. and R. Dean were having the same luck. Our two canoes worked the entire lake to the tune of endless small pike. El. broke his boredom by throwing a Gordian knot of a snarl which kept him busy like a kitten with a ball of yarn. I switched to a slip bobber rig hoping to find some of the bluegills. Instead found a few of the tiniest perch I'd ever seen. Each had a look of terror on its face. Like they lived in horror-filled dreams of pike teeth and an early death. We finally put the rods down, cruised and enjoyed the evening. L. and R. continued to throw spinners.
So here's the story I was more or less told, with an aside or two: From the beginning of our fishing trips, L. Dean's biggest complaint was having to spend a lot of his time doing boat control while R. Dean hauled in fish. L.'s own fault really. They could've switched positions. But L. always said, "Nah, that's okay. Being my son, you've been putting a crimp on my style for closing in on four decades. Why should a couple of days in a canoe be any different?" On the other hand, L. Dean seems to catch the lion's share of the big pike. He set the bar in the first year and has upped the ante a few times since. Turned out his two biggest came while El. Dean and I were smelling the roses on the night in question. Back to back in the far corner of the lake. Of course there were no pictures. No measurement. Nothing but their word and, like I wrote earlier, L. Dean's innate honesty to go by. Their original estimate had the pair at five feet each. A minute's dickering, like we were bargaining for a life-sized statue of Emilio Zapata sitting on a rainbow colored unicorn/donkey in Tijuana, dropped them to a reasonable thirty-six inches each. I could accept that. Big fish for a tiny lake.
S'pose the lesson is that if you add some eating machines to a lake's mix it isn't always the smartest thing to do. Pike like to eat. Especially when the food happens to be a bunch of innocent bass that'd never seen a pike. Now the lake can be described as "a great place to take kid's fishing. But first teach 'em how to use a jaw spreader."
Our few days up north usually fall short of enough time for doing all we want. Breakfast in, lunch out, cook supper to the tune of a few beers, fishing inbetween. A good time always. And I'm already scouting out new water for next year. It'll be a humdinger.
The drive was a five blocker to a small city lake. My plan was to be a good grandpa and bend Jake's twig in the right direction. Maybe throw a couple of bluegills in for good luck. Bought him a half-decent spincast rig, about the right length for a half pint and wanted to see if he could handle it. Yeah, he's a tad too young to hold his own in the front of a canoe on a Canadian lake yet and by the time he can I'll be wearing Depends. But that doesn't stop me from dreaming. Seems there's still a maybe swimming around in my head. Something about him being twelve years old and me being seventy-one. After all, Allan was only twelve when we did the Boundary Waters the first time. As for me…. Well, guess we'll have to wait and see how that pans out. Just maybe, the good Lord willing, me and my grandson can still catch us a few smallies up on East Pike Lake, sleep in a tent and sip a little Jim Beam. Probably best drop the last part. I don't much like whiskey.
One thing about grandkids is they'll give you your third go around on learning the concept of time and distance. Learned it myself. Watched it dawn on Annie and Allan. Now Jakob. So when we pulled up to the little lake after two minutes and fourteen seconds on the road, Jake asked, "Are we at the cabin?" A simple, "Nope, the cabin's a lot farther," worked nicely. It's tough on me dealing with such innocence. Sarcasm runs in my blood. Always has. Probably always will. However, the idea that we might be at the cabin and Jakey wasn't phased by the idea, bodes well for next summer or one of the next.
Of course I had to take the first cast. Old guys like to play too. The next five were Jakob's. Went so well he must have been practicing when I wasn't looking. Deceitful little bugger. Good distance and pretty much on the mark. But no fish. We'd have moved around till we found 'em but he laid something on me that couldn't be ignored, "I've got to pee Grandpa." Since the City of Minneapolis frowns on grandparents allowing five year olds to urinate in a park or pretty much anywhere outside, we headed home. Don't remember Lee Wolff, John Gierach or Roland Martin ever using that as an excuse to stop fishing.
The point of this intro and the reason for the title has to do with Jakob's middle name, Dean. When his mom and dad came to naming him there was no choice as to what Jake's middle one would be. His dad's was Dean and his dad's dad was Dean. Coincidentally, Jakob's Uncle Eldon, not in the line of fire at all, carries the middle name of Dean. Where the idea for Dean arose I s'pose only a traveling salesman and many a lonely house frau in Northwest Iowa know. But that's just my guess. No offense meant.
For the last five or six years - by now you might have noticed that I lean toward guesswork when it comes to time. Continually throw around words like about, around, or so and of course, five or six, a lot. And to think I've managed to stay clear of six of one, half dozen of the other for nigh onto a year. Seems I've become more approximate than more accurate as I've grown older. No doubt the scars of having been wrong so many times. Those kind of erroneous numbers weigh on a man. On the other hand, a whole lot of stuff has happened in my lifetime. It all tends to jumble together in the oatmeal that is my brain. Should have taken the time to document it all. What a waste of my life that would have been. So my history tends to break down into the recent, five or six years ago and a long time ago. The long time ago I typically have no problems with. e.g. New Years Eve 1967 had a windchill of sixty-five below. Ain't that swell?
Let's give it another go around: For the last five or six years I've been doing a June, cabin-centered, fishing trip with in-laws. As in son-in-law, his dad and his uncle. Ryan, Larry and Eldon respectively. First off, though Ryan lives in Sioux Falls, all three of them are Iowans to the bone. As most everyone knows in this part of the world, an Iowan is a Minnesotan with a little more dirt under the fingernails. We're a little wetter behind the ears. Stands to reason, we've got the lakes, they're buried under deep rich soil. Minnesotans like to make fun of their southern neighbors. Mostly that's 'cause we're hopin' to high heaven, while knowin' it ain't the truth, that someone out there is more hinterlandy than us thirteen lined ground squirrel lovers. Our disagreements were summed up unintentionally by The National Lampoon with two figures of death fighting over a pickle. Not sure what that means but it seems to fit.
To me, in the context of this essay, what matters is that Iowans fish for bullheads. Period. No doubt that's my ignorance and prejudice, but I doubt it. Also figure they'd fish for lakers, muskies and walleyes if they could. But, like I said, they've got bullheads.
Oh they try to pooh-pooh that notion. Over the years the three Deans've told me time and again about Grandpa Dan, Iowa personified, and his quest for walleyes on Spirit Lake, Lake Okoboji or some other God forsaken, overstuffed farm pond down there. But to the best of my knowledge no walleyes were ever hooked or landed. All I've heard about are sinking boats and the incredible length of Grandpa Dan's cigarette ash. Seems the cigarette was always dangling from his lower lip, the wind was always up, the boat was always sinking and the ash always at least two inches long. Not a walleye was ever mentioned. Watching that ash no doubt took my future fishing partners' minds off skinnin' a bucket of bullheads.
During the few years our knowledge of each other overlapped, I met grandpa Dan a few times. Always seemed a mellow old guy with a permanent smile on his weathered face. Weathered's an understatement. One look told you that man had spent his time out in the weather. Good way to look. Also seen photos of him as a much younger man. Looked like a man on a mission and you were in his way. Attitude in work clothes. First time we met he said, 'Heard you're quite a fisherman." Made me feel good. But I had to be honest with him even though it'd sound like I was being falsely modest, "Nope. But I've spent a lot of my time finding lakes where the fish are dumber than I am." Meeting Grandpa Dan got me to thinking. In the old photos of him he had the look I've seen in black and whites of canoemen back in the '50s. No pretense in their dress. Stringer of lake trout tying them together. Not much giving a damn how big the fish looked. They were big and there were plenty of them. Those guys were a different breed. And Grandpa Dan would've fit in nicely.
Don't remember exactly how the up to the cabin trips came about. So here's my guess: Back in the early days of Ryan entering our family, he and Annie used to come up north once in a while. Ryan seemed to like it in the woods. For fun we played golf. No resort courses for us thank you. Dirty blue collar, back in the woods, courses. If your ball strayed into those woods you left it there. Too hard to play out of the poison ivy. Also, in Ryan's case, golf didn't bring bullheads into the equation. Anger, frustration and mosquitoes maybe, but definitely no bullheads.
Then, magically, one day he found himself in the front of my canoe with a bass on the end of his line. Ooh, bass. Not a whisker on its head and it was okay to throw it back in the lake. No more nailin', slittin' and skinnin'. A fisherman was born that day. Or at least uncovered. Ryan had so much fun the next thing I knew his dad was along for the ride. The great June Fishing Trip, with food and beer, was born. Larry was instantly hooked. That first year there were two trips. The second one in the fall included Ryan's uncle Eldon. Also hooked. So it came to be. R. Dean, L. Dean, El. Dean and me.
That first year it was Ryan and his dad in the canoe together. Logical and a chance for gettin' out the pointless bitching a father and son need once in a while. Being ten feet apart in an Alumacraft can sometimes be a little close for comfort. With the weight bein' on the guy in the back. Gotta learn to drop that rod tip when the man up front is buggy whippin' pointed steel on a side-arm cast. Also a tad nerve wracking when that rod tip's pointing between your eyes. I've been behind Ryan and found it fascinating the way his rod tip figure-eights right at me on the back cast. Comes so close on occasion that I find myself checking out the wraps on his squirrel tail, cross-eyed. Hasn't drawn blood yet but I've given some thought to buying him a five foot rod.
As for Larry, it was both a fatherly and a self-sacrificing act taking the back seat. They've done well together over the years considering their initial lack of canoe experience. Learned a lot even though they still zig-zag even more than two drunks trying to walk a straight line. Never really asked them how they felt being the only canoemen on the Minnesota lakes we've fished. And they've never actually said anything about it on their own. I hope it's made them feel a cut above all the noise, nonsense and pollution. Though, for them, it might actually be an exercise in humility.
As for the fishing, like I said, they were bullheaders not game fishermen. Whether they asked me or whether I forced my will on them, "My cabin, my way of fishing. Like it or lump it." Either way, I figured they'd have a lot more fun catchin' than being skunked. I knew their predicament. When I was a kid, bullheads were a way of life during the summertime. Red and white bobber, hook and and worm. So I set 'em up with a slip bobber rig. The slip bobber was as much a revelation to them as it had been to me when my wife's cousin turned me on to them. Thanks, Gary. No single hook though. Sixteenth ounce jig and a tiny power tube. Set it shallow, fish it in the pads and horse 'em out. It ain't pretty. No grand fight and acrobatic leaps. They eventually came to putting the canoe in so tight as to be shore fishing. Holey-moley did they catch panfish and bass. They still tend to fish that way as a means to learn a lake.
The second trip was in the fall. And Eldon came along to add a little more color to the already colorful woods. El. Dean had this thing about canoes. Didn't like them one bit. Something about ending up in the lake every time he was briefly in one. What a whiner. So he ended up as my partner 'cause I promised him in as casual a manner - like rolling a canoe had never happened to me and never would - as possible - in a voice like Chuck Yeager would've used to explain that the wing had just come off his experimental jet - that he'd be okay. And catch a washtub full of fish. Now, the truth was, I was pretty sure we'd be okay together. But saying never is like dancing with the devil. Set him up with the same rig as the other two Deans.
Being partnered up in a canoe too many times with the same person is a lot like being married. You have to watch what you say. Don't want to be too domineering or you'll piss your partner off. Too passive and you piss yourself off. Like me. El. Dean gets me to swearing quietly to myself once in a while. Partly my fault, partly his. His end rides a little too deep in the lake for me. Simple navigation, a trim boat rides a little high in the bow and gives the paddler in the aft a little more control. Ours moves nose down. Plows the waves, pivots at the front. I figure if I paddled hard enough, we'd rotate like a pinwheel. If we were kids on a see-saw, I'd be the one on the up end, legs dangling, crying, "C'mon, let me down!" Guess gravity likes El. Dean more than me. Why not? He's a likable guy.
The my fault part is partly Allan's fault. We've got a few thousand canoe miles behind us. His idiosyncrasies and bad habits have become my standard for a front man. Al motors, I approximate our direction. I flail both sides of the boat, he paddles on the right. Always. Says the left side pains him. So I never a need to call out directions unless it's an emergency in big waves. Since he's always on the right, he never steers from the front. If we veer a bit off course, he knows we're okay 'cause my mind is wandering and all's right with the world.
El. Dean and I have never worked out our mental balance. Paddling a canoe seems a simple task and it is. But it's a teamwork thing. Two people moving one boat. El needs direction but I don't do that well. Like I said, never had to do that. Don't know where to begin and don't want to piss him off. Too good of friends to squabble over near nothing. Not that big a problem really. We don't fish big water together. Rarely travel more than a mile. So it's not much more than an annoyance. Still, I'll occasionally descend into mumbled cursing. As much at my failure to communicate as toward him.
Maybe I need to throw a fifty pound boulder in the stern. Or introduce El. Dean to Jenny Craig. Look what she did for Marie Osmond (I think she's a Jenny Craig grad). Religion and politics aside, if El. Dean came out looking as good as Ms. Osmond.... Or get him away from his wife, who's way too good a cook. Her pastries are an invitation to an early but happy death. So I guess the odds of us doing a real canoe trip together are directly proportional to his chances for divorce. Doubt very much that "too good in the kitchen" would constitute acceptable grounds for divorce.
Besides difference of bulk, our pasts carry a lot of shared weight. Both of us were in the Army at the same time. Creates a bond that goes beyond throwin' lures in a lake or having shared relatives. El. Dean never made it to Vietnam. But that's the crapshoot of the military. Some go, some don't, but we all wore olive drab. And all had to put up with the same shit. By and large career soldiers weren't a happy lot in those days. Just ask El. Dean. Yup, it does flow downhill in the Army. Both of us married, two children, grandchildren. Seen a lot of the same things. We make for a good fit.
He's an easy going man. Likes his time up north. Looks forward to it all year. I can relate to that. He'd be the first to tell you that what he needs is more time in the woods and on the water. But there's no spare time burnin' a hole in his pocket. No sir. He works for a living. And Lordy how a time clock'll put a crimp in your time. Personal experience tells me the only thing that sucks more than workin' for a dollar is being unemployed. You've got a job these days, you don't walk out on it. Odd how that works.
So we find El. Dean, a family man with bills to pay. And not lookin' forward to retirement anytime soon. It's a dilemma and looks never ending. Enough to make a thinking man a bit bummed once in a while. Don't know about him but I sure didn't see it coming when I punched in at age sixteen. Thought I was the Golden Child. Dame Fortune would take care of all my problems and leave me roses. Most of us have been through that drill. Most of us know it could have been a whole lot worse. Don't think El. Dean would disagree but that doesn't buy him an extra minute of spare time just for being grateful. So we get along fine. Unless he spills the corn. Or anyone else does for that matter. I like home packed sweet corn. You come to the cabin, don't spill the corn and we be just fine.
For my part, I'm among the fortunate. Retired, not starving and finding my time up at the cabin with the Deans one of life's pleasures. Always is. Gives me another fixed point on which my life turns. But, you see, Barb Lake is still up there in Grass River Provincial Park. Unseen, waiting and eight miles paddle and two miles of swamp portage away from the Iskwasum lake access. As Bob with the Black lab told me and Allan, "It's a walleye a cast, eh." Yup, it's sittin' up there, waitin' on me and I'm down here watchin' my window of opportunity slowly close. The cabin's fine but not where I really want to be in the first half of June. I miss the tingle of adventure.
Last note before we go and catch us some fish: Canoe fishin's about partners. Besides Allan, there are few I'd care to drive nine hundred miles with, much less spend a day or two paddling deep enough in just to get a taste of wilderness. Grass River's not what I'd call wilderness but you can smell it from there. I'm not asking for the real deal, just something close enough so I can pretend. As for the Deans, I'd go with any or all of them. L. Dean in the back of their canoe knows his limitations. That and his innate honesty are about all you can ask of a canoeman. R. Dean can motor, listens to instruction and loves to fish. It'd be a thrill watching him tie into a thicket of walleyes or three foot pike. El. Dean, like I said, would need to push away from the table. But his laugh and companionship would be worth a creative canoe trimming.
Last June's trip had it all. From a hundred fifty bass day to a four man near skunkathon. Two days in particular:
Back in the old days, the Road to Every Lake days, touted by characters that would have fit nicely onto Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis, a Minnesota man, a few of those lakes were missed. Small, out of the way, bullhead infested ponds deemed unroadworthy. What the Chambers of Commerce had in mind was a photo of fifteen red and black plaid covered hunters standing in front of fifteen gutted, steer-sized bucks hanging on a rack festooned by garlands of ten pound walleyes. Caption reading, "Come and Kill Your Share in Minnesota." They weren't looking for a bunch of on-the-cheap SOBs like me and the Deans. Those roads were made for Packards and full wallets. That they left a few sloughs untouched was a Godsend to us canoe boys.
In the following decades - now this is purely my fantasy and may not have any connection to reality. You have to remember, I came of age in the sixties. reality was optional. Groovy! - the locals came to feelin' squeezed out on the accessible lakes they grew up near. Also, the fishing wasn't as easy as dad and grandpa said it'd been. A thousand acre lake with a couple of dozen motorboats trolling about didn't seem to have much 'away from it all' to it.
So they took matters into their own hands. On a good day they'd keep some of the bass, pike and panfish they caught, stick 'em in a cooler of water and dump the lot into some out of the way bullhead pond. They knew just the right ones. Got the pickup stuck on the two track logger's roads while rumbling in for some duck hunting last fall. Small but deep enough to not freeze out. Tough enough driving to get you thinking about your oil pan. Kept the riff-raff in their Lincolns and Cadillacs out. Usually had the water to themselves. And if they did have to share, they knew each other and their dogs by name. Might be a hundred or two such ponds scattered across the North Country.
Those are the lakes I seek. It's my talent. Remember what I told Grandpa Dan. Besides, it's much easier pretending you're in the boonies if the lake you're fishing has no cabins. So if you live in Blackduck, MN, decide to head out for an evening's fishing on a nearby hidden pond and find an old fart in a plastic canoe, give him a wave. Might be me. Promise I'll put 'em all back and won't tell anyone where we are and what we're doing.
So it was on one of those lakes me and the Deans found ourselves. Been there before. Knew what to expect, a good lake. But me and El. Dean were playin' with a new deck and, since it was my deck, I was hoping I'd remembered to pack all fifty-two cards. Wasn't so much passing on knowledge as I was experimenting. And using El. as a guinea pig. Didn't let him know that though. Of course our usual plan of attack was throwin' a #3 spinner tight to shore and starting to crank before she hit the water. El. Dean never took to that tactic as he's a right hander all the way and has to switch hands with the rod. Churns the bottom before his slack is on the spool. Catches a lot of weed and branches that way but not many bass.
Our angle of angling this time be tubes and jigs. Don't drag me into the great controversy of polluting with plastics in pristine ponds. Cutting it to brown sparkly tubes is as close as I'll let my delicate northern soul approach the purple worms of the Great South. For now. Tubes are mostly weedless. Since you work them slowly along the bottom, El. Dean's already got the technique down pat though he's highly skeptical. Man of little faith.
We leap frogged R. and L. Dean and headed a ways down the beaver-branch strewn shore. Overcast, pockets of lily pads throughout the twenty acre bay we're in, surrounded by pine and birch tight to the water. Could be in the western Boundary Waters for the way it looks. And we're alone on the water. Perfect. El. Dean's got the general drift of what to do. Picked up a small bass right off and put a look on his face that says, I sure didn't see that coming. Then settled into casting practice for a while. I'm catchin' a few. So El. moved into the comfort of business as usual on a great bass pond. Got lazy and didn't work the tube like a real fisherman ought, instead simply threw the rig and let it sink to the bottom. Then didn't do squat for a half minute, maybe a minute and settled into enjoying the scenery. Finally, more out of boredom than anything else, started to reel slowly, real slowly. And began two hours of bass catching like I'd never seen. Not big bass. This lake holds nothing much over two pounds. On the other hand, few are under a foot. Looked like he was catching the same fish over and over. Around his fifth bass we began to count figuring El. was in the beginning of a day of days. We quit counting when he hit fifty.
Hate to admit it but after a dozen or two I realized he was onto something beyond my ken. Time for me to learn from the student. I sucked it up and asked El. his method. So simple. Tells me it's all in the feel and drag. When he starts reeling sometimes he feels a soft nibble. Like a bluegill messing with your worm. If so, he lets it sit than waits a few seconds and sets the hook. Bam! Like Jimmy Houston without any bass kissin'. Different laugh also. If no immediate nibble he drags the tube slowly. Any nibble along the way is cause for a few seconds wait. Then it's bam time again. El. Dean was a true bass-o-magic that day. Not like like the one in Dan Ackroyd's routine. Ackroyd's a Canadian. And they don't know diddley about largemouth.
Oh yeah, it was fun even if they all were thirteen and a half inches. You have to question our sanity. Like a couple of pre-pubescent twelve year olds. Days like that one can spoil you for a long time. We finally had to pull the plug and seek out R. and L. Dean. Tell 'em how wonderful we were but had no effect. They were doing every bit as good as we were and had the same goofy smiles stuck to their faces.
The next day we finally found it. Not where it was supposed to be according to the DNR. But a two minute hike told the tale. Couple of years earlier we'd tried the same game on what was supposed to be the right two track only to dead end at a wall of woods. Done that a few times in the past. Back in the late '90s, Allan and I gave what we considered our best shot toward finding a lake named Bag. A thirty acre pot hole really. None of our maps showed any type of deer trail or forestry road heading that way. But I knew in my marginal bushwhacking heart of hearts there had to be a way. This was Minnesota. Bag was a lake deep enough to not freeze out. Been there since the Ice Age so there must have been plenty of folks as idiotic as me who'd have forged some kind of way in.
We started off in the right general direction. Found a two track. Almost too easy. Off we went on a trail that had a mind of its own. Five minutes in, our direction was in doubt and the track narrowed to a hair under a Jeep's width. It seems hazel brush has a thing about running sine wave tattoos down the sides of slightly lost vehicles. When the path opened up, it also disappeared. We found ourselves looking down into a pristine valley pretty as all get out. Birch, red and jackpine. Old, mossy floor with columbine, dogwood, ancient singed jackpine stumps that could've been there for many decades. Gnarly, tough buggers, thick with pitch, they'd be there for many more. Their nut like cones wouldn't think of opening without a forest fire. See, fire's our friend so long as it doesn't get too cuddly. The valley was pretty enough in the filtered light to get out and dally a minute before backing slowly out. Figured there must be another way.
That last paragraph was more or less true. Problem was I tried to get all poetic and don't do that well. Just ain't me. Poetic is supposed to come from a fertile mind and eye. My fertile's a lot closer to compost without the aging process. Get to readin' other authors - oops, gotta remember, I'm a writer not an author - and thinking damn, I sure wish I could write like I knew what I was doing. That leads to all kinds of what I consider profound thoughts. Then I write them out and see their naked reality. Time to whack myself across the knuckles a couple of times and stand nose to the wall in the corner for a half hour. Guess I've finally grown enough to no longer need nuns. Mea culpa.
Over the next twenty minutes we dead-ended twice more. "Got a problem city boys? Most anyone 'round here could find Bag with their eyes shut in the dark, on a moonless night, stone drunk. Sheee-it. Maybe it'd help if you got outta the fancy jeep once in a while for a look-see." The wisdom of age takes failure in stride. We packed it in and headed for the Nasons.
Me and the Deans must've passed the access road/mud hole five times that week before L. and R. Dean finally walked in. The track wasn't but a couple hundred yards of pot hole and rock. Ended at a sign saying the road that had been, wasn't there any more. But enough room to park. The lake sat thirty feet below us down a path nobody, but nobody could back down with a trailer, much less pull it back up. The lake was as tiny as advertised, sixty acres, but looked nothing like my mind's eye thought it would. So what else was new?
Let me tell you about what the DNR reported and what I'd heard some locals describe about what we were looking at. The lake is a Y-shaped cut in a valley. Fifteen years ago it was described as a "great place to take to take kids fishing." Nothing but bass. Small bass. Lotsa bass. Then a dozen years ago someone dumped in a few pike and bluegills. I suppose the intention was to thin out and increase the size of the bass. For a few years it worked like a charm. Not as many bass but some were pushing four pounds. The pike grew like they were on hormones. That's why we were there. Big bass, big pike. Some fun, eh?
The access was perfect for us. If you couldn't haul it down by hand, you'd best go somewhere else to wet your noodle. I was pumped. Hope floats on new water. This pond was shallow but we expected that. A minute on the water, El. Dean was reeling in his first small pike. Then his second, his third, fourth. All pike, all small. And so it continued. L. and R. Dean were having the same luck. Our two canoes worked the entire lake to the tune of endless small pike. El. broke his boredom by throwing a Gordian knot of a snarl which kept him busy like a kitten with a ball of yarn. I switched to a slip bobber rig hoping to find some of the bluegills. Instead found a few of the tiniest perch I'd ever seen. Each had a look of terror on its face. Like they lived in horror-filled dreams of pike teeth and an early death. We finally put the rods down, cruised and enjoyed the evening. L. and R. continued to throw spinners.
So here's the story I was more or less told, with an aside or two: From the beginning of our fishing trips, L. Dean's biggest complaint was having to spend a lot of his time doing boat control while R. Dean hauled in fish. L.'s own fault really. They could've switched positions. But L. always said, "Nah, that's okay. Being my son, you've been putting a crimp on my style for closing in on four decades. Why should a couple of days in a canoe be any different?" On the other hand, L. Dean seems to catch the lion's share of the big pike. He set the bar in the first year and has upped the ante a few times since. Turned out his two biggest came while El. Dean and I were smelling the roses on the night in question. Back to back in the far corner of the lake. Of course there were no pictures. No measurement. Nothing but their word and, like I wrote earlier, L. Dean's innate honesty to go by. Their original estimate had the pair at five feet each. A minute's dickering, like we were bargaining for a life-sized statue of Emilio Zapata sitting on a rainbow colored unicorn/donkey in Tijuana, dropped them to a reasonable thirty-six inches each. I could accept that. Big fish for a tiny lake.
S'pose the lesson is that if you add some eating machines to a lake's mix it isn't always the smartest thing to do. Pike like to eat. Especially when the food happens to be a bunch of innocent bass that'd never seen a pike. Now the lake can be described as "a great place to take kid's fishing. But first teach 'em how to use a jaw spreader."
Our few days up north usually fall short of enough time for doing all we want. Breakfast in, lunch out, cook supper to the tune of a few beers, fishing inbetween. A good time always. And I'm already scouting out new water for next year. It'll be a humdinger.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Ramblin' with and without Emil
Ramblin' fits what's gonna come like a good pair of socks, the kind I can't afford. If I ever won the lottery - okay, first I'd have to buy a ticket - high priced socks would be The major change in my life. Flat seamed and sixteen bucks a pop. Lap of luxury. As for this entry, I have no idea where it'll will go. The intention was a some form of bitch session in which I'd figure it all out and set the world straight. Gave it a try in ink and didn't much get anywhere. But I wrote a lot of words and Sister Eleanor Marie ground it into my brain a long time ago that it's a sin to waste words. Don't think she meant it in the same way I learned it. But I wrote 'em and don't intend to waste 'em all. By the way, if you'd like to read something written by a guy who writes like I wish I could, give Michael Perry a try. That's the Michael Perry from the boondocks in Wisconsin.
Emil tells me there's a time for everything. Maybe he stole that idea from the Old Testament but most of my ideas have come from books. So why not Emil? What he was driving at when he first brought it up during my early post-Vietnam years, brought a smile to my face. Believe me, it wasn't a smile of agreement. You see, he was driving on one road and I was hearing on another. Another communication problem back in the age of the Generation Gap. Pondering that conversation, I suspect he was saying something simple and profound. But that's not what I was picking up on. You see, I was a hot shot with long hair, a college degree, a tour in Vietnam and a protest cat to boot. New generation, new way of seeing life. All gonna be better when we take over. Most of all I had this thing about Lifers. Picked it up in the Army where FTA was a big deal to us Draftees. We tended to look upon any soldier who'd re-upped as a Lifer. A short haired, flag wavin' SOB who'd no doubt shed a tear at the end of the movie Patton and then re-upped for the cheap booze at the NCO Club.
After I got out I felt a moral need to protest the War, mostly 'cause I was pissed about having been in the Army in the first place. That's when I got to meet some of the movers and shakers of the anti-war movement in Minnesota. In their own way they were as big a bunch of assholes as the Lifers in the Army. Seemed to have a pecking order as to who was against the War for the longest. They gave me the feeling they were still fighting the revolution with the Red Army in 1917 or manning the barricades of Paris in 1848. In truth they hadn't been anywhere or done anything as far as I could see. They were against the war and abhorred the fact that the American Army was fighting its war with way too many Blacks and poor people. At the same time they fought like hell to keep their deferments. So who did they think was going to get drafted? Wars are always fought by the poor.
So, back to Emil. He was a WWII veteran. I sure knew where they were coming from. Short hair, the straight line, my way or the highway, love it or leave it with a flag decal in the rear window of the station wagon. But if I'd taken the time to give Emil's Nomad a closer look I'd of seen there wasn't a sticker on it anywhere. Maybe Emil hadn't landed on the beaches but he'd been blown out of the water and dog paddled with the dead. He knew life was a gift not to be wasted. And that we lived in a time and place that was blessed. He didn't ever talk about the war, was glad he went and wouldn't go again even if his life depended on it. He had his shit together and I couldn't see it.
What was it he was saying? While my mind wandered, Emil had moved on. I think the angle was still about a time for everything. As I drift back in he's pontificatin', " Seems like everyone has their own idea of what constitutes the best buzz. Changes as you get older I guess. The wine sippers have their bouquet, the beer guzzlers their hoppiness. There's pot heads, coke sniffers, what-have-you. Hard to keep up with all the bad habits these days. Now if you want my two cents, absolutely nothin' beats a good cup of coffee, a long road and someone you like to talk with ridin' shotgun."
When I first heard that spiel I wrote him off as over the hill and then some. That was a long time ago. Times change. Nowadays I've come to see his point. Might have something to do with being about as old as he was back then. I suppose part of me knew it all along. Used to be a toast dunker when I was a kid. Best time of the day in the Delta - didn't take much to be a best time of day in The Nam - was just before sunset. We'd be set up a short hump from our night position. Finishing off our supper break. Roll the pant legs up, shoot the breeze. 'Bout the time the sun was on the tree line tops, I'd fire up the cappuccino. Yeah, we carried an espresso maker with us. The big brass kind that weighed about three hundred pounds. We'd make the newest grunt in town hump the beast just so's a couple of us caffein aficionados could have the pleasure of a fine brew. Sorry about that, sometimes my fingers get carried away. Reality was instant coffee, creamer, sugar, cocoa and water heated up over a small chunk of match-lit C-4 in a c-ration can stove. All provided free of charge by the U.S. taxpayers. I'd sit back, sip the brew, savor a last smoke and watch the sun go down on another day in paradise. Night sucked but that cup of coffee and cigarette made it almost worthwhile.
I guess what I'm trying to say's that Emil wasn't so dumb. Maybe the simple pleasures of life are the best. Like being up at the cabin for another three day stretch of lonesome. Bein' by myself lasts for as long as it takes to make a pot of coffee. When the first drop hits the pot, Emil will usually show up with his old Pure Oil cup in his hand. The one with the dark stains on the inside from either ten thousand cups of coffee or one too many lube jobs. Even though he's not really there I'll pore him a cup. Always too hot to drink. But that don't stop Emil. He'll blow across the cup three or four times. Slurp a little off the top, set the cup down and say, "Thasss good."
Uncle Emil's not the type to pop up when others are around. He likes the 'tween times as he calls 'em. Could be he's selfish with my time. Could be that he doesn't talk loudly and no longer hears as good as he used to. Quiet times are the best for him. The cabin, on the road, in the canoe on little out-of-the-way lakes. Or stomping his way through my dreams. Lordy, Lordy do he mess with my dreams now and then. The hard part is gettin' him to come out the inky end of my pen. Then he gets all shy and hidey. He's the smartest man I ever met. Can see through me and the BS of the world like he's lookin' out a window after Spring cleaning. But he's not all that easy to understand. Can be downright cryptic at times.
So it's a Sunday night. Am up here to fit and hang fourteen home made cabinet doors in the kitchen. The kitchen's not really a kitchen, just an area in the great room. The great room ain't really a great room either. Sixteen by twenty-two with a lofted ceiling. The doors are made from six boxes of prefinished, birch flooring that just happened to be sittin' on the sidewalk during a local small town celebration. I tried to walk on by. Almost did. But they called me back with the Siren Song of "Hello sailor. We're cheap, shiny, tongue and grooved - get it? - and will do anything you want for eighty cents a board-foot." How could I resist? Yup, no one wanted them as much as me. Took a lot of work changing those trollops into something I could bring home and feel comfortable with. Didn't turn out perfect but Emil says they look exactly like something I'd do. Not sure what he meant by that but I'll take it as a compliment. All the prep work is done. Tomorrow the hanging.
Ah yes, there is a plan for tomorrow. Work in the morning, eat lunch and be on the water by 2 p.m. Stay there 'til 5:30. Once I'm out the door and hit the highway there's a choice to be made. Left's an out-of-the-way carry-in lake just bustin' a gut with small bass. Right's toward a small, not quite a thousand acre, muskie lake. I've had this thing stuck in my craw, wherever and whatever the hell a craw is, to someday be a fly rod and solo canoe muskie fisherman. I intimidate myself with the thought. So much so that I ain't done it yet. Actual muskie anglers tell me I'd end up in the water with the fish. Even with the best of luck, what would I do with a thirty-five pound fish when it got tired of towing around a forty pound boat? Probably laugh a lot, then cut the line. Whichever way I go, Emil says he's coming along. Bass or muskie? Emil says so long as I keep the lake under the canoe, it doesn't matter which way we go. As for me, I'm thinkin' boat-towers.
It happens most every time I get up here by myself. Monday morning dawns and the plan is in flux. Breakfast done, forty-five degrees out, fire in the stove and more I want to do than will fit in twelve hours of daylight. I could go at it like a banshee. Done that many times in my younger years. A lot gets done at the expense of enjoyment. I'm retired. Time to get stuff done at a fartin' around pace. A lot still gets done but I get a feeling of greater depth out of it. If I don't fish, no problem. And I'm actually looking forward to hanging the doors. I'm where I want to be, doing what I want to do.
Life's a lot like homemade cabinets. Need I say more? I took my time building the new doors. They're not perfect but had I been shooting for perfect, they'd have gone on the floor like they were intended in the first place. The intention is to pull the old, warped doors off and just pop the new ones in. But I don't trust myself and my measurements. Whenever I usually do things involving wood and tools there's a near infinite amount of running back and forth checking and double checking involved. This time there was no running at all. Measured the door openings at the cabin and built the doors at home. I know the measurements are right but at the same time, know they're wrong.
The doors themselves are like miniature, rectangular floors in a frame that is joined together with a biscuit joiner. The joiner was state of the art when I bought it. But when I bought it Ronnie Reagan was still in his first term and the joiner is now an antique. As I wade into the job it turns out some of the problems of the old set had to do with the cabinets themselves. And what was wrong with them thirty years ago ain't gotten any better over time. So I'm faced with the choice of scrapping the boxes and starting from scratch. Or continuing to live with them as they are. Not much of a choice really. The boxes are structurally sound. Plus now they'll have a whole new bank of pretty doors to distract the eye. I opt for the face lift.
Emil tells me that every so often we have to take a look at our lives much the same as I was lookin' at those cabinets. Dump the useless stuff that'll constantly need fixin' until it finally tears you down. Keep the stuff that works. And repair the things you'll need for the rest of your life. Life's full of choices. Most of them small. Once in a while a big one comes along. The big ones tend to lean toward dumping habits that're way too heavy in the fun factor. Maybe it's a Minnesota thing but it sure seems like too much fun's a direct line to too much trouble. Also seems like my biggest decisions called for me to do something I didn't really want to do. Thirty years ago Emil pointed out my big time shortcomings. But didn't tell me what to do. That was up to me to figure out. He doesn't give personal advice. Says if you want that, go and write Dear Abby. Oh he's got his opinions alright. Also knows everyone has the key to their own truth and he doesn't say any more than "figure it out boy."
By the way, maybe he can tell me where he was when I was out on the water today. Lookin' back on it, the only things going through my head were boat control, where to throw the next cast, the location of the mini-channel into Mann lake and the growing beauty of the Fall around me. No Emil anywhere. Water was cold. Couple of turtle heads on the water. One a honkin' snapper. Ugly. Scary. Doesn't matter that I know what they look like, snapper's still scare me. Like they're sizing me up to dump the boat and then eat me.
I guess it was okay that he left me alone. The wind was up. Wasn't supposed to be but it was. Didn't need an old geezer jabberin' away and not helping with the paddling. Baby's not a big lake in the Canadian sense. Doesn't make a mile and a half paddle into borderline white caps any easier. I'd come to fish for muskies and by gar I was gonna do it the right way. Thus the paddle to the far upwind end of the lake. Tried my best to J-stroke a straight line with little success. Regardless, forty minutes later I found myself in the calm with the lake to myself. Putzed briefly with the fly rod then reached for the heavy iron. A bit of a melodramatic description but what the hell, I was puttin' on my muskie face (believe that calls for heavy metal in the background. Never liked heavy metal. Guess I've got a problem).
Don't like bait casting reels. Learned to cast with one. Also learned to dislike them at the same time. To me they're mostly bird nests with an occasional good cast thrown in once in a while just to tempt me. So I'm using a fair sized spinning reel spooled with thirty pound Suffix braided line. Don't like leaders either. A heavy duty ball bearing snap swivel suits me fine. If I hook a muskie I'll probably lose it. Don't mind that one bit. If someday it becomes a problem, I'll make my own leader. The rod on the other hand, is the real deal. Seven foot graphite heavy, suited for big fish. Am throwing, what else?, a homemade, big-assed spinner with a gaudy, jumbo bucktail. Bright days, bright lures. And, oh Lordy, do it go a long way when I flang it. Throw it so hard the canoe bounces. There's two hundred yards of line on the spool and it's half gone when the spinner hits the water. So much fun watchin' the spinner disappear over the horizon I don't much care if the muskies ignore it.
On the way up the lake I was looking for the connecting channel into Mann. Didn't find it. Passed a couple of rubble rock bars that looked like smallmouth territory. Definitely prop busters. One of the beauties of my solo is being able to float it so long as there's two inches of water beneath. No problem. The bars gave me at least four over the biggest boulders. On the way back I switched to my smaller rod. But no bass for me. On the upside I did find the channel. Just like it was described. Six inches of water and a bridge to pass under with about the same clearance as a large culvert. A ranger bass boat'd plug it up like Homer Simpson crawling through an open window.
I'd headed into Mann for the bass. Had read Mann was smallmouth heaven. Where I thought they'd be was another land of impossibility for the solo. There the wind'd had the length of the lake to build up a head of steam. Five minutes of boat control per cast seemed awful low on the fun scale. So I diddled along a partially protected shore where I kept company with the yellowing birches and a few largemouth and pike. Boring story but kinda fun in the doing. My way of saying, "You had to be there."
Emil finally showed his face on the drive home. Didn't take but a minute and we were off on one of our piss and moan sessions. Those gum beaters can be about most anything. In particular it's our way of lettin' off steam so's our heads don't blow off. Don't want that to happen seein' as how gray matter's particular hard to clean off the upholstery. The smart, upside of us doin' all our complaining when we're alone is keepin' other people out of the conversation. They'd fixate on the holes and miss the sense completely. Says his life's a contradiction from the get-go and naturally his opinions follow in line. Emil says he's never met anyone who's completely right about anything. If they think they are, the odds are they're close to totally wrong. Balance will out. So if what we say ain't completely kosher, don't worry about it. We sure as heck don't.
Lately we've brought up the Draft. In my book Draft is always capitalized. If you'd been Drafted and ended up in Vietnam, you'd capitalize it also. Emil, he volunteered for the Navy back in WWII. I can understand that. Might have done the same thing myself. His war made a lot more sense than mine. Back in the '60s the Draft had grown to be a dirty word. Both in civilian life and in the military. Us Draftees didn't like what'd happened to us and had no problem sharing our attitude with the Army. Nobody liked it anymore so the Draft was dumped. Good riddance said we.
The years passed. Talkin' with a good friend of mine the Draft reared its ugly head once again. My friend had a Conscientious Objector deferment during Vietnam and wasn't drafted. But he'd served two years in the Peace Corps as alternate service. I admired that. Funny what forty years can do to a person's perspective. Both of us agin the Draft in the past. Now both of us for it. But not the Draft of the old days. A new Draft in which everyone has to serve. By everyone we mean everyone. Right out of high school. Only it wouldn't be just a military draft. Each person would have a choice from a variety of public services. A hint of the CCC's back during the Depression. No free ride. Each and every man and woman jack puttin' in two years serving their fellow man for a pittance of pay. Even Uncle Emil thought that was a good idea. Two years doin' some form of grunt work'd give a person a different outlook on life. 'Specially if that two years didn't put a bullet in you.
Talk of a Draft got Emil off on a teamwork tangent. And of course that brought up WWII, the big one:
"Seems like the only time we can rise above all our senseless bickering over nothing - like a couple of caged parakeets peckin' each other in the head for no better reason than someone happens to be passin' by - is when we're gettin' the bejeezus pounded out of us like in The War. That whole situation was scary. Real scary. Made you forget who was a Republican and who was a Democrat. So bad yet it pulled us out of the Depression. But even during the war years there were idiots gettin' ready for the after-war rush.
Jesus, Markie boy I wish I could figure it all out. Been a couple of million years since we climbed down from the tree and we ain't got a clue how to make it work so's everyone gets their fair share. You'd think somewhere along the line a group of people'd get together and come up with a system. But I sure ain't seen it. And if I did, I sure didn't recognize it."
I had to interrupt as we pulled in the driveway. A thought had come to me. A memory of something I'd read a couple of days earlier. The idea that some mystics believe we are doomed to relive our lives, ad infinitum. Reading it sent a shiver up my spine. Having to live it all over again was fine with me. Like I'd written earlier, us baby-boomers have lived golden lives in a golden time. Vietnam sucked but I'd survived. No problem. The good outweighed the bad in my life about a hundred to one. The thrill of falling in love again, all of it. Do it over in a heartbeat.
Emil cut in as the canoe was being unloaded. "How's about we do some real fishin' tomorrow? Shoulda listened to me today. And not paddled off like you knew what the hell you were doing with a muskie rod in the first place. By the way, did you brew a fresh pot this morning?" It was all I could do to give him the evil eye. On the other hand tomorrow sounded like a fine time to me.
Next day, got in a bike ride, finished the cabinets and had an early supper. Daylight was beginning to wind down for the year. The long evenings of Summer were in the past and my time on the water missed them a lot. No six o'clock dinners for me if I wanted two hours of fishin'. The lake I was heading to was in the backside of fly-over country in fly-over country. Been there many a time and only shared the water once. The drive in's always worth the price of admission. Four miles of pavement. Three of gravel. Another of pavement. Finally sand winding down to two track, unimproved, travel at your own risk. The kind of forestry trail that makes you think about your tires. The ups and downs are a jumble of rocks. Peeking over the hood at a walking pace avoiding the sidewall slicers. It's a continual zig-zag on a woods lined track. Don't want to have to throw on the spare back in there. When she levels out, the sand is oil pan deep. Gun it through the last stretch. Takes as long to cover the final mile and a half as it does the first nine. Deer, raccoons, hawks, fox and one crazy yellow lab own this last stretch. And maybe a single silver back gorilla. Not absolutely sure of the last one but my old Jeep had a chip in the plastic grill from a slung bunch of bananas. And I know for sure it wasn't me that slung them bananas. You be the judge.
The road ends at a line of boulders. Not huge but at least five hundred pounds per. My best guess was the gorilla put 'em there. Way too big for even the local, corn fed tree choppers. Those boulders definitely keep the Ranger boat riff-raff out. From the line to the water's about a city block. Or about forty rods for us plastic canoe totin' fellers. One trip down with the gear. A second with the canoe. You'd be amazed at the number of times I've been out for fishin' and found myself staring out at the water knowing something was wrong. Then snap my fingers and go back for the boat. Definite signs of ATV travel and thickets of fall wildflowers. One a cluster of what look like four foot tall purple asters. The wonder of the World Wide Web tells me they were probably New England Asters. New England? Must be lost. Never seen 'em before. Woulda taken a photo but my camera batteries were dead. Be mostly prepared is my motto.
The lake. She's a tiny one. The Minnesota DNR Lake Survey only hit here once. And that was back in the '60s. Said there wasn't but bullheads suckin' snot off the bottom and when you see the lake, that's about how it looks. Like an overstuffed farm pond. Somewhere, somehow that all changed. There's a single cabin on the north end hidden back in the trees so's you can't see it from the water. Had it been my cabin, I'd have thrown in some bass and panfish. Seems as though they were of a like mind. A fine little fishin' hole. Most of the bass are small. Once in a while you'll hook up with a four pounder. The sunnies are of fair size, some around a pound. Throw in a few perch and the occasional pike. For a small lure thrower in a puddle jumpin' canoe it's always worth the drive.
Shaped more or less like a bow tie. The south bay's knee deep shallow, the north drops to eighteen feet. Good cabbage beds scattered throughout. There just doesn't seem to be enough room for all the fish, so there's always a lot of bass and sunnies in places no self-respecting game fish would ever occupy. Six inches deep with zip for cover and structure. But they're there and if you move at Mother Nature's pace so as not to scare 'em, they'll take small spinners, dry flies and, believe it or not, a tiny plastic tipped jig suspended three inches below a bobber. Almost the innocence of virgin water. Even I can catch fish like a master here.
On a typical day you'll see deer come down to the shore to drink, ears perked up like antennae. Bald eagles, osprey, kingfishers darting along the shore. And the beaver who always snaps my head around when he whacks the water to let every living thing in Christendom know the Great White Fisherman is stalking the area. Today there are twenty-two swans in the south bay. I know because I'm a counting fool. Can't help it, I was born that way. I talk quietly to them. Keep my distance. Don't they understand I'm no threat? But they get a runnin' and honkin' start and are soon airborne. Off to some other small slew. Maybe even Deadman.
To this point Emil's kept his tongue. Too much to see I guess. He never knew this county during his outdoor days. But he likes it. Tells me it's all in the smell. "The right spot'll always bring me back. This here little puddle puts me in those places I fished without the stink of a motor. The blue cloud and rainbow water of gas and two-cycle oil drowned out the cedars and pines. When it's quiet enough to hear the ripple of bitty waves at a half mile, I like to be able to smell the water and trees also. Made me feel more alive back then. Almost makes me feel alive now."
Emil had his plan of attack. I had mine. His was tried and true. Mine was a vision given to me by the Spirit of the Highly Improbable. But since it was me who had the paddle in hand, I outvoted the old fart one-zip. Paddled to the far northeast corner of the lake where glass was on the water. And as I snuck up on the shore, the bass treated me like a Duty Officer lookin' for volunteers. Rather than attack gifts falling from the sky, they ran from my descending spinner like it was an anti-piscatorial bomb. Those bass were chickens for sure. Give up? Not me. I worked tight to shore, out from shore and followed the weed line where it dropped off into deeper water. Nada. Could of been an embarrassment but I've screwed up enough in my 64 years to realize my level of imperfection in many fields. 'Specially in front of an uncle who isn't really there. So I sucked it up and went with Emil's idea.
Of course it worked. Tucked the shaded west shore and let the tiniest of zephyrs carry me to bass after bass. All in a few inches of water. So shallow you'd think their backs'd be stickin' above the surface. Oh yeah, one pike, pushin' thirty inches. I know there's a big one in here somewhere. Been bit off by a heavy, slow moving weight when fishin' monofilament. The pike in the lake spook me. Lotta baitfish to chow down on. And northerns are an amorous lot. Numbers go up, other fish go down. Someday it's all pike. Seen it happen before.
Emil's nice enough to not 'told ya so' me. Pullin' into shore all he said was, "That was my idea of fun. Great night. Did enough catchin' to say we got some."
Emil tells me there's a time for everything. Maybe he stole that idea from the Old Testament but most of my ideas have come from books. So why not Emil? What he was driving at when he first brought it up during my early post-Vietnam years, brought a smile to my face. Believe me, it wasn't a smile of agreement. You see, he was driving on one road and I was hearing on another. Another communication problem back in the age of the Generation Gap. Pondering that conversation, I suspect he was saying something simple and profound. But that's not what I was picking up on. You see, I was a hot shot with long hair, a college degree, a tour in Vietnam and a protest cat to boot. New generation, new way of seeing life. All gonna be better when we take over. Most of all I had this thing about Lifers. Picked it up in the Army where FTA was a big deal to us Draftees. We tended to look upon any soldier who'd re-upped as a Lifer. A short haired, flag wavin' SOB who'd no doubt shed a tear at the end of the movie Patton and then re-upped for the cheap booze at the NCO Club.
After I got out I felt a moral need to protest the War, mostly 'cause I was pissed about having been in the Army in the first place. That's when I got to meet some of the movers and shakers of the anti-war movement in Minnesota. In their own way they were as big a bunch of assholes as the Lifers in the Army. Seemed to have a pecking order as to who was against the War for the longest. They gave me the feeling they were still fighting the revolution with the Red Army in 1917 or manning the barricades of Paris in 1848. In truth they hadn't been anywhere or done anything as far as I could see. They were against the war and abhorred the fact that the American Army was fighting its war with way too many Blacks and poor people. At the same time they fought like hell to keep their deferments. So who did they think was going to get drafted? Wars are always fought by the poor.
So, back to Emil. He was a WWII veteran. I sure knew where they were coming from. Short hair, the straight line, my way or the highway, love it or leave it with a flag decal in the rear window of the station wagon. But if I'd taken the time to give Emil's Nomad a closer look I'd of seen there wasn't a sticker on it anywhere. Maybe Emil hadn't landed on the beaches but he'd been blown out of the water and dog paddled with the dead. He knew life was a gift not to be wasted. And that we lived in a time and place that was blessed. He didn't ever talk about the war, was glad he went and wouldn't go again even if his life depended on it. He had his shit together and I couldn't see it.
What was it he was saying? While my mind wandered, Emil had moved on. I think the angle was still about a time for everything. As I drift back in he's pontificatin', " Seems like everyone has their own idea of what constitutes the best buzz. Changes as you get older I guess. The wine sippers have their bouquet, the beer guzzlers their hoppiness. There's pot heads, coke sniffers, what-have-you. Hard to keep up with all the bad habits these days. Now if you want my two cents, absolutely nothin' beats a good cup of coffee, a long road and someone you like to talk with ridin' shotgun."
When I first heard that spiel I wrote him off as over the hill and then some. That was a long time ago. Times change. Nowadays I've come to see his point. Might have something to do with being about as old as he was back then. I suppose part of me knew it all along. Used to be a toast dunker when I was a kid. Best time of the day in the Delta - didn't take much to be a best time of day in The Nam - was just before sunset. We'd be set up a short hump from our night position. Finishing off our supper break. Roll the pant legs up, shoot the breeze. 'Bout the time the sun was on the tree line tops, I'd fire up the cappuccino. Yeah, we carried an espresso maker with us. The big brass kind that weighed about three hundred pounds. We'd make the newest grunt in town hump the beast just so's a couple of us caffein aficionados could have the pleasure of a fine brew. Sorry about that, sometimes my fingers get carried away. Reality was instant coffee, creamer, sugar, cocoa and water heated up over a small chunk of match-lit C-4 in a c-ration can stove. All provided free of charge by the U.S. taxpayers. I'd sit back, sip the brew, savor a last smoke and watch the sun go down on another day in paradise. Night sucked but that cup of coffee and cigarette made it almost worthwhile.
I guess what I'm trying to say's that Emil wasn't so dumb. Maybe the simple pleasures of life are the best. Like being up at the cabin for another three day stretch of lonesome. Bein' by myself lasts for as long as it takes to make a pot of coffee. When the first drop hits the pot, Emil will usually show up with his old Pure Oil cup in his hand. The one with the dark stains on the inside from either ten thousand cups of coffee or one too many lube jobs. Even though he's not really there I'll pore him a cup. Always too hot to drink. But that don't stop Emil. He'll blow across the cup three or four times. Slurp a little off the top, set the cup down and say, "Thasss good."
Uncle Emil's not the type to pop up when others are around. He likes the 'tween times as he calls 'em. Could be he's selfish with my time. Could be that he doesn't talk loudly and no longer hears as good as he used to. Quiet times are the best for him. The cabin, on the road, in the canoe on little out-of-the-way lakes. Or stomping his way through my dreams. Lordy, Lordy do he mess with my dreams now and then. The hard part is gettin' him to come out the inky end of my pen. Then he gets all shy and hidey. He's the smartest man I ever met. Can see through me and the BS of the world like he's lookin' out a window after Spring cleaning. But he's not all that easy to understand. Can be downright cryptic at times.
So it's a Sunday night. Am up here to fit and hang fourteen home made cabinet doors in the kitchen. The kitchen's not really a kitchen, just an area in the great room. The great room ain't really a great room either. Sixteen by twenty-two with a lofted ceiling. The doors are made from six boxes of prefinished, birch flooring that just happened to be sittin' on the sidewalk during a local small town celebration. I tried to walk on by. Almost did. But they called me back with the Siren Song of "Hello sailor. We're cheap, shiny, tongue and grooved - get it? - and will do anything you want for eighty cents a board-foot." How could I resist? Yup, no one wanted them as much as me. Took a lot of work changing those trollops into something I could bring home and feel comfortable with. Didn't turn out perfect but Emil says they look exactly like something I'd do. Not sure what he meant by that but I'll take it as a compliment. All the prep work is done. Tomorrow the hanging.
Ah yes, there is a plan for tomorrow. Work in the morning, eat lunch and be on the water by 2 p.m. Stay there 'til 5:30. Once I'm out the door and hit the highway there's a choice to be made. Left's an out-of-the-way carry-in lake just bustin' a gut with small bass. Right's toward a small, not quite a thousand acre, muskie lake. I've had this thing stuck in my craw, wherever and whatever the hell a craw is, to someday be a fly rod and solo canoe muskie fisherman. I intimidate myself with the thought. So much so that I ain't done it yet. Actual muskie anglers tell me I'd end up in the water with the fish. Even with the best of luck, what would I do with a thirty-five pound fish when it got tired of towing around a forty pound boat? Probably laugh a lot, then cut the line. Whichever way I go, Emil says he's coming along. Bass or muskie? Emil says so long as I keep the lake under the canoe, it doesn't matter which way we go. As for me, I'm thinkin' boat-towers.
It happens most every time I get up here by myself. Monday morning dawns and the plan is in flux. Breakfast done, forty-five degrees out, fire in the stove and more I want to do than will fit in twelve hours of daylight. I could go at it like a banshee. Done that many times in my younger years. A lot gets done at the expense of enjoyment. I'm retired. Time to get stuff done at a fartin' around pace. A lot still gets done but I get a feeling of greater depth out of it. If I don't fish, no problem. And I'm actually looking forward to hanging the doors. I'm where I want to be, doing what I want to do.
Life's a lot like homemade cabinets. Need I say more? I took my time building the new doors. They're not perfect but had I been shooting for perfect, they'd have gone on the floor like they were intended in the first place. The intention is to pull the old, warped doors off and just pop the new ones in. But I don't trust myself and my measurements. Whenever I usually do things involving wood and tools there's a near infinite amount of running back and forth checking and double checking involved. This time there was no running at all. Measured the door openings at the cabin and built the doors at home. I know the measurements are right but at the same time, know they're wrong.
The doors themselves are like miniature, rectangular floors in a frame that is joined together with a biscuit joiner. The joiner was state of the art when I bought it. But when I bought it Ronnie Reagan was still in his first term and the joiner is now an antique. As I wade into the job it turns out some of the problems of the old set had to do with the cabinets themselves. And what was wrong with them thirty years ago ain't gotten any better over time. So I'm faced with the choice of scrapping the boxes and starting from scratch. Or continuing to live with them as they are. Not much of a choice really. The boxes are structurally sound. Plus now they'll have a whole new bank of pretty doors to distract the eye. I opt for the face lift.
Emil tells me that every so often we have to take a look at our lives much the same as I was lookin' at those cabinets. Dump the useless stuff that'll constantly need fixin' until it finally tears you down. Keep the stuff that works. And repair the things you'll need for the rest of your life. Life's full of choices. Most of them small. Once in a while a big one comes along. The big ones tend to lean toward dumping habits that're way too heavy in the fun factor. Maybe it's a Minnesota thing but it sure seems like too much fun's a direct line to too much trouble. Also seems like my biggest decisions called for me to do something I didn't really want to do. Thirty years ago Emil pointed out my big time shortcomings. But didn't tell me what to do. That was up to me to figure out. He doesn't give personal advice. Says if you want that, go and write Dear Abby. Oh he's got his opinions alright. Also knows everyone has the key to their own truth and he doesn't say any more than "figure it out boy."
By the way, maybe he can tell me where he was when I was out on the water today. Lookin' back on it, the only things going through my head were boat control, where to throw the next cast, the location of the mini-channel into Mann lake and the growing beauty of the Fall around me. No Emil anywhere. Water was cold. Couple of turtle heads on the water. One a honkin' snapper. Ugly. Scary. Doesn't matter that I know what they look like, snapper's still scare me. Like they're sizing me up to dump the boat and then eat me.
I guess it was okay that he left me alone. The wind was up. Wasn't supposed to be but it was. Didn't need an old geezer jabberin' away and not helping with the paddling. Baby's not a big lake in the Canadian sense. Doesn't make a mile and a half paddle into borderline white caps any easier. I'd come to fish for muskies and by gar I was gonna do it the right way. Thus the paddle to the far upwind end of the lake. Tried my best to J-stroke a straight line with little success. Regardless, forty minutes later I found myself in the calm with the lake to myself. Putzed briefly with the fly rod then reached for the heavy iron. A bit of a melodramatic description but what the hell, I was puttin' on my muskie face (believe that calls for heavy metal in the background. Never liked heavy metal. Guess I've got a problem).
Don't like bait casting reels. Learned to cast with one. Also learned to dislike them at the same time. To me they're mostly bird nests with an occasional good cast thrown in once in a while just to tempt me. So I'm using a fair sized spinning reel spooled with thirty pound Suffix braided line. Don't like leaders either. A heavy duty ball bearing snap swivel suits me fine. If I hook a muskie I'll probably lose it. Don't mind that one bit. If someday it becomes a problem, I'll make my own leader. The rod on the other hand, is the real deal. Seven foot graphite heavy, suited for big fish. Am throwing, what else?, a homemade, big-assed spinner with a gaudy, jumbo bucktail. Bright days, bright lures. And, oh Lordy, do it go a long way when I flang it. Throw it so hard the canoe bounces. There's two hundred yards of line on the spool and it's half gone when the spinner hits the water. So much fun watchin' the spinner disappear over the horizon I don't much care if the muskies ignore it.
On the way up the lake I was looking for the connecting channel into Mann. Didn't find it. Passed a couple of rubble rock bars that looked like smallmouth territory. Definitely prop busters. One of the beauties of my solo is being able to float it so long as there's two inches of water beneath. No problem. The bars gave me at least four over the biggest boulders. On the way back I switched to my smaller rod. But no bass for me. On the upside I did find the channel. Just like it was described. Six inches of water and a bridge to pass under with about the same clearance as a large culvert. A ranger bass boat'd plug it up like Homer Simpson crawling through an open window.
I'd headed into Mann for the bass. Had read Mann was smallmouth heaven. Where I thought they'd be was another land of impossibility for the solo. There the wind'd had the length of the lake to build up a head of steam. Five minutes of boat control per cast seemed awful low on the fun scale. So I diddled along a partially protected shore where I kept company with the yellowing birches and a few largemouth and pike. Boring story but kinda fun in the doing. My way of saying, "You had to be there."
Emil finally showed his face on the drive home. Didn't take but a minute and we were off on one of our piss and moan sessions. Those gum beaters can be about most anything. In particular it's our way of lettin' off steam so's our heads don't blow off. Don't want that to happen seein' as how gray matter's particular hard to clean off the upholstery. The smart, upside of us doin' all our complaining when we're alone is keepin' other people out of the conversation. They'd fixate on the holes and miss the sense completely. Says his life's a contradiction from the get-go and naturally his opinions follow in line. Emil says he's never met anyone who's completely right about anything. If they think they are, the odds are they're close to totally wrong. Balance will out. So if what we say ain't completely kosher, don't worry about it. We sure as heck don't.
Lately we've brought up the Draft. In my book Draft is always capitalized. If you'd been Drafted and ended up in Vietnam, you'd capitalize it also. Emil, he volunteered for the Navy back in WWII. I can understand that. Might have done the same thing myself. His war made a lot more sense than mine. Back in the '60s the Draft had grown to be a dirty word. Both in civilian life and in the military. Us Draftees didn't like what'd happened to us and had no problem sharing our attitude with the Army. Nobody liked it anymore so the Draft was dumped. Good riddance said we.
The years passed. Talkin' with a good friend of mine the Draft reared its ugly head once again. My friend had a Conscientious Objector deferment during Vietnam and wasn't drafted. But he'd served two years in the Peace Corps as alternate service. I admired that. Funny what forty years can do to a person's perspective. Both of us agin the Draft in the past. Now both of us for it. But not the Draft of the old days. A new Draft in which everyone has to serve. By everyone we mean everyone. Right out of high school. Only it wouldn't be just a military draft. Each person would have a choice from a variety of public services. A hint of the CCC's back during the Depression. No free ride. Each and every man and woman jack puttin' in two years serving their fellow man for a pittance of pay. Even Uncle Emil thought that was a good idea. Two years doin' some form of grunt work'd give a person a different outlook on life. 'Specially if that two years didn't put a bullet in you.
Talk of a Draft got Emil off on a teamwork tangent. And of course that brought up WWII, the big one:
"Seems like the only time we can rise above all our senseless bickering over nothing - like a couple of caged parakeets peckin' each other in the head for no better reason than someone happens to be passin' by - is when we're gettin' the bejeezus pounded out of us like in The War. That whole situation was scary. Real scary. Made you forget who was a Republican and who was a Democrat. So bad yet it pulled us out of the Depression. But even during the war years there were idiots gettin' ready for the after-war rush.
Jesus, Markie boy I wish I could figure it all out. Been a couple of million years since we climbed down from the tree and we ain't got a clue how to make it work so's everyone gets their fair share. You'd think somewhere along the line a group of people'd get together and come up with a system. But I sure ain't seen it. And if I did, I sure didn't recognize it."
I had to interrupt as we pulled in the driveway. A thought had come to me. A memory of something I'd read a couple of days earlier. The idea that some mystics believe we are doomed to relive our lives, ad infinitum. Reading it sent a shiver up my spine. Having to live it all over again was fine with me. Like I'd written earlier, us baby-boomers have lived golden lives in a golden time. Vietnam sucked but I'd survived. No problem. The good outweighed the bad in my life about a hundred to one. The thrill of falling in love again, all of it. Do it over in a heartbeat.
Emil cut in as the canoe was being unloaded. "How's about we do some real fishin' tomorrow? Shoulda listened to me today. And not paddled off like you knew what the hell you were doing with a muskie rod in the first place. By the way, did you brew a fresh pot this morning?" It was all I could do to give him the evil eye. On the other hand tomorrow sounded like a fine time to me.
Next day, got in a bike ride, finished the cabinets and had an early supper. Daylight was beginning to wind down for the year. The long evenings of Summer were in the past and my time on the water missed them a lot. No six o'clock dinners for me if I wanted two hours of fishin'. The lake I was heading to was in the backside of fly-over country in fly-over country. Been there many a time and only shared the water once. The drive in's always worth the price of admission. Four miles of pavement. Three of gravel. Another of pavement. Finally sand winding down to two track, unimproved, travel at your own risk. The kind of forestry trail that makes you think about your tires. The ups and downs are a jumble of rocks. Peeking over the hood at a walking pace avoiding the sidewall slicers. It's a continual zig-zag on a woods lined track. Don't want to have to throw on the spare back in there. When she levels out, the sand is oil pan deep. Gun it through the last stretch. Takes as long to cover the final mile and a half as it does the first nine. Deer, raccoons, hawks, fox and one crazy yellow lab own this last stretch. And maybe a single silver back gorilla. Not absolutely sure of the last one but my old Jeep had a chip in the plastic grill from a slung bunch of bananas. And I know for sure it wasn't me that slung them bananas. You be the judge.
The road ends at a line of boulders. Not huge but at least five hundred pounds per. My best guess was the gorilla put 'em there. Way too big for even the local, corn fed tree choppers. Those boulders definitely keep the Ranger boat riff-raff out. From the line to the water's about a city block. Or about forty rods for us plastic canoe totin' fellers. One trip down with the gear. A second with the canoe. You'd be amazed at the number of times I've been out for fishin' and found myself staring out at the water knowing something was wrong. Then snap my fingers and go back for the boat. Definite signs of ATV travel and thickets of fall wildflowers. One a cluster of what look like four foot tall purple asters. The wonder of the World Wide Web tells me they were probably New England Asters. New England? Must be lost. Never seen 'em before. Woulda taken a photo but my camera batteries were dead. Be mostly prepared is my motto.
The lake. She's a tiny one. The Minnesota DNR Lake Survey only hit here once. And that was back in the '60s. Said there wasn't but bullheads suckin' snot off the bottom and when you see the lake, that's about how it looks. Like an overstuffed farm pond. Somewhere, somehow that all changed. There's a single cabin on the north end hidden back in the trees so's you can't see it from the water. Had it been my cabin, I'd have thrown in some bass and panfish. Seems as though they were of a like mind. A fine little fishin' hole. Most of the bass are small. Once in a while you'll hook up with a four pounder. The sunnies are of fair size, some around a pound. Throw in a few perch and the occasional pike. For a small lure thrower in a puddle jumpin' canoe it's always worth the drive.
Shaped more or less like a bow tie. The south bay's knee deep shallow, the north drops to eighteen feet. Good cabbage beds scattered throughout. There just doesn't seem to be enough room for all the fish, so there's always a lot of bass and sunnies in places no self-respecting game fish would ever occupy. Six inches deep with zip for cover and structure. But they're there and if you move at Mother Nature's pace so as not to scare 'em, they'll take small spinners, dry flies and, believe it or not, a tiny plastic tipped jig suspended three inches below a bobber. Almost the innocence of virgin water. Even I can catch fish like a master here.
On a typical day you'll see deer come down to the shore to drink, ears perked up like antennae. Bald eagles, osprey, kingfishers darting along the shore. And the beaver who always snaps my head around when he whacks the water to let every living thing in Christendom know the Great White Fisherman is stalking the area. Today there are twenty-two swans in the south bay. I know because I'm a counting fool. Can't help it, I was born that way. I talk quietly to them. Keep my distance. Don't they understand I'm no threat? But they get a runnin' and honkin' start and are soon airborne. Off to some other small slew. Maybe even Deadman.
To this point Emil's kept his tongue. Too much to see I guess. He never knew this county during his outdoor days. But he likes it. Tells me it's all in the smell. "The right spot'll always bring me back. This here little puddle puts me in those places I fished without the stink of a motor. The blue cloud and rainbow water of gas and two-cycle oil drowned out the cedars and pines. When it's quiet enough to hear the ripple of bitty waves at a half mile, I like to be able to smell the water and trees also. Made me feel more alive back then. Almost makes me feel alive now."
Emil had his plan of attack. I had mine. His was tried and true. Mine was a vision given to me by the Spirit of the Highly Improbable. But since it was me who had the paddle in hand, I outvoted the old fart one-zip. Paddled to the far northeast corner of the lake where glass was on the water. And as I snuck up on the shore, the bass treated me like a Duty Officer lookin' for volunteers. Rather than attack gifts falling from the sky, they ran from my descending spinner like it was an anti-piscatorial bomb. Those bass were chickens for sure. Give up? Not me. I worked tight to shore, out from shore and followed the weed line where it dropped off into deeper water. Nada. Could of been an embarrassment but I've screwed up enough in my 64 years to realize my level of imperfection in many fields. 'Specially in front of an uncle who isn't really there. So I sucked it up and went with Emil's idea.
Of course it worked. Tucked the shaded west shore and let the tiniest of zephyrs carry me to bass after bass. All in a few inches of water. So shallow you'd think their backs'd be stickin' above the surface. Oh yeah, one pike, pushin' thirty inches. I know there's a big one in here somewhere. Been bit off by a heavy, slow moving weight when fishin' monofilament. The pike in the lake spook me. Lotta baitfish to chow down on. And northerns are an amorous lot. Numbers go up, other fish go down. Someday it's all pike. Seen it happen before.
Emil's nice enough to not 'told ya so' me. Pullin' into shore all he said was, "That was my idea of fun. Great night. Did enough catchin' to say we got some."
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Emil and the Long Rod (in progress for maybe a long time)
My Uncle Emil has a way of paddling though my mind when I'm out on the water. 'Specially on a day like today out on the Nason Lakes. No way that's their real name. Can't be lettin' on to that. And the real one doesn't mean diddly to me. Nason does. Turned me on to them. Doubt he knew what he was brewing when he brought them up. An unexpected gift from my point of view. They turned out to be a treasure. The small kind that makes a life worth living. Like finding a stand of wild asparagus in a ditch, just right for the pickin'. Or the Perseid Meteor Shower. First time we saw that was in Northern Wisconsin the night before the Paavo Nuurmi Marathon, "Did you see that? Wow! There's another." And so on 'til the mosquitoes drove us into the tent. But the Nasons keep on giving. They're there waiting whenever I want to head on up and pay 'em a visit. Have to share them with strangers, usually locals, once in a while but mostly they're mine all by my lonesome. I'd take you there but we'd have to share blood. Or at least be respected in-laws. Even then I blind fold them when we leave the cabin.
Most anyone would drive right by those pot holes in a swamp. Unexpectedly deep ones. Don't know whether they're sinkholes or the result of glacial chips - actually big-assed chunks - that fell off during the retreat, smacked a dent in the planet, then quietly melted (got that image from a fellow pall bearer at Greg's funeral). Then sat there patiently for a few thousand years and waited for some good ol' Bohunk Minnesotans to throw in a handful of pike, bass and panfish. And to my eternal gratitude, that came to pass.
Couldn't think of a better place to spend the tenth anniversary of 9-11. Had my share of needless, violent death in Vietnam. When it comes to crap like that and the World Trade Center I don't have to be told to remember. Problem is I can't forget. Better to be out on the Nasons up in the Northland. Mid 80's and near glass on the water. A maple here and there starting to put on fall colors, the sumac already blaze red.
I'm in the puddle-jumper, a fourteen and a half foot solo. Fun, fun boat. A challenge to move in a straight line but you can spin 'er like a top. Only canoe I've sat in that actually does float like a leaf on water. Doesn't so much move on the surface as she slips. Takes no more than a puff of breeze and you're headin' down lake. Not so much a problem as it's an asset that I intend to make use of today. Appears I've got a plan in my pocket sayin' how me and the Nasons are gonna play today. Nobody along to come up with anything different. Not that I'm knocking fishin' with others but once in a while it's nice to screw up on my own.
Once in a while I do the smart thing. I'm itchin' to fish but I know the best tactic in a canoe is to paddle to the far end and fish my way back. In a general sense. No doubt there'll be variations on that theme. It's about fifteen minutes to the end of the deepest pool. Plenty of time to watch the world go by and let my mind travel about. Most of my life my mind and body have been in different places. Most of the movies I've seen were for my eyes only. I see the never was and talk to the dead all the time. Guess that makes me normal. So whether I let it or not, my mind is gonna drift.
Emil used to preach balance in his later years when I came to know him best. On a day like this one he'd often grow a subtle corner mouth smile. That was the signal telling the world his mind was churning something over. Wasn't any hurrying him through the process. Emil wouldn't speak his piece 'til the last word was put in order. Might not be poetry in the offing but whatever came out, it'd have to pass his test of worthiness. If she didn't work out right he'd toss it on the compost heap where it'd most likely provide fertile soil for new stuff to grow.
Took me a while and a lot of stupid 'something on your mind old man?' interruptions when his lips were curled, for me to finally learn to shut the hell up. Once in a rare while the curl would arrive hand-in-hand with a short, violent snot blast. Knew I was shortly in for a treat coupled with a quiet prayer, 'Lord, give me the power to see what he's seeing behind his eyes.' I knew for a fact it was downright disgusting, sexist and completely incorrect in any sense. The kind of thing that'd get him fired in modern society. But for sure it would be funny as all get-out. At least to him. With a little luck and no coaxing he'd let me in on what he saw. Most always, lacking his mental vision, it was hit or miss as to how funny it'd strike me.
Anyhow, midway down the second pool, Emil comes out of nowhere, enters my thoughts and recalls a fishing conversation we had years ago, " Seems I spent most of my youngest years wishin' I was older. And a fair amount of my older years wishin' I was younger. In the middle, wantin' to be somewhere else most of the time. Somewhere along the line there must have been a balance point. Coulda been a Wednesday in '40, about 2:37 in the morning. Snapped awake with a big old grin on my face. For about a half minute everything seemed just right. Woke up the next morning thinking my best years were behind me and I'd pissed 'em away. The 'someday I'm gonna' turned into 'if I had to do it over again' in about ten minutes and I'd nearly slept through the best part. 'Course I'm makin' most of that up. Well, not all of it. Then I met your mother, the war came along and I had to go like the blazes just to keep up. There's a point in there somewhere. Beats me just what it is. Guess it takes more than one lifetime to figure things out."
Back on the Nasons I picked up the fly rod. It's a putzy way to fish. On flat water a spinning rod covers a whole lot more water and catches more fish. But fooling them with a homemade popper's a lot more fun. Wasn't much foolin' them today. Obviously the fault of the fish. Lately I've been in to dickin' around with a six and a half foot glass rod by Wright and McGill. Twenty three bucks of noodleness. The cheap end of the cheap end. What I'd originally been looking for was an affordable and serviceable bamboo rod. Guffaw! Affordable and bamboo are oxymoronic. Had the money for a Heddon Black Beauty, a work horse of the '40s and '50s, but my form of putz didn't justify a piece of storied history. The W and G has been built since the '50s. Likewise the Pflueger Medalist reel holding the line. The initial idea was to have a fly rod for use in the back of the canoe that was short enough to both cast and, at the same time, avoid ripping an ear off the unsuspecting innocent up front. The six and a half footer fit the bill nicely.
For some unknown reason, holding the rod with my index finger pointing up the pole, ala Lee Wulff, works like a charm. At least as far as the casting goes. The fish don't seem to agree. The popper's a small bass size. Easy to throw with a nine foot rod. Not so with the short one in my hand. When I do get it out there all I'm hearin' is the constant 'chuk' of a bunch of too-little sunnies trying to suck down a bug bigger than their mouths. It's a neat sound but not what I'm hopin' for. What exactly am I hopin' for? Beyond what I've already got that is. There's food on the table, roof overhead, a family to love, sun above and I'm on my favorite lake. What I seem to be missing is a seven pound bass at the end of the little yellow noodle in my hand.
In shame and embarrassment I reach behind and switch rods. Maybe that bass is looking for a medium sized, homemade spinner. I've chickened out on the fly rod but am at least sticking with my plan of attack. Paddle tight to the calm side. Work it 'til the breeze finally takes me across the small bay and then work that. One of the pleasures of a thousand hours in a canoe is knowing there's nothing to worry about so long as the boat is right side up. So I keep fishing 'til there's no more lake. When I bump the shore it's time to paddle back across.
There I finally find a tight pocket of fish. The first fights like a small pike and I catch myself calling for it to surface like a bass. Yup, pike. Sucked it down. Spreaders out and it's quickly released. Then it's bam, bam, bam. A fistful of bass under two pounds. Nice to feel life tormenting on the end of the line.
Spent most of my time in the far pool. The fishing's not up to par but the sound of the sunnies chuking away makes it a good time. I like being able to hear the sound of fish sipping. Tells me up front that this is an out of the way corner of the world. One of Minnesota's graces is that such places still exist. Being able to hear a four inch fish try to eat a one inch popper is a gift plain and simple. Think about it. Nearly all of us live in a noisy, crowded world. Another story out here on the Nasons. Just me, the soft breeze, grasses and cattails.
The long rod came to me by way of Uncle Emil. Out in the boat he went with the standard rod and reel. But when his feet were on the shore or wading in the lake he always worked a fly rod. Saw him fool a dinner plate bluegill with a group of admiring fishermen standing close by. Not a one of them could do what he was doing and they knew it. In my mind the fly rod separated him from the crowd.
He nudged me in that direction when I was about twelve. Set me up with a casting bobber, beetle-bug and trout sized pork rind. We'd work the shoreline together. Most of the time he'd let me have the sweet spots. Seemed to get a big kick out of watching me fish. Maybe that was because he didn't have a son to do guy stuff with. Like peeing standing up. And doing something useless like fishing. It's a putzy, kid kind of activity that doesn't sit well with the way the world works. Not justifiable. Unless your sharing your time with a kid. Especially one with no father. Great excuse to be on the water.
Don't know how long he'd been fly fishing. Don't know why he started. Didn't know why he kept at it. To my way of not thinking, he just did it. And I thought it was an unquestionably beautiful act. In the early beetle-bug days I never thought to ask Emil if I could give it a try. Didn't think I'd take it up some day. Didn't think I wouldn't. But the seed was planted.
Bought my first fly rod at an Army-Navy surplus store. Eight feet of olive drab fiberglass complete with reel and genuine, weight forward floating line. Didn't take any lessons. Who took lessons for anything besides music back in '64? Besides, I was seventeen and already knew most of everything. Thankfully, my hours with Uncle Emil had put a wrinkle in my brain. So I knew enough to hold the rod by the fat end. And then just started buggy-whippin' it. Always had a good throwing arm and a natural instinct for using my body in the process. A few hundred casts moved me from dropping the fly on my head to feeling the rod load. When that revelation came about I started humming that puppy like there was no tomorrow. No ten to one old school casting for me! Load the rod and smoke it. Catching fish wasn't the point. Learning to lay the entire line out on the water was. No finesse at all. Big time line speed. It sure was fun.
The rod was stuffed away in my mom's garage when I went in the Army. Didn't pick one up again 'til the cabin was being built. We were near water and it seemed a necessity to resurrect the long rod. My daughter Annie and I spent three days together at the cabin when she was six. Outside of a woodtick that burrowed itself in her ear, we had a pretty good time. I'd say great time but Annie may remember differently. After a day of driving nails, for a six year old she was a demon with a framing hammer, the two of us would head to a nearby lake where we'd trespass on lakefront property for sale and there shore fish. That we were surrounded by blooming pink Ladyslippers was a nice touch. Off a small point we found a thicket of spawning bluegills. I'd flip an Adams to them with my fly rod. When one would impale itself, Annie would take over and reel in our dinner. Yup, Old Catch and Release turned into Catch and Kill right in front of his innocent little girl. Didn't know how she'd take it. In an effort to temper the process I said it was okay to kill the fish only if we ate them. A matter of respect. Probably I was making a bigger deal out of dinner than was necessary. We ate 'em all.
Most every winter I make a vow to get better at casting a fly. Brings to mind something Jimmy Carter said about wanting to become a better fly fisherman after leaving the presidency. Well, for me it ain't happened yet. I've lost the habit of wanting to be a good caster and get too hung up on catching fish. Ah, but the fishing season ain't over yet. There's still hope. Slim though that may be.
Most anyone would drive right by those pot holes in a swamp. Unexpectedly deep ones. Don't know whether they're sinkholes or the result of glacial chips - actually big-assed chunks - that fell off during the retreat, smacked a dent in the planet, then quietly melted (got that image from a fellow pall bearer at Greg's funeral). Then sat there patiently for a few thousand years and waited for some good ol' Bohunk Minnesotans to throw in a handful of pike, bass and panfish. And to my eternal gratitude, that came to pass.
Couldn't think of a better place to spend the tenth anniversary of 9-11. Had my share of needless, violent death in Vietnam. When it comes to crap like that and the World Trade Center I don't have to be told to remember. Problem is I can't forget. Better to be out on the Nasons up in the Northland. Mid 80's and near glass on the water. A maple here and there starting to put on fall colors, the sumac already blaze red.
I'm in the puddle-jumper, a fourteen and a half foot solo. Fun, fun boat. A challenge to move in a straight line but you can spin 'er like a top. Only canoe I've sat in that actually does float like a leaf on water. Doesn't so much move on the surface as she slips. Takes no more than a puff of breeze and you're headin' down lake. Not so much a problem as it's an asset that I intend to make use of today. Appears I've got a plan in my pocket sayin' how me and the Nasons are gonna play today. Nobody along to come up with anything different. Not that I'm knocking fishin' with others but once in a while it's nice to screw up on my own.
Once in a while I do the smart thing. I'm itchin' to fish but I know the best tactic in a canoe is to paddle to the far end and fish my way back. In a general sense. No doubt there'll be variations on that theme. It's about fifteen minutes to the end of the deepest pool. Plenty of time to watch the world go by and let my mind travel about. Most of my life my mind and body have been in different places. Most of the movies I've seen were for my eyes only. I see the never was and talk to the dead all the time. Guess that makes me normal. So whether I let it or not, my mind is gonna drift.
Emil used to preach balance in his later years when I came to know him best. On a day like this one he'd often grow a subtle corner mouth smile. That was the signal telling the world his mind was churning something over. Wasn't any hurrying him through the process. Emil wouldn't speak his piece 'til the last word was put in order. Might not be poetry in the offing but whatever came out, it'd have to pass his test of worthiness. If she didn't work out right he'd toss it on the compost heap where it'd most likely provide fertile soil for new stuff to grow.
Took me a while and a lot of stupid 'something on your mind old man?' interruptions when his lips were curled, for me to finally learn to shut the hell up. Once in a rare while the curl would arrive hand-in-hand with a short, violent snot blast. Knew I was shortly in for a treat coupled with a quiet prayer, 'Lord, give me the power to see what he's seeing behind his eyes.' I knew for a fact it was downright disgusting, sexist and completely incorrect in any sense. The kind of thing that'd get him fired in modern society. But for sure it would be funny as all get-out. At least to him. With a little luck and no coaxing he'd let me in on what he saw. Most always, lacking his mental vision, it was hit or miss as to how funny it'd strike me.
Anyhow, midway down the second pool, Emil comes out of nowhere, enters my thoughts and recalls a fishing conversation we had years ago, " Seems I spent most of my youngest years wishin' I was older. And a fair amount of my older years wishin' I was younger. In the middle, wantin' to be somewhere else most of the time. Somewhere along the line there must have been a balance point. Coulda been a Wednesday in '40, about 2:37 in the morning. Snapped awake with a big old grin on my face. For about a half minute everything seemed just right. Woke up the next morning thinking my best years were behind me and I'd pissed 'em away. The 'someday I'm gonna' turned into 'if I had to do it over again' in about ten minutes and I'd nearly slept through the best part. 'Course I'm makin' most of that up. Well, not all of it. Then I met your mother, the war came along and I had to go like the blazes just to keep up. There's a point in there somewhere. Beats me just what it is. Guess it takes more than one lifetime to figure things out."
Back on the Nasons I picked up the fly rod. It's a putzy way to fish. On flat water a spinning rod covers a whole lot more water and catches more fish. But fooling them with a homemade popper's a lot more fun. Wasn't much foolin' them today. Obviously the fault of the fish. Lately I've been in to dickin' around with a six and a half foot glass rod by Wright and McGill. Twenty three bucks of noodleness. The cheap end of the cheap end. What I'd originally been looking for was an affordable and serviceable bamboo rod. Guffaw! Affordable and bamboo are oxymoronic. Had the money for a Heddon Black Beauty, a work horse of the '40s and '50s, but my form of putz didn't justify a piece of storied history. The W and G has been built since the '50s. Likewise the Pflueger Medalist reel holding the line. The initial idea was to have a fly rod for use in the back of the canoe that was short enough to both cast and, at the same time, avoid ripping an ear off the unsuspecting innocent up front. The six and a half footer fit the bill nicely.
For some unknown reason, holding the rod with my index finger pointing up the pole, ala Lee Wulff, works like a charm. At least as far as the casting goes. The fish don't seem to agree. The popper's a small bass size. Easy to throw with a nine foot rod. Not so with the short one in my hand. When I do get it out there all I'm hearin' is the constant 'chuk' of a bunch of too-little sunnies trying to suck down a bug bigger than their mouths. It's a neat sound but not what I'm hopin' for. What exactly am I hopin' for? Beyond what I've already got that is. There's food on the table, roof overhead, a family to love, sun above and I'm on my favorite lake. What I seem to be missing is a seven pound bass at the end of the little yellow noodle in my hand.
In shame and embarrassment I reach behind and switch rods. Maybe that bass is looking for a medium sized, homemade spinner. I've chickened out on the fly rod but am at least sticking with my plan of attack. Paddle tight to the calm side. Work it 'til the breeze finally takes me across the small bay and then work that. One of the pleasures of a thousand hours in a canoe is knowing there's nothing to worry about so long as the boat is right side up. So I keep fishing 'til there's no more lake. When I bump the shore it's time to paddle back across.
There I finally find a tight pocket of fish. The first fights like a small pike and I catch myself calling for it to surface like a bass. Yup, pike. Sucked it down. Spreaders out and it's quickly released. Then it's bam, bam, bam. A fistful of bass under two pounds. Nice to feel life tormenting on the end of the line.
Spent most of my time in the far pool. The fishing's not up to par but the sound of the sunnies chuking away makes it a good time. I like being able to hear the sound of fish sipping. Tells me up front that this is an out of the way corner of the world. One of Minnesota's graces is that such places still exist. Being able to hear a four inch fish try to eat a one inch popper is a gift plain and simple. Think about it. Nearly all of us live in a noisy, crowded world. Another story out here on the Nasons. Just me, the soft breeze, grasses and cattails.
The long rod came to me by way of Uncle Emil. Out in the boat he went with the standard rod and reel. But when his feet were on the shore or wading in the lake he always worked a fly rod. Saw him fool a dinner plate bluegill with a group of admiring fishermen standing close by. Not a one of them could do what he was doing and they knew it. In my mind the fly rod separated him from the crowd.
He nudged me in that direction when I was about twelve. Set me up with a casting bobber, beetle-bug and trout sized pork rind. We'd work the shoreline together. Most of the time he'd let me have the sweet spots. Seemed to get a big kick out of watching me fish. Maybe that was because he didn't have a son to do guy stuff with. Like peeing standing up. And doing something useless like fishing. It's a putzy, kid kind of activity that doesn't sit well with the way the world works. Not justifiable. Unless your sharing your time with a kid. Especially one with no father. Great excuse to be on the water.
Don't know how long he'd been fly fishing. Don't know why he started. Didn't know why he kept at it. To my way of not thinking, he just did it. And I thought it was an unquestionably beautiful act. In the early beetle-bug days I never thought to ask Emil if I could give it a try. Didn't think I'd take it up some day. Didn't think I wouldn't. But the seed was planted.
Bought my first fly rod at an Army-Navy surplus store. Eight feet of olive drab fiberglass complete with reel and genuine, weight forward floating line. Didn't take any lessons. Who took lessons for anything besides music back in '64? Besides, I was seventeen and already knew most of everything. Thankfully, my hours with Uncle Emil had put a wrinkle in my brain. So I knew enough to hold the rod by the fat end. And then just started buggy-whippin' it. Always had a good throwing arm and a natural instinct for using my body in the process. A few hundred casts moved me from dropping the fly on my head to feeling the rod load. When that revelation came about I started humming that puppy like there was no tomorrow. No ten to one old school casting for me! Load the rod and smoke it. Catching fish wasn't the point. Learning to lay the entire line out on the water was. No finesse at all. Big time line speed. It sure was fun.
The rod was stuffed away in my mom's garage when I went in the Army. Didn't pick one up again 'til the cabin was being built. We were near water and it seemed a necessity to resurrect the long rod. My daughter Annie and I spent three days together at the cabin when she was six. Outside of a woodtick that burrowed itself in her ear, we had a pretty good time. I'd say great time but Annie may remember differently. After a day of driving nails, for a six year old she was a demon with a framing hammer, the two of us would head to a nearby lake where we'd trespass on lakefront property for sale and there shore fish. That we were surrounded by blooming pink Ladyslippers was a nice touch. Off a small point we found a thicket of spawning bluegills. I'd flip an Adams to them with my fly rod. When one would impale itself, Annie would take over and reel in our dinner. Yup, Old Catch and Release turned into Catch and Kill right in front of his innocent little girl. Didn't know how she'd take it. In an effort to temper the process I said it was okay to kill the fish only if we ate them. A matter of respect. Probably I was making a bigger deal out of dinner than was necessary. We ate 'em all.
Most every winter I make a vow to get better at casting a fly. Brings to mind something Jimmy Carter said about wanting to become a better fly fisherman after leaving the presidency. Well, for me it ain't happened yet. I've lost the habit of wanting to be a good caster and get too hung up on catching fish. Ah, but the fishing season ain't over yet. There's still hope. Slim though that may be.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
White Pine
Another blog entry that doesn't seem to fit with canoe fishing. And eastern white pines don't seem to do much more than provide two by fours and background on the horizon when you're out on a Minnesota lake. They sure are easy to spot. Tall with a spreading crown. This is another entry I started a while ago then got caught up in the Learning Curve madness. Consider it another form of Spring cleaning.
How a white pine would fit in a fishing blog hadn't entered my head when I picked up the pen. Yup, I still pick up the pen. Sketch out the entry before hunting, pecking and filling it out with the keyboard. But somehow I figured it would. My brain doesn't work on its own but seems a conduit for words and ideas from somewhere else. Exactly where else, I don't know. Back when still working I'd walk into dozens of businesses each day. Most anything could be running through my head as I entered. Having no mature filtering mechanism at the time, the words would come tumbling out unmolested. Like I was a spectator. So there I'd be, saying something stupid and praying inside other words would follow to bail me out. Inevitably something appropriate would pop out and change the stupid to something merely idiotic. Almost like that was the intention from the start. No lawsuit for me.
So, white pine. That's what's on my mind today. On the west edge of our land soar, in a midwestern sense soar, two mature whites. Fifty inches in diameter at chest height. No idea how tall. The biggest one in Minnesota, over in Itasca State Park, is a hundred fifteen feet tall. Some are known to grow higher. Call ours at least a foot more than real tall. The larger is ramrod straight. Root structure starting above ground and digging into the sandy soil like a hand. They look like the real deal as far as big trees go in Minnesota.
The other is a micro smaller, with a huge side branch two stories up. Four years ago the branch cracked at the trunk and its tip sagged to the ground. The remaining joint was a splintered mess. A half dozen times I visited and pondered what to do. In my mind's eye I could clearly see myself atop an extension ladder chainsawing the limb off slick as a whistle. The pine'd pat me on the back and tell me what a swell feller I was.
Inevitably reality would pay a visit as I stood there pondering and the immense size of the limb would hit home. Three, three and half feet in diameter. No matter how much I shortened it from the tip inward she'd still be a half ton when the time came to cut 'er loose. Your guess is as good as mine as to which way it'd fall. Mine usually had me planted on the under side. Ignorance may be bliss for most people but I'd always walk away knowing the tree was on its own.
Sometime last winter the limb fell. The resulting damage was no worse than had I hacked away. Procrastination is the mother of the inevitable. Still there remains this immense, ragged tear in the side of a centuries old tree. What happens next is probably not for the best. Having seen other living things go through such a change tells me it's downhill all the way. Everything that happened was normal, natural and as organic as all get out. But it still sucks.
Those two pines are the highlight of our land. They were the reason for the first path Lois cleared through the hazel brush. You come pay me a visit and I'll no doubt take you over to look at them. To me they're always a thrill. In the early days my nephew Brian and I visited them several times to stand and stare at the three branched fork five feet above the first split. Spent a lot of time talking about a future tree house or platform. And think of climbing to the top to sway in the wind.
In a January, 1984 dream one of them was blown over and crushed the cabin. Big, nasty winds seem wreak havoc in dreams. Usually means there's a big change coming. And there was. But the dream also gave me the feeling that it'd all be okay if I dumped the useless crap in my life. In my case, part of growing up seemed to be an accumulation of self destructive things. Stuff that'd do me in eventually. Or maybe next Tuesday. What comes first, life or dreams? Or for that matter, the chicken or the egg? Got an answer for the second 'cause I've laid a lot of eggs in my time. Which brings it around to my dreams once again.
The trees, the water, the out-of-the-wayness, the nothing-specialness of the land we're on. That's its appeal for me. A little bit of a temporary home we share with the bats living under the steel roof. The four or five generations of Eastern Phoebes that have nested on the side of the cabin. The grey fox, deer, skunks, frogs, beavers. The swans passing through in spring and fall, takin' a break on Deadman. Love 'em all. But not like the white pines.
Two years ago my sister gave me a woodcut print of a white pine. No deer or mallards added to keep the eternal-entertainment-needers from becoming bored. The print, short and sweet. A single tree. Soon as I saw it there was no doubt as to how it had to be framed. Give me a moment and I'll work my way around to it.
The cabin was built in two phases. The first entirely of store bought lumber. A stick house. When I got going on the addition my friend Greg kept putting bees in my bonnet to do all the finish work with homemade hardwood. Originally he'd pushed for a portable sawmill. Build the place from the ground up with my own trees. Drop 'em, mill 'em, dry 'em and dimension 'em. Oof dah! Had the skill and the money. But time? Never had enough of that. Greg, he was that kind of man and had the scars to prove it. One of his many sidelines was as a tree cutter. Always had logs and lumber around by the thousands of board feet. Pine, oak, walnut, maple and the occasional exotic.
So we met halfway. He cut someone else's trees down. I bought a bunch of ash and oak logs from him. He hauled them to Lester-up-at-the-sawmill and we hauled them away. In time I planed, tongued and grooved them and used the boards to cover the walls and floors. Showing rare foresight, I kept a few of the natural edge boards. And after twenty-five years a couple remained. They became the picture frame. Damn nice frame and print. Hangs on the cabin wall facing the white pines as it should. In the very spot the dream pine would have crashed its way through.
In the fifty years we knew each other, Greg'd talk about his grandpa every so often. The one story that stuck with me was how they'd head over to these small, swampy looking lakes a few miles south of Leech Lake. There they'd catch sunnies by the bucket full. Always sounded great to me. His Grandpa was now long gone and had no clue who I was in the first place. That being so I figured he wouldn't mind if me and Al gave them a shot. They were more or less canoe lakes but if you were skillful with a trailer you could dump a small boat in off the gravel road and down the embankment. Even then there was no guarantee that you could get out of the opening bay. You see, a lot of the shoreline is floating bog. Sometimes the first connecting channel is there, sometimes it ain't.
Our first glance told us it was nothing but bullheads and sunnies. Just like the ones the border guard would have sent us back to had we stunk up Canadian lakes a second year running. Long story short, those holes in the swamp turned out to be our favorite lakes. Al says he'd fish 'em anytime.
Only went there once with Greg. Glad we made it. High sun, blue cloudless sky, cold front. Didn't catch much but that didn't matter. Being with him, floating on a piece of his past was a pleasure pure and simple. Over the years he'd shared a bunch of treasures with me. The wood, the lakes, his take on life, a hand now and then. But mostly his unquestioned friendship. Greg passed on this Spring.
Wasn't my intention to end up on that note. But that's how she went. Even had a mention of fishing on the way.
How a white pine would fit in a fishing blog hadn't entered my head when I picked up the pen. Yup, I still pick up the pen. Sketch out the entry before hunting, pecking and filling it out with the keyboard. But somehow I figured it would. My brain doesn't work on its own but seems a conduit for words and ideas from somewhere else. Exactly where else, I don't know. Back when still working I'd walk into dozens of businesses each day. Most anything could be running through my head as I entered. Having no mature filtering mechanism at the time, the words would come tumbling out unmolested. Like I was a spectator. So there I'd be, saying something stupid and praying inside other words would follow to bail me out. Inevitably something appropriate would pop out and change the stupid to something merely idiotic. Almost like that was the intention from the start. No lawsuit for me.
So, white pine. That's what's on my mind today. On the west edge of our land soar, in a midwestern sense soar, two mature whites. Fifty inches in diameter at chest height. No idea how tall. The biggest one in Minnesota, over in Itasca State Park, is a hundred fifteen feet tall. Some are known to grow higher. Call ours at least a foot more than real tall. The larger is ramrod straight. Root structure starting above ground and digging into the sandy soil like a hand. They look like the real deal as far as big trees go in Minnesota.
The other is a micro smaller, with a huge side branch two stories up. Four years ago the branch cracked at the trunk and its tip sagged to the ground. The remaining joint was a splintered mess. A half dozen times I visited and pondered what to do. In my mind's eye I could clearly see myself atop an extension ladder chainsawing the limb off slick as a whistle. The pine'd pat me on the back and tell me what a swell feller I was.
Inevitably reality would pay a visit as I stood there pondering and the immense size of the limb would hit home. Three, three and half feet in diameter. No matter how much I shortened it from the tip inward she'd still be a half ton when the time came to cut 'er loose. Your guess is as good as mine as to which way it'd fall. Mine usually had me planted on the under side. Ignorance may be bliss for most people but I'd always walk away knowing the tree was on its own.
Sometime last winter the limb fell. The resulting damage was no worse than had I hacked away. Procrastination is the mother of the inevitable. Still there remains this immense, ragged tear in the side of a centuries old tree. What happens next is probably not for the best. Having seen other living things go through such a change tells me it's downhill all the way. Everything that happened was normal, natural and as organic as all get out. But it still sucks.
Those two pines are the highlight of our land. They were the reason for the first path Lois cleared through the hazel brush. You come pay me a visit and I'll no doubt take you over to look at them. To me they're always a thrill. In the early days my nephew Brian and I visited them several times to stand and stare at the three branched fork five feet above the first split. Spent a lot of time talking about a future tree house or platform. And think of climbing to the top to sway in the wind.
In a January, 1984 dream one of them was blown over and crushed the cabin. Big, nasty winds seem wreak havoc in dreams. Usually means there's a big change coming. And there was. But the dream also gave me the feeling that it'd all be okay if I dumped the useless crap in my life. In my case, part of growing up seemed to be an accumulation of self destructive things. Stuff that'd do me in eventually. Or maybe next Tuesday. What comes first, life or dreams? Or for that matter, the chicken or the egg? Got an answer for the second 'cause I've laid a lot of eggs in my time. Which brings it around to my dreams once again.
The trees, the water, the out-of-the-wayness, the nothing-specialness of the land we're on. That's its appeal for me. A little bit of a temporary home we share with the bats living under the steel roof. The four or five generations of Eastern Phoebes that have nested on the side of the cabin. The grey fox, deer, skunks, frogs, beavers. The swans passing through in spring and fall, takin' a break on Deadman. Love 'em all. But not like the white pines.
Two years ago my sister gave me a woodcut print of a white pine. No deer or mallards added to keep the eternal-entertainment-needers from becoming bored. The print, short and sweet. A single tree. Soon as I saw it there was no doubt as to how it had to be framed. Give me a moment and I'll work my way around to it.
The cabin was built in two phases. The first entirely of store bought lumber. A stick house. When I got going on the addition my friend Greg kept putting bees in my bonnet to do all the finish work with homemade hardwood. Originally he'd pushed for a portable sawmill. Build the place from the ground up with my own trees. Drop 'em, mill 'em, dry 'em and dimension 'em. Oof dah! Had the skill and the money. But time? Never had enough of that. Greg, he was that kind of man and had the scars to prove it. One of his many sidelines was as a tree cutter. Always had logs and lumber around by the thousands of board feet. Pine, oak, walnut, maple and the occasional exotic.
So we met halfway. He cut someone else's trees down. I bought a bunch of ash and oak logs from him. He hauled them to Lester-up-at-the-sawmill and we hauled them away. In time I planed, tongued and grooved them and used the boards to cover the walls and floors. Showing rare foresight, I kept a few of the natural edge boards. And after twenty-five years a couple remained. They became the picture frame. Damn nice frame and print. Hangs on the cabin wall facing the white pines as it should. In the very spot the dream pine would have crashed its way through.
In the fifty years we knew each other, Greg'd talk about his grandpa every so often. The one story that stuck with me was how they'd head over to these small, swampy looking lakes a few miles south of Leech Lake. There they'd catch sunnies by the bucket full. Always sounded great to me. His Grandpa was now long gone and had no clue who I was in the first place. That being so I figured he wouldn't mind if me and Al gave them a shot. They were more or less canoe lakes but if you were skillful with a trailer you could dump a small boat in off the gravel road and down the embankment. Even then there was no guarantee that you could get out of the opening bay. You see, a lot of the shoreline is floating bog. Sometimes the first connecting channel is there, sometimes it ain't.
Our first glance told us it was nothing but bullheads and sunnies. Just like the ones the border guard would have sent us back to had we stunk up Canadian lakes a second year running. Long story short, those holes in the swamp turned out to be our favorite lakes. Al says he'd fish 'em anytime.
Only went there once with Greg. Glad we made it. High sun, blue cloudless sky, cold front. Didn't catch much but that didn't matter. Being with him, floating on a piece of his past was a pleasure pure and simple. Over the years he'd shared a bunch of treasures with me. The wood, the lakes, his take on life, a hand now and then. But mostly his unquestioned friendship. Greg passed on this Spring.
Wasn't my intention to end up on that note. But that's how she went. Even had a mention of fishing on the way.
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