There's Nothing Quite Like Fishing!

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
of the editorial page staff
published by the StarTribune
August 30, 1958


   MILLIONS are spent annually for bait, boats, tackle, plugs, boots, nets and other fishing impedimenta.  The sport unquestionably is here to stay, and rightly so.
   It gets the devotee into the fresh air, provides exercise, scenery, and relaxation.  There is something mighty soothing about the idle slap of water against boat.  And when a big one takes the lure, when the line tightens and the rod bends, here is a dream come true, here is rapture complete.

   I AM TOLD, at least, that such is the case.  I never have caught a big one and doubt that I ever shall.  If an outsized northern ever was on one end of the line and I on the other, panic, I suspect, would ensue.
   My thirst for fishing was thoroughly slaked the last week of vacation.  The area was invested with lakes of all sizes, "live bait" signs were as thick as birch trees, and it was taken for granted that all vacationers had come primarily to fish.
   I had come primarily to eat, loaf and sleep, and although I took my spinning red, a few hooks and a couple of plugs along--for appearances and at my son's behest--I was sure he would weary of fishing after a couple of attempts, leaving me to my own devices.
   Weary he did.  So did I, but I continued to fish.  I was pushed into it.  All other husbands at the resort were avid anglers.  They would go out at dawn and just as I was thinking of getting up, return with northerns and bass of appalling size.  What's more--and I found it hard to forgive them for this--they insisted on exhibiting same and gloating.

   I HAD BEEN in camp no more than a day when I was marked as the only adult male who had caught nothing of consequence.  My wife, son and I caught some sunfish but it seemed this was kid stuff and didn't count.  And the resort proprietor, who assumed I was burning with disappointment and who took my ineptitude as a reflection on his layout, kept exhorting me to try again.
   So did my wife.  She said I should buy some minnows and instead of sleeping all morning get out on the lake at 6.  I agreed only to the minnows.  The fish could bite on my time, late morning or early evening, or go take a swim.
   Live bait proved no more effective than my vastly more convenient plugs.  "Just put the minnow on the hook and let him work for you," said one of my advisers.
   The work my minnows did was inconsequential.  They would turn belly up after a cast or two or maneuver into the weeds, there to snag my hook permanently in vegetation.

   IT PROBABLY was just as well, for the sunfish we caught proved more problem than prize.  I was elected, of course, to clean them.  I processed the first mess outside the cabin at dusk and was eaten alive by mosquitoes and flies--both horse and deer.
   To add to my frustration, I had no tools for the job but a couple of dull paring knives and pliers.  And most of my previous fish cleaning had been done on trout, which have the decency not to wear armor plate and spiked fins.  I wondered, as I slapped and perspired, by what ghastly whim of fate I had been elected to spend a vacation thus.

Mom liked fish

   I FIGURED that fish for breakfast was my due and my wife agreed.  I got them--all of them.  Our son quit after a couple of nibbles and milady, who professed her love of sunfish while she was catching them and I was baiting her hook, said they were too "heavy" for breakfast.  "When we have them for dinner just watch me."
   We had them for dinner two nights later.  She ate two.  So, by sheer force of will, did our son.
   The next night we had steak, broiled over charcoal and delicious.  Our pride and joy fell upon his portion with a will, interrupting his chomping only long enough to declare:
   "It's too bad fish doesn't taste like this."