Let Me Tell You A Story

Hi folks,  I have a story to tell. I have a picture at the bottom of this post to illustrate the story. It didn't scan very well but it will have to do.  

Years and years ago I used to go to Leech Lake in Minnesota.  My aunt and uncle, Fran and Harold Dawson who lived in Adel used to go up there and the first time I went up I rode with my grandparents.  They drove all that way for a long week-end and they both loved it.  They went to Leech Lake in Walker and there was a resort there run by the Bantz's, Paul and Germa.  

It seems like everyone in the family fell in love with the place and them.  We all started taking our vacations up there and for about 20 years Mom, Ginny and I went there for one, two, three or four weeks in the summer.  Even if I took another vacation I made it to Minnesota for the vacation.  In 1976 I came back from Egypt and Greece and went to the lake.  I held my first slide show of the Egyptian slides on the front porch of the cabin.

My aunt and uncle used to spend the entire summer up there and my uncle Harold loved to fish and my aunt Fran liked to sit on the porch and read.   There was a card came at the Lodge every night and we all had our little cabins.  The people who came there became our extended family and great friends.  We all tried to be up there at the same time.

But that is not the story this time.  This is a fish story.  My uncle Harold, as I said, loved to fish.  Most of the time he went out fishing alone.  Once in awhile Fran would go out with him but she didn't like to stay out on the lake for a long time.

When I was there most mornings I would go fishing with Harold.  We would get up as my friend John says at O'dark hundred and eat some breakfast (I think I really don't remember that part) and head on down to the boat. Then off we would go to fish Walker Bay which is (to my memory) one of the most beautiful places in the world.   I was pretty young when we first started out doing this. Uncle Harold would bait my hook and he taught me how to catch the fish and for years he would clean the fish for me. I never caught much but I loved to go out with Harold and we had a great time.  The lake could change from calm and beautiful to rough and dangerous without much warning.  People would get caught out in a storm and the boat we were in was not always the safest place to be. But for the most part we were safe and secure.

As I said, I never caught much,  not like my cousin Michael who fishes for Muskies and has caught several of those monster fish.  Everybody wanted to catch the big fish.  Some of them did. 

Harold liked to catch Walleyes.  I was never very good catching them.  But there was this one time when we went out and were fishing the south end of the bay. It was a nice day.  The water was calm and the sky was clear and was reflected in the surface of the water.  I threw my (baited ) hook in the water.  (By this time I was baiting them myself) and waited. It did not seem like a long time until I felt a tug on my line, then a full out pull and that fish began to fight being caught.  I had hooked a Northern Pike and let me tell you it was the most exciting fish I have ever caught.  It was a big one and he fought and pulled but we finally got the son of a bitch (guys can talk like that when we are out on the lake but come to think of it Harold was a real gentleman and I don't remember him ever saying anything like that....I must be projecting.) up close enough to net and I brought him home.  He weighed about 14 pounds but the guy in town who weighed him said that he had not eaten for quite awhile and would probably have weighed in at 21 pounds if he had eaten.  I did not have him mounted but he was displayed in the window at Reed's downtown.  

I have a character flaw.  When I succeed at something I am apt to give it up. I once played Bridge and got a Grand Slam and decided it would never happen again so I gave it up.  With fishing it may have been that Harold decided that along with baiting the hook it was time for me to start cleaning my own fish and I really did not like doing that.  The first fish I cleaned wound up with filets the size of a quarter.   

Here is the picture of Harold and me and out "catch" of the day.  By the way that was the only time I was ever slender.  I had dieted and lost weight to the place where I had a 38 inch waist.  I looked pretty good.  Then I gave up smoking and gained a bunch of weight. Not so much fun, but I am still here.

Those were good times.