When I was about 7, my dad and his three siblings from the Chicago area traveled to northern Wisconsin with the goal of finding a property where the extended family could build a cabin and spend summer vacations. After considerable exploring, he cast a line from the shore of some undeveloped land on Lake Nelson not far from Hayward.
Family legend has it he immediately caught a large muskie — a predator fish nicknamed the “fish of 10,000 casts” due to the considerable difficulty of ever catching one. That pretty much sealed the deal. The four families pooled their resources and, for about $1,200, bought 106 feet of lakeshore at that very spot. Thus began my family’s collective initiation into what Izaak Walton, author of the foundation document of all fishing literature titled “The Compleat Angler,” called: “the brotherhood of the angle.”
Unfortunately, my dad’s memorable catch was the first and last muskie anyone in our extended family ever caught. But as the old saying goes, “there are plenty of other fish in the sea,” and our army of anglers was soon in hot pursuit of any unseen creature that would take a hook.
While a boatload of adults was always out on the lake angling for walleye, we kids spent most of our time fishing off the dock or from a rowboat tethered to the shore — trying our best to earn bragging rights catching bass, bluegill and crappie.
Given there were 19 cousins in all, casting in crowded conditions on the dock required finesse not always on display. That would explain how my brother, Jim, ended up one morning with a hook firmly imbedded in the back of his head, requiring a trip to the emergency room in Hayward.
Our fishing equipment lacked sophistication, to say the least. We knew nothing about crank baits or spinners or those fancy vibrating lures that now populate the aisles at Cabela’s. We were satisfied with a workable rod and reel, fresh nightcrawlers dug from the front yard and a 1-inch red and white bobber clipped to the line a few inches above the sinker. Basic skills such as sticking hooks into worms, casting with a smooth arc, setting the hook and removing it quickly from the fish’s mouth all came with practice — and we were getting an abundance of that.
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My dad, a lifelong South Sider, used to say fishing is a lot like being a White Sox fan. It requires patience during long stretches of discouragement, but the occasional explosion of exuberance makes it worthwhile. That lesson in patience, learned on the shore of Lake Nelson, has served me well over the years.
Fast-forward a few decades, and on many summer days, you’ll find me at the end of the dock on our 2-acre farm pond. Stocked with just the right ratio of large mouth bass, bluegill, crappie and channel catfish, it provides plenty of opportunity for both discouragement and drama. The large resident snapping turtle is often my silent companion as he, too, is on the hunt.
But it won’t be long, and I’ll be heading north to Hayward again. Along with my cousins, we’ll pay a visit to the legendary Moccasin Bar with Cal Johnson’s 67-pound muskie on the wall — landed, not shot, in 1949. We’ll wander through the bar’s museum of ridiculously complex taxidermy animal dioramas — perhaps showing their age, but just as fascinating now as when we were kids.
And early every morning, I’ll fetch a cup of coffee, a couple of worms, and my trusty rod and reel. I’ll send an arching cast on to the glassy lake and sit quietly, keeping careful watch on my red and white bobber. I probably won’t catch a muskie. But fish or no fish, I’ll savor, as always, the flawless contentment of “the gallant fisher’s life.”
Susan Koch is a retired chancellor for the University of Illinois Springfield. She and her husband live in Iowa City, where they farm and raise purebred Angus cattle.
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