A quirky vacation of turtles and blackflies ~June 23, 1994

By David Heiller

The black flies struck with fury when we arrived at Kawishiwi Lodge. They swarmed over me as I fished for sunnies in the shallow water in front of our dock. They bit rings around Cindy’s legs, so that she looked like she was wearing red anklets. They chewed a circle of bites around my daughter’s stomach, where her T-shirt ended. My son’s neck had at least 150 bites.

Ah, what a vacation.

None of us knew what a black fly was before last week. We don’t have black flies here. We have gnats. They swarm around your head when you’re playing softball. You swing and cuss at them.

Don’t cuss at them. Thank them for not inviting their big cousins, the black flies.

Black flies are like giant gnats, with machetes. They land and stab. Their bites make big red welts. They itch, and stain your shirt with blood.

They are worse than mosquitoes, because there is no repellant to keep them off. Nothing. We can put a man on the moon but we can’t make a spray to keep off black flies.

This is a picture from 
the newspaper of David 
in his blackfly-proof hat.
 You really can't see the netting, 
but trust me, it kept us sane, 
mostly, on this vacation.

We finally resorted to buying the goofy netting that you see in the photo. At first we felt silly wearing it. But if it’s netting or not fishing, I’ll take looking like a nerd any day.

Not that it helped our fishing much. I had spent so much time telling the kids how good the fishing was at Kawishiwi Lodge that I jinxed us. Noah sensed it right away, and bet me a dollar that we wouldn’t catch a northern over two pounds.

He won, but not without a close call. On Thursday, I fastened a small perch that had swallowed the hook onto my line. Something grabbed it and took off. I set the hook, and felt the biggest fish of my life on the other end. Bigger than that eight pound lake trout. Bigger than that 10 pound carp.

I finally brought it up to the dock and picked up the net with my left hand. I expected to see the northern of my dream.

But with a shock I saw something else: a huge snapping turtle.

It weighed 15 pounds, maybe more. I didn’t get too close with my DeLiar scale. It’s head was the size of my fist, and the jaws on that head took a snap at me.

Noah was awed by what the bear did
in the previous evening.

I wish I could say our vacation had perfect weather and lots of  fish, but it didn’t. Cindy and I wanted our nephew from Texas to catch a big northern so badly. We said we would pay $10 a pound for him to catch one, but we never had to pay. One lousy rock bass and small northern were all he brought in.

But in between the black flies and the snapping turtles, the rain and the diarrhea, we had fun. We paddled dozens of miles. We saw beavers and loons. We explored bays and creeks. We toured the wolf center and talked about the Root Beer Lady.

A bear tried to get into our cabin one night. It busted the screen door, then ran off when I turned on the porch light.

We stayed up late, ate meals at all hours. And there’s something about sleeping in a cabin on a lake in a thunderstorm that’s mighty peaceful and cozy.

A quirky vacation. Aren’t they all?

And man, that snapping turtle. Biggest one I ever caught. My nephew fried it up. It tasted just like chicken. Better than northern any day. Yeah, right Dad.

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(The next week this letter appeared in the Askov American)

 Editor erred with game fish bait

Editor, Askov American:

In spite of your patronizing of law enforcement officials (see headline Sheriff 1, Train 0; editorial “3 Cheers, for Don”; article titled “Faulkner to seek second term” et al.) I’m afraid you may have run slightly afoul of the law if we can believe your column in the issue of June 23, 1994. You mention attempting to catch a northern by fastening a small perch to your line. I’m sure you must have known, being the piscatorial challenged nimrod you are, that it is illegal to catch or attempt to catch a game fish using “whole or parts of game fish, goldfish or carp for bait”. Since perch is classified as a legal game fish (the daily limit is only 100) I’m afraid you have admitted your guilt in front of the 3,800 people who subscribe to the AMERICAN.

Your only hope is that of the 3,800, none is a certified peace officer.

GLENN H. HEILLER Woodland, MN

EDITOR’S NOTE: My column last week was supposed to say “birch,” not “perch.” It was a typographical error. I fastened a small piece of birch to my line, and a turtle took it. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

David Heiller