Everybody won on this fishing trip ~ July 20, 2000

David Heiller

“Time to get up, Collin.”

I sat next to my nephew at 6 a.m. last Friday morning, expecting a battle.

But Collin popped out of bed like a piece of toast. He was wide awake before his feet hit the floor.

Collin and his lunker

Fishing will do that to a boy age seven.

It hadn’t been quite so easy for the 46-year-old. I spent 15 minutes getting out of bed and opening my eyes (in that order), then getting dressed and climbing up to the loft to wake Collin.

“Look at the loons,” Collin said when we stepped out of the cabin. Seven loons were paddling side by side across the middle of the lake. They looked like they were practicing for the Aquatennial Parade.

We got in the boat and headed for our hot spot, which is usually luke-warm at best. Collin asked if he could steer the boat. But it was too early for that. My eyes weren’t open all the way yet. “Later,” I promised.

I eased the 14-foot boat through a narrow channel and into a smaller lake. We drifted with the current, and started casting our jigs.

Collin caught the first keeper, a crappie about a pound in size. I put it on the stringer. Collin watched in admiration. He doesn’t like to touch fish. Then he caught a small bass. I took it off the hook for him.

I didn’t have to lecture Collin about how he had to learn to take off fish if he wanted to be a real fisherman. For one thing, my son, age 17, had ridden him pretty hard about it all week. (This is the same son who wouldn’t wake up when Collin had jumped out of bed.)

Collin and David, fishing buddies, swimming buddies, just good buddies.

And Collin knew he had to learn to take fish off. But knowing and doing are two different things. That’s what learning is all about. He had made his first small step the day before, when he borrowed my handkerchief to take off a sunfish for the first time. It was a good use for a hanky.

We left the spot after an hour and headed for another place that Collin had “heard about.” Already he is spreading gossip about where the fish are biting. That’s the sign of a true fisherman! It was a half mile away, which Collin also figured into the equation, because it gave him a chance to steer the boat. He knew I would say yes this time.

I was finally awake, and the lake was glass, so I scooted over and he took the throttle of the seven horse Mercury, and we made our way, although not in a straight line, to the next little lake.

Collin had lost his red jig, which he felt bad about, because it had caught a few fish and he thought it was lucky. “Do you have a white lure with red eyes?” Collin asked. “Uncle Mike lost a big walleye with a lure like that.”

“Yeah, it’s called a Red-Eye,” I said, taking one out and showing it to him. That was the one. I hooked it onto his leader. We started casting.

“There’s no fish in this lake,” Collin said, and not more than three seconds later, he had a strike.

Collin’s rod bent over. He reeled in steadily, with only a word of age-old advice from me: Keep your rod tip up. Is there anything finer than watching a kid reel in a nice fish?

He brought it to the side of the boat, and I lifted it in. It was a largemouth bass, about 14 inches long.

That was a lunker for the lake we were on. “Can we keep it?” he asked.

“Let’s take it back and show everybody,” I stalled.

We fished a little longer. On almost every cast, Collin said, “There’s no fish in this lake.” But that trick usually only works once.

Collin steered us back to the cabin, then jumped out of the boat with the fish almost as quickly as he had jumped out of bed. He showed his mom and dad and sister and cousin and aunt. He let everyone know how he had out-fished Uncle David. That didn’t bother me. It was a win-win situation, in today’s parlance.

We took the bass back to the lake. I had broken the news that this bass wasn’t quite big enough for a respectable fisherman to keep. I pulled out the stringer, and laid the fish in the water. I held it by the tail and pulled it back and forth, until its gills were working hard. Then we watched it swim off beneath the dock. That’s a good feeling, watching a fish swim away, to be caught another day:

I cleaned the crappie. Collin watched. It’s another fishing skill he will soon master. We ate it for breakfast. It tasted great!

There’s a little Heaven at The Cabin ~ July 23, 1998

David Heiller 

Cindy and I and our kids when to a cabin last weekend to see her mother and sister and brother and his family.

We've been going to The Cabin so long that it really is a proper noun, like Heaven. A lot of good things have happened there.

Sometimes I write about them in a specific way, like taking the small-fry fishing.

But the broader picture of The Cabin can't be sketched out in a cute anecdote. It's about many things.

Noah, mid leap, at The Cabin

It's a place to relax, to take a nap without feeling guilty, to play a rigorous game of bocce ball in the morning and a tough game of cards at night.

It’s a place to eat fantastic salads made by Cindy, and fantastic shish-kabobs grilled by her brother, Randy.

It’s a neutral place where family battles and personality clashes are put aside, for the most part.

It’s a place to fish and to teach kids how to fish. That always awakens the kid inside me. I’ve taught my two kids how to fish there, and although they don’t fish much now, the seed has been planted and it probably will re-emerge and grow some day.

I’ve helped a nephew and niece learn to fish there too. No matter how hard it is to talk to kids, to “relate” to them in modern lingo, if you can take them fishing, you will connect.

You won’t get any fishing done yourself. Don’t even try. You’ll take off tiny sunfish and bait tiny hooks held by tiny hands, and you’ll hear the craziest questions, like “Why isn’t that dead fish swimming?” And it will be wonderful.

A second niece of mine, age three, had me show her how to cast her little rod on Sunday. She didn’t do well. She’s a little too young, and I didn’t push her. These things must be done delicately.

But she will learn how to fish, because there’s always next year at The Cabin.

Collin

Next to fishing is swimming. Some people are lucky and live on a lake or river. The rest of us have to be content with visiting places like The Cabin. This one sits on top of a steep hill. It takes a long walk down 46 concrete steps to get to the lake. But it’s worth the walk to go swimming.

Is there anything finer than jumping into a cool lake on a hot day? It feels especially good after a hot bike ride, or a nap that has left you groggy.

You don’t have to swim laps in the lake. You don’t have to have a purpose on the water. Remember, no guilt is allowed at The Cabin. Just sit in the water like a jellyfish. Take an occasional swim to the diving dock, to show the rest of the folks that you haven’t turned into a human jellyfish. Throw your arms over an inner tube and float around with your wife and get some serious small talk done.

And watch the kids play. That’s another joy of The Cabin. If you ever feel jaundiced about children, if you ever want to say “Kids today don’t know how to have fun anymore,” take them to The Lake at The Cabin. Yes, we really should capitalize The Lake too.

They can play all day. It always brings back a lot of good memories, watching children play in water. I think of the countless hours. I did the same on the Mississippi River when I was growing up. Literally every day in the summer. Wow, it was fun.

Grandma and the Grands at the cabin, 1996.

Now it’s almost as fun to watch them. Funny how things change. I think that is true for my mother-in-law, Lorely. She couldn’t go swimming, but she sure spent a lot of time sitting in a comfortable chair on shore and watching her grandkids play. Sometimes she pretended to be reading a book, but I know better.

Our family is lucky to spend a weekend a year at The Cabin. It belongs to my sister-in-law’s parents. They have a big family. They really get their money’s worth from it. The Cabin is booked almost every week of the year. I’m sure our family’s experiences there could be modified and repeated by many other families. I know we really appreciate it and value it.

I could go on and on about The Cabin. But you get the picture. Hopefully you have access to one of your own.

My sister-in-law’s brother, Mike, put it well on Sunday. He had been swimming on that perfect afternoon, watching the little ones, soaking up the warm sun.

He walked up the concrete steps to where I sat, playing the banjo. (Did I mention that The Cabin is the perfect place to play the banjo?)

I don’t remember his exact words. Reporters don’t take notes at The Cabin. But he said that if Satan rolls back the big iron doors and lets us out from Hell a million years from now, and gives us one day, one time, one moment, this is where we’ll come.

I couldn’t agree more.

If you go fishing, don’t ask why ~ July 15, 1993

 David Heiller

You never know what you’ll discover from a little girl in a fishing boat. Her name is Grace. She’s my niece and she’s four. Grace likes to fish, and I like any kid who likes to fish. So Grace and I and my two kids, Mollie and Noah, made several excursions in the boat last week.

Mollie and Noah can take off their own fish now, for the most part, so I got my hopes up. Maybe I can actually try fishing myself. Any adult who has fished with little kids knows what I mean.

But Grace brought me back to reality.

The power of a four-year-old brings reality into focus.

It started when I wanted to troll around Star Lake. Maybe catch a small northern like the one mounted on the cabin wall. Just a 12-pounder.

Trolling didn’t go over big with Grace. She was holding Mollie’s hand firmly with her left hand, and her Snoopy rod and reel in the other. Her feet couldn’t touch the bottom of the boat. She was ready to roll, and here we were, going two miles an hour while Uncle David held onto a fishing rod.

“Why we going so slow?” Grace asked. Her tone demanded an answer, and quick.

“I’m trolling.”

“What’s TRO-lling?” she asked, wrinkling her nose and holding out the word like you’d hold out a dead mouse.

I tried to explain about trolling.

“Why we trolling?” she asked next. To catch a big fish, I said.

Grace didn’t care about big fish. She cared about little sunfish, four inches maximum, that she could haul in on her Snoopy rod. She also cared about speed, and so she returned to her original question. “Why we going so slow.”

I’ve seen this logic before. Grace has discovered the one word that teaches parents patience: WHY. You might as well try to stop a glacier than battle a four-year-old armed with WHY. So I reeled in and Grace held tight to Mollie’s hand and I gunned that six horse Mercury over the lake to our hot spot.

Grace, the inquisitor, and Malika

I’d like to say that this was an isolated incident during our three days at the lake, but it wasn’t. Grace reminded me that when you take kids fishing, you usually forget about trolling and trophies. You find a hole of sunnies and spend your time taking off fish, throwing them back in the lake, and putting worms on hooks on Snoopy rods.

And you listen to questions. I can’t remember all the WHYs Grace hit me with. But three stand out.

The first came one evening at our sunfish hole. A golden retriever was running around on shore, all by itself. No owner in sight. It saw us, and swam about 50 feet out to the boat, then swam two laps around us. We had to pull out our lines.

Grace asked, “Why is that dog swimming around us?” That was the best question she asked. I sure didn’t know the answer. She could have asked next, “Why you swearing, Uncle David?” but fortunately she did not.

The second WHY came a few minutes later. A small sunfish had swallowed a hook, and was floating motionless near the boat.

“Why isn’t that dead fish swimming?” she asked. Noah, my 10-year-old son, pounced on that with a laugh. “Because it’s dead!” He thought he had won.

“Why?”

Noah sighed and didn’t answer. He had enough sense to know he’d been licked.

The third WHY came as we headed back to the cabin. Grace’s mom and dad were out in the canoe, paddling toward a group of six loons. We shut off the motor and watched. As the canoe edged closer, two loons would rear up and flap their wings and scream. They looked like a couple of King Kongs beating their chests.

I told Grace and Noah that the loons were threatening the canoe. They were trying to frighten the intruders away, I said rather profoundly.

“Why aren’t my mom and dad afraid?” Grace asked.

I tried to answer, but as usual, it fell short. I’ll let her parents try. They have more experience than me, thankfully. And hopefully more patience.

Casting for a fishing story ~ July 3, 1997

David Heiller

If your ear lobes are intact now, guard them with your life. I taught a four year old how to cast a fishing lure.

It started innocently enough last weekend at The Cabin. When my four-year-old nephew, Collin, arrived, the first words he said to me were, “Uncle Day-vid, I caught more fish than you last year.”

He had out-fished me one evening, and he wasn’t about to let me forget it after only 12 months.

Uncle Day-vid and Collin at the cabin: fishing buddies

The next morning we went to the dock to catch sunnies. Usually with a four year old, that means dropping a line from your Sesame Street rod and reel straight down into the water, and watching half a dozen panfish converge on the worm.

They have a brief conference, then elect the smallest one to investigate further. You end up pulling in a fish only slightly bigger than the hook itself. This gives the kid a great thrill, which gives the adult a great thrill.

But Collin’s Sesame Street fishing rod and reel were broken. Why is it they only last one summer? Could it be a conspiracy?

I gave Collin my best rod and reel. I figured I wouldn’t need it. When you fish with kids, you don’t really get much fishing done yourself anyway.

Collin was thrilled to sit on the dock and catch small fish. But I couldn’t resist showing him how to cast his bobber out further, where the bigger fish might be.

Learning to cast a fishing rod is a milestone in a child’s life, like riding a bike or hitting a baseball. One of my earliest memories is of fishing with my brother, Glenn, and trying to cast with a rod and reel.

Glenn must have been in a good mood that evening to let me use it. Usually it was Cane Poles Only.

The open-faced reel had a thick black line. You used your thumb for a drag. It was virtually impossible to cast without getting a backlash the size of an eagle’s nest.

I think I made one cast, then spent the rest of the evening trying to untangle the line. Glenn was not pleased, to put it mildly. But I was thrilled to have been given the chance to actually cast my bait. I eventually mastered the reel, and was able to cast it at least five feet.

Getting the bait on is the step before casting.

With that rite of passage in the back of my mind, I showed Collin how to cast. I showed him how the line-release button worked. I showed him how much line should be dangling at the tip of the rod when you cast.

I told him how to bring the rod back to two o’clock, then bring it forward to 10 o’clock. I don’t know if he knows how to tell time, but he nodded dutifully. I held his hand and we did it together. The bobber soared out at least five feet.

No fish was hooked, but Collin was. He couldn’t believe he had done that. He grabbed the rod from me. “I want to do it now, Uncle Day-vid,” he said.

“Let me show you one more time,” I said. But we both knew that wasn’t necessary. He kept the rod and kept casting.

Most of the time he looked like a mule skinner whipping a team of horses. He churned up the water with short casts. Once in a while he’d get one out 20 feet.

Fishing pretty much stopped for Collin at that point and casting took over. He would simply cast and reel, cast and reel. He paused only long enough to have me bait the hook after a fish had caught up to it long enough to strip it bare.

On Saturday night, I took Collin and two adults out in the 14-foot fishing boat. I sat in the rear, manning the six-horse Mercury and keeping a close eye on Collin.

Watching a kid cast on a dock is one thing.

You can give him a wide berth. Sitting next to him in a boat is another. There’s no place to hide.

Collin worked both sides of the boat. He cast to the front and to the back. He would announce his direction with a polite sentence. “Excuse me, Day-vid.” “Excuse me, Nancy.” “Excuse me, Mike.”

We wanted to excuse him into the lake. But instead we just hunched our shoulders and lowered our heads and waited for the bobber to go whipping past.

Collin was sitting on a boat cushion. Each time he cast, it inched off the seat. Finally after one mighty cast he ended up with a crash in the bottom of the boat.

No, I didn’t hope he had a broken arm. But I couldn’t help telling him that that’s what happens when you cast so much. “You need to let your bobber sit for a while,” I told him for the umpteenth time.

But Casting Collin wasn’t going to let a bruise or two stop him. He kept on casting, and we kept on ducking.

I know I could have made him stop and sit still and be quiet. But fishing is supposed to be fun, and Collin was having fun. So I let him cast away.

I ended up catching three keepers to his one. “I caught more fish than you,” I said with a smile that he recognized. “Maybe that’s because you did too much casting.” He didn’t say anything. It was a four-year-old dilemma.

We got back at dark. Collin held a flashlight while I cleaned the fish. We ate them the next day. There’s nothing better than fried sunfish fillets, rolled in flour, fried in butter, and seasoned with salt, pepper—patience!

Time will tell where Collin goes, fishing-wise. I tried to teach him how to put on a worm and take off a fish. He didn’t want learn that mundane skill quite as eagerly. But I’ve got a hunch he will.

Once you learn how to cast, the rest is all downhill.