Minnesota weather—June frost and relative humility ~ June 5, 1986

David Heiller

Minnesotans are a humble folk. We aren’t known for our decisiveness, our positive thinking. Ask someone how they’re doing, and they’ll likely reply, “Not too bad,” or “I can’t complain,” “Pretty good, I guess.”

Even my three-year-old son realizes his humble fate. He thinks we live in Maybe-Soda, and Grandma Olson lives in Maybe-Applis. It’s a state-wide shyness flowing from Lake Wobegon to Lake City, from Worthington to Warroad. Steve Cannon of WCCO is perhaps the only person in the state with relative humility, and that’s just during the weather report.

 Noah thinks we live in Maybe-Soda,
 and Grandma Olson lives in Maybe-Applis.

I had some personal insight into al this on Sunday. Last week’s weather had broken all kinds of records. Duluth had 86 degrees on May 28, International Falls: 91. We were somewhere in between. The warm weather held through Friday, as we got our garden ready for spring planting. I even took a day off for the ritual. Cindy, my wife, drove with confidence to a greenhouse and bought 24 tomato sets, 12 peppers, and some odds and ends for the weekend planting.

The last of the garden beds were finished by Sunday. Cindy and Noah went to church in the morning, while Malika and I stayed home and fertilized the soil with bone meal and blood meal. Sunday afternoon, under 60 degree, partly cloudy skies, we planted tomatoes and peppers and flowers and Brussels sprouts. The clouds broke, sunlight blessed our hard work, and a lady on the radio said temperatures would be in the 70s on Monday.

After the kids were tucked away Sunday evening, I returned to the garden. Two robins chirped to each other in the spruce trees. A pair of goldfinches sat atop the end spruce, the bright gold male a step higher on the branches than his mate. Two cedar waxwings perched quietly in the dead branches of the elm tree next to the house. The wrens nesting in their home on the clothes line pole stayed inside, the mother warming her tiny eggs.

God was in his heaven, all was right with the world. It was enough to make a Minnesotan downright confident and happy, even a newspaper editor. I brought a paper bag full of old newspapers to the tomato beds, and started to spread them next to the plants. The first batch held shoppers. I placed them with a vengeance on the ground, thinking they would finally be put to a good use. Then I opened up a Pine County Courier, and laid Richard Coffey next to a plant. I felt like reading his column first, but knew he would understand, and his wife Jeanne would be proud to have him play such an active role in weed control.

But I soon ran out of other newspapers and even the Omni-present shopper. I went to the garage for a bag of Askov Americans. I had been saving them to submit to the National Newspaper Association Better Newspaper Contest, which is why they were still in the garage. Relative humility.

I spread them around the tomatoes. Joel Mortensen crowded one plant. “That one will have a strong taste,” I thought. One of my outhouse columns nestled another. Good fertilizer there.

Soon the tomatoes were nicely mulched. I sprinkled hay on all the crooked headlines and blurred photos, and walked into the house feeling very content. Humble, as only a person who can put a year’s worth of work on his tomatoes feels, but content.

The story should end there, but remember, folks, this is Minnesota. Our one-year-old daughter woke up with a cry at 1 a.m. She may have sensed the danger and warned us. As I stumbled in parent stupor for baby aspirin, I glanced at the outdoor thermometer. Suddenly the stupor disappeared. Thirty-five degrees and falling.

I hurried outside, grabbed the flashlight from the car. I carried sheets from the garage, plastic, blankets, anything I could find, and spread it all over the tomatoes and peppers. I knew I couldn’t sleep till they were all covered.

Cindy called me at work Monday morning. I knew before she said a word the bad news, like a phone call in the middle of the night when a relative is sick.

“The tomatoes, David, all but three have died.”

“Which three didn’t?” I asked. I hope they had been mulched with the American.

“The first three,” she answered.

I started to swear on the phone, then stopped. My Minnesota Confidence had glowed for a day. What the heck. It’s not so bad. We’ll buy more tomatoes. I can’t complain.

Moms, dads beware—the secret weapon is awake ~ June 6, 1985

David Heiller

I have a secret weapon that could probably be sold to the highest bidder and used in the torture chambers of totalitarian regimes throughout the world. This weapon doesn’t cost millions of dollars, wasn’t developed by the military, and isn’t even illegal. But under controlled situations it will force the stiffest of upper lips into jelly, and melt nerves of steel into lead.

I discovered the weapons Sunday morning, at 5 a.m. My wife and I had celebrated our fifth anniversary the previous night, with dinner and a Greg Brown concert in Duluth. We had finally got the babysitter home, and settled ourselves into bed by 2 a.m. That made the weapon even more potent three hours later.

Small cute boy?
Not really, more like a diabolical 
weapon on the morning here described.

Cindy heard it first, and deserves much of the blame. Thump. The sound of bare feet sliding out of bed in the next room. Pad-pad-pad-pad. Those tiny feet approaching with both stealth and firmness. The blankets tightening around two groggy adults, as two little fists grab, pull, and hoist 29 pounds of boy onto the bed. Up lift the blankets, in slides the weapon, warm, snuggling, smiling.

For perhaps a minute, all is well, the calm before the storm. While Mom and Dad pull the covers up to their chins and mumble something to each other, the secret agent’s eyes open. All semblance of fatigue is gone from those blue eyes. They are the eyes of a wide awake, two-year-old boy at 5 a.m. on a Sunday morning.

This agent goes by the name of Noah. In your house, it may be Emily, or Mathew, or Joseph, or Amber. Names differ, but techniques are universal.

“Mo-mower grahch,” he starts, standing on the mattress looking out the window. “Mo-mower grahch. Mo-mower grahch.”

Yes, the lawn mower is in the garage,” I answer. My eyes are open slightly, staring at the ceiling and the towering boy.

“Why?”

I started to answer, then catch myself, and instead turn my back to him. He kneels by my head, grabs my beard, and pulls my face to his.

“Daddy.”

I don’t answer.

“Daddy.” Two quick kisses. Something is up. “Daddy. Dasses, OK?”

Now I am awake. Two kisses in his mind are worth my glasses, which rest on the night stand next to the bed.

“No, you can’t have my glasses,” I say while catching his arm as it passes over my head.

“Why?”

I don’t answer him. Instead I call out to Cindy. I want to make sure she is a part of this. “Why did you let him in bed?” I ask.

“I thought he’d fall right asleep,” she answers in an embarrassed voice. A two-year-old falling back to sleep on a Sunday morning once in bed with Mom and Dad? She seemed to realize now how foolish the notion sounded.

Dancing with Mama and her midsection.

But my diversion worked. Noah turned his attention to Momma He started grilling her with small talk. The birds are singing. April was here last night. She’s a nice babysitter. I would like a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast. The lawn mower is in the garage. Is Margot coming today? Binti is sleeping. Miss Emma is sleeping. Let’s go downstairs. I want juice.

Cindy rolled over onto her back. That seemed to be Noah’s intention. He eyed the 22 extra pounds of a soon-to-be brother or sister on Momma’s midsection. His eyes sparkled like a mountain climber gazing for the first time at the Matterhorn. Then he started climbing, draping the bulge like a barrel.

“Noah. Daddy, help!” Cindy groaned.

“You let him in bed,” I said, not moving.

“I know, I know,” she answered, holding back expletives with sheer Mother willpower.

By this time, we were both awake. The clock said 5:30. The Sunday sun was almost over the horizon. Birds were calling everywhere, catbirds, robins, mourning doves.

“What the heck, we might as well get up, huh?” I suggested.

Noah was already sliding off the bed, leading the way downstairs. The secret weapon had won.

Bear 1, Campers 0 ~ May 25, 1995

 David Heiller

Jim and I were paddling across the east end of Vera Lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area last Friday when Jim let out a holler. “There’s a bear in our camp!”

We were about a quarter mile away. You don’t realize how slowly a canoe travels until you paddle toward a campsite that contains your food pack and a bear in the same tree.

We bore down on the camp. “Paddle Dave, paddle!” Jim said. I wasn’t exactly dozing in the sun. We started yelling. The bear must have heard us. It dropped out of the tree and scampered happily into the woods.

We had hung the food pack in a tree, like we always do on our annual trip into lake country. We knew a bear would come calling. The day before, it had left teeth marks on a few dry food items by our fire grate. Things in plastic bottles that we don’t usually hang, like rice and salt.

It struck pay dirt on that first visit too: we had accidentally left out a quart of Heiller’s Pure Maple Syrup. It bit through bag and bottle and licked it up. That made us as mad as it made the bear happy.

Then Jim and I had to watch from the water while the bear hung like a double-jointed gymnast and picked out other goodies, such as the blueberry pancake mix and Cindy’s chocolate chip bars.

It gets worse.

Early Saturday morning the bear returned. We heard a crashing noise by the lake. Jim crawled out of his bag and shined his flashlight on a very big black bear on the ground below the food pack. It raced away, but not before taking a jar of Tang and a bag of apples and the last of the bread.

That was enough for us. He was eating us out of tent and campsite. We figured if we stayed any longer, he’d take over the cooking duties for Dave, and Dave is pretty touchy when anyone growls about his cooking.

So on Saturday we headed for new territory. Before we left, Dave scratched on a rock: Beware bear. I hope that bear can’t read.

Blame it on the new guy

It’s all Steve’s fault.

Steve took the place of Paul, who had traveled with Jim and Dave and me for eight straight years up north. We hadn’t even seen a bear in those eight years.

Then along comes Steve, who had dreamed about a bear just a week before the trip. And a bear comes and takes all our food? Pretty suspicious.

In fact, it might have even been Steve up in that tree. It’s been a while since he’s had a shave and a haircut.

Steve, Jim, Dave, and David: different crew,
slightly; different shenanigans, slightly.

Steve isn’t much of a fisherman. He caught a lot of things, but none of them were fish. Mostly he caught trees and rocks and logs and a lot of good natured ribbing, most of which he gave himself.

Sometimes when Steve got a snag, Jim would coach him off it. Jim missed his calling as a sports announcer. We didn’t catch many fish, so Jim had to practice on snags. “Come back the other way with the line, Steve,” he would say, while Steve’s rod bent against a 10 pound rock bass. “Keep it tight. Now jiggle your rod tip. Now pull from the other side.”

Steve attracted gnats. They may have thought he was a bear. Every evening, he would sit by the fire and a cloud of bugs would settle on him like a hair dryer. Steve would put on his sunglasses to protect his eyes, which worked great for the gnats but didn’t help him see his way around too well by the light of the campfire.

When it rained, Steve donned his new rain suit. The coat fit fine, but the pants were an extra large, something which Steve is not. So the crotch of the rain pants came to his knees, and the hem came out somewhere near the lake. He looked like a little kid in big, rubber-coated pajamas. We all laughed about this too, including Steve.

A lot of laughter and exploring

Laughter is a main ingredient of a good canoe trip. There’s plenty of serious conversation, and times when we don’t talk at all, like on a lake at night when the loons are calling back and forth.

A new canoe partner for David.

But everybody gets teased. We laughed at Dave’s voice, how it rumbles like a distant thunderstorm across the lake. Dave reminded me several times about the day I jumped into the water after a fishing rod that a fish had pulled in.

We recalled Paul trying to keep warm on our first trip, soaked and bedraggled to the bone while he insisted everything was just peachy. And Jim stripping off his clothes and washing up in the lake, then giving us the play by play of what it was like.

And Steve’s rainsuit.

Another part of a good canoe trip is exploring new country. We did that when we canoed down Knife Lake one clear, calm morning. The water was a beautiful emerald green. You could see down 10 feet. We sat in the sun and Dave cut thick slabs of meat and cheese for sandwiches. We climbed Thunderhead Point and could see for miles and miles.

We visited Isle of Pines, where Dorothy Molter lived for 60 years. We found a pile of her old bottle caps. I felt the spirit of the Root Beer Lady in the wind through the huge pine trees and her little lilac bushes.

We didn’t catch fish that day, but Dave put it best when he said it was a perfect day to not catch fish. It was a perfect trip too.

Except for the bear.

A day to remember ~ May 29, 1986

David Heiller

Graves stretch up the hillside at the Catholic Cemetery in Cork Hollow. The cemetery, with its manicured lawn, is ringed by hardwood trees and cornfields. The dead are Irish here—Graff, Colleran, Sweeney, Corchoran, Quillen. They named this valley after their Irish county of Cork, left behind a hundred years and more ago.

The boy's grandfather.

Around the cemetery, near certain gravestones, small flags flutter in the breeze. American flags mark the veterans, some who died in combat, some of old age. Blue and gold flags mark the ladies from the auxiliary, who served the same cause at home, in a much different way. They sold food at Friday night bingo, or sent care packages to Vietnam. Some raised babies alone while they worked and waited for husbands and brothers, or fathers and sons, to come home.

Cars drove into the cemetery on this hazy spring morning. Men got out, opened their trunks to unfurl flags and take out rifles. They were dressed in khaki, remnants of World War II and Korea. A few of the men wore J. C. Penney. Forty years can cause you to outgrow World War II uniforms.

The women stayed behind the men, dressed in white blouses and blue slacks, not uniforms really but the closest thing to it. They wore VFW pins on their shirts.

The men lined up behind their flag bearers and their commander. The 20-odd spectators stepped to one side. The commander barked his orders. “Attention!” Backs straightened. Stomachs flattened as much as possible, which in some cases wasn’t much. Rifles bounced around from one arm to the other, coming to rest on the right shoulder, as the men came to attention.

“Forward, hunh!” The men moved ahead, left foot first. “Left, left, left-right-left,” the commander said. A few of the men were out of step as they turned to the left and circled to a flag-marked grave. “Company, halt.”

The father, once very young.

Four men with rifles stepped up to the grave, a Vietnam veteran killed in November, 1969. None of these veterans had served in Vietnam. They were remembering the dead from the war many people have tried to forget.

As the chaplain finished his words, a man in the crowd reached over to pick up his three-year-old son “There’s going to be a big noise now,” he whispered. The boy widened his eyes. His small hands cupped his ears. The father inched backward, as four rifles swung upward.

Boom! The guns flared with flame. An explosion echoed up the valley. The boy began to cry. The father moved farther away. Shell casings flew to the ground. Boom! The second report came. The boy cried louder. Heads turned their way. The soldiers kept their spread stance, as more casings clattered to the ground. Boom! The final report. Smoke drifted upward, met with silence, except for a child’s cry.

A bugle’s notes floated down from the hill, playing taps. The child quieted, tears on his cheeks. The father, holding his son, had tears in his eyes too. He remembered taps as a boy, after the explosions as gray haired men stood in khaki over the grave of his own father who had served in World War II and had died eight years later.

The boy around the time of his first 
Memorial Day Service. When he was 
older, he scrambled for the shells.

The bugle stopped. The men reassembled, and several boys crept up to the grave, seeking the brass shell casings ejected from the rifles. One boy was dressed in a Cub Scout uniform, wearing a camouflage hat of Vietnam style, with a gold medal on the front.

The men led the way to a woman’s grave. The prayers were repeated, without gunfire, by a lady in white blouse and blue slacks. Then all marched out through the gate, to the cars. The guns went back into the car trunks, flags were rolled up again. The little boy climbed into a car, next to his father.

A man came to the car window. He had long hair, thin on the top, and a headband. His clothing did not give away the fact that he had served in Vietnam. His son was the boy dressed in Cub Scout shirt and Vietnam hat, who had searched for shell casings. The man reached a hand through the window. His hand opened, showing a brass casing. “Here, this is for you,” he said with a smile.

The little boy’s eyes widened again. His small hand grabbed the shell and held tight. It was his first Memorial Day.

Never look a gift tiller in the Tines ~ Spring 2000?

by David Heiller

The Hillbrand Boys came over last week with a tiller in the back of their truck.

I had been going to borrow Steve’s tiller, after I had first weeded the garden by hand. I like to weed first, then till. I use a Mantis mini-tiller, which is so light that it’s more like vacuuming the garden than tilling it.

I don’t like to till in weeds. I like clean dirt. I pull weeds out by the wheelbarrow-full almost every day at this time of year, then I till, and for at least a week, there isn’t a weed in sight.

But Steve said he needed the tiller and couldn’t let me borrow it, so it was now or never with the tiller. He was already unloading the tiller as he said this.

David tilling our new garden spot
 after we moved to the Denham area.

That put me in a dilemma. I wasn’t ready for the tiller, but how do you turn down a free till? Steve had tilling on his mind—I could see it in his eyes—so I said OK.

He backed the tiller out of a wooden box that his brother, Deane, had built on the back of his old Ford F-250. He eased it down two stout planks. It was like unloading a bull, and the tiller wasn’t a whole lot smaller than a bull.

We walked over the garden area that needed tilling. It was full of weeds—plantain, dandelions, thistles, and quack grass, to name a few. Steve suggested that we pull the quack grass, because that will spread when it is tilled up. We did our best, but pulling weeds isn’t easy when a tiller is pawing the ground nearby. Steve soon had the engine running, and pulling any more weeds at that point would have been dangerous to my banjo playing future.

“Are you sure it’s OK to till all this in?” I asked Deane. He has a degree in horticulture from the University of Minnesota.

“Should be fine,” he answered. That was what I needed to hear.

I turned to Steve for verification, but the gleam in his eye had turned into a wildfire, and I knew he would say anything just for the chance to till my garden.

And so the tilling commenced. Steve started out left, then went up the side. He turned to the right and gave it gas. He cut to the right, and swung the big beast around with the skill of a surgeon, He plowed down the middle, sinking up to his ankles in the black dirt. He whirled and twirled that tiller like a stout high school sweet-heart at the 1969 Paynseville prom.

“Got any more to till?” he asked when he had finished, and I could see I’d better find some more garden to till or there would be trouble.

So I pointed out another patch, and Steve tore through that patch with the same skill as an Indy 500 racer, chewing through sod and quack and a few small trees like a glacier in overdrive.

Oh, the joys of the harvest are more
 fun than making new beds. 
Noah and Cindy with broccoli joy.

Finally he was done, spent. He kneeled by the side of his tiller and tenderly cleaned the tines, getting ready for the next patch of ground that might be available for a free till.

Steve wrestled the tiller into its wooden cage and strapped it down securely. I thanked them, and I meant it. Then the Hillbrand Boys drove off into the sunset in search of fresh gardens.

Now the waiting has begun. I’m working in that Hillbrand soil, planting in it, scraping away the roots and leaves and seeds and stems and wondering if I will have the greatest garden in Birch Creek township, or the greatest patch of weeds.

Time will tell.

The clouds had a silver lining ~ May 27, 1999

David Heiller

The blackflies swarmed over us when we stopped for lunch at the portage going into Ima Lake. They were bad on the paths before that, but at Ima they hit like a blizzard of giant gnats. They were so thick we could barely breathe.

We choked down bologna and cheese sandwiches—seasoned with blackflies—and quickly pushed off toward to Thomas Lake.

We had been traveling for five hours, and had four more to go. Dave paddled alone in his 17—foot Grumman, using a double-bladed paddle that he bought for the occasion. Jim and I had Jim’s Old Town Penobscot.

Dave solo, and in the rain.

Dave had quickly figured out the nuances of paddling solo. He looked like he was doing a martial arts exercise with the paddle, moving it fluidly back and forth, back and forth, wax on, wax off, into the water. He skimmed across the water faster than Jim and I could paddle, although Jim and I weren’t paddling very hard, except when we were trying to evade blackflies.

The only drawback for Dave was that his legs and boots got soaked from water dripping off the paddle with every stroke. And every time he hoisted the canoe over his head at a portage, water came dribbling out the back, upsetting the balance on his shoulders and upsetting anyone who might be in the path of his personal waterfall.

We reached a campsite on the east side of Thomas at 6 p.m. We were bushed. Sixteen miles is a heck of a day for us. But it’s amazing how a beautiful campsite in the middle of canoe country can lift your spirits. It’s like the feeling you get when you arrive home after a long trip. You might be dead tired, but when you step out of the car, you feel instantly better. We were home.

We threw out fishing lines and set up Jim’s big tent. Jim and I went looking for firewood in the woods behind camp while Dave got supper ready. About 100 yards in, I heard some heavy, crunching noises. There stood a moose looking at me, no more than 30 yards away.

I called to Jim. He was as dumbstruck as me, that we were so close, and that it didn’t run away. We both watched the moose for about 15 minutes. It seemed less concerned about us than it did about eating its supper of twigs and leaves. It didn’t have a calf, and it wasn’t the biggest moose we’ve seen up north, although its bony head still towered over ours.

Jim and I started walking toward it slowly. We got to within 15 yards before it turned and trotted away in giant strides.

Dave and Jim

“That made the trip worthwhile right there,” Jim said. “I don’t care what else happens.” That summed up my feelings.

As we were getting ready to eat a supper of spaghetti, something took my cisco, and after a 10 minute battle, complete with Jim’s play-by-play of how to keep the rod tip up and don’t give it any slack, I pulled in a 23-inch, four-pound walleye, the biggest one I had ever caught.

It wasn’t hard falling asleep that night, especially after the rain started. A moose, a lunker, and rain on the tent. Heaven. Is there a more blissful sound than rain falling on a tent? And Jim’s tent was waterproof! That isn’t always the case with my tents.

A silver lining: no bugs

The weather turned rainy and windy for most of the next four days. It hurt the fishing a bit, and dampened our urge to go exploring. But the rain clouds turned out to have a silver lining, because blackflies don’t like overcast days, according to Jim, who knows things like that.

Jim and David:
 Hey it's raining, but there are no blackflies!

It seemed to be true, because the only time the blackflies were bad enough to bring out the netting was Friday evening when the sun came out. Jim and I put head nets on then. Dave didn’t have one, so he made supper with his rain jacket on and his hood pulled up around his face like a nun. It was kind of funny, especially since the weather was the nicest we had the entire trip, no wind and the sunlight golden. All you could see was half his face, and he wasn’t smiling. But I didn’t say anything. Critters can go wild when pestered by blackflies.

A fish took my cisco about that time, and after another fight complete with Jim’s unnecessary advice, I hauled in a 32-inch, 10-pound northern pike. We had caught more fish than we could eat by then, so I let him swim away.

The happy campers in the rare sunshine on this trip.

We packed up on Saturday and went half-way out in order to shorten our last day. We camped at a trout lake, which had such clear water and steep terrain that it was like being in the Alps.

Jim sat under a jackpine on Sunday morning watching his bobber in the water. The lake was like glass, dimpled with a light rain. Mist rose off the surface. A loon took off in front of us, churning the lake to froth for about 50 yards before becoming airborne. Jim talked about what a beautiful spot it was, and how much the boundary waters meant to him. I had been thinking the same thing. He always beats me to those sentiments.

As if in thanks, about 10 seconds later Jim’s bobber went down and he pulled in a 16-inch brook trout. We ate it with one that Dave caught for a final, delicious breakfast.

The rain and wind picked up as we headed out, and on Snowbank Lake we were suddenly faced with waves two feet high. They took us by surprise. We had to turn into the wind or risk getting swamped. Jim and I plowed through the whitecaps head on, getting sprayed and working harder than we had all trip.

Dave, alone in his canoe, had the same idea, and he worked even harder. The front end of his canoe was too light. It slapped up and down on the big waves, which seemed to come in twos and threes. He didn’t have anyone up front to dig into the waves. He took in water, which went to the back of the canoe, making matters worse. But he kept going, stroke after stroke, and he reached the lee side of a big island just after we did. He’s the toughest paddler you’ll ever see.

We rested for the first time in half an hour and talked about the rough haul. It was one last test for us, and like the blackflies and the rain, we passed. Then we paddled on, under the protection of the island and mainland for the rest of the way, back to the parking lot and home.

We’ll try for some nice, nice fish ~ May 16, 1996

David Heiller

There’s something about planning a fishing trip on a Sunday afternoon that can’t be beat. Notice that I didn’t say Sunday morning, Hilma.

Actually, I did jot a few things down on the back of the communion card during the sermon. Cook set. Minnow bucket. My mind couldn’t help but stray to the canoe trip.

This year will be the tenth straight for Dave and Jim and me. Paul missed one for the first time last year, but he’s back into the fold.

A little ice on the lake.

We’re heading up to the ice-bound Ely area to find some fins, if we can find some open water. Lakes are still covered with ice from the Winter That Wouldn’t Quit.

Our trip follows the same pattern every year. At first I have thoughts about how I shouldn’t go, how I should stay home and get the garden in and the screens on and the lawnmowers tuned up and the soffits painted and the rain gutter fixed and on and on and on.

But something always kicks in about a week before we’re supposed to go, and I push those essential jobs onto the non-essential list in my head, and get excited.

The something is fishing.

No one in our group is a die-hard fisherman. We don’t take along coolers and live traps. We don’t carry big tackle boxes that spread out like suburbia when you open them. One year I even forgot my rod and reel. Last year only Dave caught any fish, and just one at that, a small lake trout.

But that’s our excuse for going. We call it a fishing trip. And deep down inside we do dream, if I may speak for the others, of catching a lunker. A big fish. Ten pound walleye. Twenty pound northern.

The bait-du-jour

That’s what I was thinking when I looked at my Slug-Gos on Sunday. A Slug-Go is a big fat rubber slug with a hook in the middle. I have two of them, purchased from Gateway Amoco in Moose Lake. I had read an article in the Duluth News Tribune by a guy who had taken a fishing trip into Canada. The only thing that had caught any fish was a Slug-Go. He caught a lunker with it, a big northern like you see hanging on the wall at Stanton Lumber.

So I bought three, although I have never caught anything with one. “Maybe this year the Slug-Go will deliver,” I thought as I carefully laid them in my Tupperware tackle box.

I read the sales pitch on the back of the Slug-Go card: “Meet Slug-Go... the unique, soft stick bait with the erratic, out of control action that instigates savage strikes and aggressive behavior from all predators...”

How can that NOT catch fish?

I went through the rest of the tackle, sorting hooks and sinkers, admiring lures, making a mental note to buy some leaders and swivels and big hooks for the Slug-Go.

Jim and a northern and, 
it is snowing...

Then Sunday night at 10:30, I watched Butch Furtman’s fishing show on Channel 10. I don’t watch it often. Just this time of year. We’re usually sound asleep by then.

Cindy rolled over and groaned when she heard the show on. She can’t stand the way they talk when they land a fish. It’s so bad, you just have to laugh, which we did. They say the same thing with every fish, which by the way is usually at least two pounds.

“Nice strike.”

“Ooh, nice fish.”

“Solid.”

“Nice, nice fish.”

“Full bodied.”

“Nice girth.”

“Nice color.”

“Solid.”

“Nice, nice fish.”

Just once I’d like to hear them say, “Lousy fish. Skinny. Weak. Faded color. Lousy fish.”

If one of us catches a walleye on our trip, it sounds more like this:

“I got one on.”

“Nice one?”

“I don’t know.”

“What kind?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t lose it. We’re running low on instant potatoes.”

“Get the net.”

“Hold your rod tip up, she’ll snap your line.”

“Shut up, I know how to—darn it. Lost her. !!@#$%&*+!!”

“Was it a big one?”

“Yeah, Nice fish, Nice, nice fish.”

We’ll see, next week.