As we bid farewell to the year 2020 we seem to be starting our own new tradition of how we transition from the outgoing President to the incoming one. Just when we have been led to believe that things couldn’t get any worse, they do. I do believe that, no matter who you supported in the race for President, we need to be focused on the future and not dwell on the past but grow and learn from it. It is sad to see our country in such disarray at a time when we really need to be coming together as One Nation Under God. I don’t like to share my political views in my column, but I needed to get this off of my chest.
I have been seeing quite a few portable fish houses on our area lakes. Most of the traffic seems to be on the bay by Edgewater Park. I assume that most of these fishermen had fished this part of the lake last winter and are coming back again this year. I have heard that they have been catching a mixed bag of crappies, sunnies, walleye, bass and northern. We have a healthy fish population on Fountain Lake, which can result in some mighty tasty eating.
Last week my oldest grandson, Trevor, who was fishing with his Uncle Jeremy, sent me a picture of a nice bucket of fish, which contained sunfish, crappie and a nice, eating size walleye. He asked if I wanted a few for a meal for myself and his grandma and I never hesitated. The next day after work, he dropped off just enough fillets for a nice meal.
I mentored Trevor when he was younger and he has picked up a few of my habits along the way, like keeping no more fish than you need or are legally allowed. Another little thing that he had picked up from me was I’ve never liked fishing in a crowd of people. Although there were a lot of houses in one certain spot, they decided to fish in an area where they marked fish and there were no other houses. It definitely paid dividends for them, and for his Grandma and I, it meant a very tasty fish supper.
A few years ago when the channel by Frank Hall Park was an ice fishing hot spot, Trevor discovered that fishing during the day or when there were a lot of fishermen around didn’t pay. So he decided to fish later at night, and it yielded results. In the last few years, the channel hasn’t been that good, which Trevor attributed, partially, to the high number of carp. It wasn’t that long ago that the channel looked like a little village. I have seen a few folks fishing on the channel in the past week, so maybe there is a chance that the fish are biting there once again.
One thing that I’d like to stress about teaching our youth about the sports of hunting and fishing, is always to respect the other guy, whether it is on the water, on shore or in the woods. While fishing, I like to stress not keeping everything, but to be selective and always keep what you can eat. Don’t over-keep even if you are within the limit. If you are on the ice, please clean up after yourself by not littering.
Back in the day when I was a youth, you would see pictures of fishermen in front of a lodge with many, many fish hanging from a pole. That was impressive back then, but in today’s outdoors I would feel like I was being greedy, even if it was within the legal limit. That is only my opinion, but I am a firm believer in keeping enough fish for a meal or two, but not an over-abundance.
When my wife and I were younger and would take the boys up north on vacation, we caught and kept fish and we would use waxed cardboard milk containers to freeze fish in. It eventually got to be wasteful because it seemed like each year I would find a container buried in the bottom of the freezer. I never took over my limit, but finding a surprise like that usually meant “freezer burn” and throwing out a valuable resource. The other bad part of that was that the container was hard to mark, so you usually had to guess what was in it. The invention of the Zip-lock bag made it much easier. If I have fish in the freezer today, it will only be enough for a meal.
Until next time: Making time to teach a youth the right way to fish and to respect the environment is one way to ensure that the sport will be there for future generations.
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