Mary Ellen Gabriel.
I don’t know why I thought I could catch a fish with a worm, a bent paper clip and string, but there I was, age 11, lying prone on the bank of the small creek that ran behind our house on an Air Force base in New Jersey. The sun shone warm on my back. Birds twittered overhead; skunk cabbage perfumed the air. For several afternoons, I dreamily swished my line through amber water with nary a nibble. I remember feeling very relaxed. I guess I had faith that eventually, something would happen. When the tug finally came, it was electrifying. I pulled up a speckled, saucer-shaped fish, splashed with blue, orange and gold. Its spiny dorsal fin pricked my fingers as I popped out the clip. So this was fishing! I couldn’t wait to tell my parents. Sounds like a sunfish, my father said. I caught his skeptical look: Sure, you caught that fish with a paper clip and string. If only I could show him! But pulling the fish out of its watery habitat even for a second had felt cruel. Letting it go was the sweetest part.
Soon after, my dad was transferred, and that was the beginning and the end of fishing for me until I landed, decades later, in Wisconsin. My husband, Rick, and I were newcomers from Chicago, with no family in the area but with an earnest eagerness to embrace our new home. Fishing offered a way in.
In Wisconsin, you either fish or you know someone who does. It’s a cultural touchstone, like hunting or the Packers. Friday fish fry dinners at low-lit bars. Trophy fish mounted on cabin walls. Lakes — four of them in our new hometown of Madison, alone — full of bass, perch, bluegill, crappie, musky and pike. The first year, we bought a Kevlar canoe. The next year, Rick, who had been taught to fish by his grandpa, went to Bob’s Rod & Reel on Winnebago Street and bought a fishing rod.
The two of us spent evenings at Lake Wingra trading casts. The click and sizzle of the line, the gentle interrogative call of the great horned owl — these sounds still remind me of those early days, settling into our Wisconsin life.
Then came two babies, right in a row. We had our hands full, and there were no more evenings when Rick looked at me hopefully and said, “Want to head to the lake for a few casts?”
A few years later, we traveled to Boulder Junction, Wisconsin, for our first “up-north” vacation. Steam rose from the placid surface of Little Kitten Lake, as the morning sun peeked over the black spruce and balsam fir trees. Rick floated out there somewhere, while I settled the boys — then 3 and 4 — in their booster seats in the lodge dining room.
Wildcat Lodge, a throwback to an earlier era, offered hearty breakfasts and dinners (a deal known, back in the day, as the “American Plan”). Our first taste of up north felt like heaven, the way vacations should feel. The only teasing worry was Rick’s whereabouts. The hour for him to meet us approached, then ticked past. Jim, the elderly proprietor, appeared at our table. His endearing habit was to make the rounds at breakfast and inquire about guests’ plans for the day.
“Where’s your hubby?” he asked, as my oldest boy sang “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain” and the younger one kept time with his spoon on his plate.
“He’s out fishing,” I said, feeling strangely like someone from Wisconsin. “He said he’d be back by nine, and it’s almost ten. Should I be concerned?”
Jim squinted out the window, past the hanging pots of geraniums animated by hummingbirds. Little Kitten Lake sparkled in the sunshine.
“When was the last time he went fishing by himself?” Jim asked.
I thought about it.
“Um, maybe four years ago?”
Jim gave the table a gentle rap with his knuckles. “I’d give him a bit longer,” he said, and moved off.
Fishing became part of our lives again, but in a different way. Rick bought the boys Scooby Doo poles and often took them to the lake to give me a break. This was amazing, until they started bringing fish home to eat. Rick would usually leave them in a bucket of lake water until he had a spare moment to clean and fillet them. One evening, those three came home from fishing and went right back out again for pizza. I was reading on the screened-in porch, enjoying an extra dollop of absolute quiet, when I heard a strange noise in the kitchen.
“Hello?” I called. No answer. I tiptoed into the kitchen and flipped on the light. In the sink lay a string of six fish — perch, as I recall. One of them gave a mighty flop, the hook in its mouth striking the sink’s stainless steel bottom with a hair-raising “clink!” I screamed, and went running for a bucket of water so they could die in greater comfort.
It’s true that fishing can be a cruel and messy pursuit — a couple of fish accidentally hooked through the cheek or eye, and I was done. This makes me a hypocrite, since I do eat fish caught by family members. I refuse to watch their demise, though I do have to think about it, which is more than many of us do when we sit down to a meal.
Over the years, we came to agreement on a few things: No fish left to expire in the sink (ever). No fish cleaning in the house. Not every vacation up north has to be a fishing vacation — just kidding, Rick would never have agreed to that one.
Last year, we met our youngest son, now 24, up in Hayward for the Fourth of July. The day was cool and overcast. The guys fished while I swam in water so clear I could see the sand below. A large pike was brought in on a line behind the canoe. It was dispatched on a stump with the blunt end of a hatchet (I didn’t watch). Rick rolled the filets in Shore Lunch, fried them in oil, and doused them with fresh lemon juice. We lifted them from a white plate and savored their delicate flavor on our tongues. It was summer up north in Wisconsin and we were, after all, Wisconsin people.
Mary Ellen Gabriel is an online content editor at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. She enjoys writing about family, history and the natural world.
