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| Photo by Mark Hoffman |
Among my other failings, I’ve never been particularly good at timely comebacks. A pretty girl on an elevator asks, “Is it still raining outside?” and three days later I come up with “The square root of sixteen is four.” So it was no surprise that I was left speechless when the charter-boat client outside an Algoma motel said, “Man, we feel sorry for you guys on the breakwater.”
Really?
Sorry for us?
I suppose he was referring to we deluded souls who line the wave-washed concrete while the boats slide by in the 5 a.m. darkness. If you’ve followed my column for awhile—and that’s no badge of honor—you know that one of my all-time favorite outdoor activities is fishing for fall-run trout and salmon off of Lake Michigan’s piers. Now, “favorite” would seem to imply a certain level of expertise on my part, but we needn’t go that far. After all, an expert wouldn’t have to run the gauntlet back down the entire length of the pier after pitching into the drink off of an algae-covered rock.
Squish squish squish.
“Refreshing, is it?”
Squish squish.
“You’re in the motel, right? I believe they do have showers.”
Squish squish squish.
“Most folks just cast for them, you know.”
An expert also wouldn’t do what I did last Saturday as I write this, when I got up early to drive to Port Washington. It’s a route I could drive in my sleep, and in fact I probably have. Madison, Sun Prairie, and Beaver Dam, the route goes; followed by Horicon, Allenton, West Bend, Newburg, and Saukville, and finally Port Washington. They’re all fine towns, but not nearly as interesting on the way home, particularly when the reason you’re going home is because you showed up at the harbor with the bottom section of your salmon rod and the top section of your walleye rod. (Yeah, I can hear you already: Just use the same outfit for both. Philistines.)
The sun and the swells out on the lake can lull a fisherman to sleep, particularly if he hasn’t had a strike in awhile, or at all. The successful pier angler must make a friend of boredom in order to hang in there until a hot stretch, which announces itself out of nowhere with a happy shout from a fellow out on the rocks across the way.
“Hey, isn’t that the guy I was talking to earlier?” you think to yourself. “The guy who drove up from Cudahy? Sure enough, it’s Marshmallow Man.”
Everybody exists by nicknames out here in this little breakwater community, where sometimes you catch one, and sometimes you catch three, but more often you hook four and lose all four. There’s Nebraska Dude, named for obvious reasons, there’s the man my fellow breakwater haunter Mark and I have dubbed William Henderson for his resemblance to the ex-Packer fullback, and there’s us, and I’m pretty sure we’re known to our fellow fishermen as The Bald Guys.
And there are Meatloaf and his pal, who were here already by the time we arrived. By now it’s dark, and they’ve been here on the pier for fourteen hours. Were I more mathematically inclined, I’d point out that during their stay their catch averaged exactly zero fish per hour while they lost 0.13 fish per hour. Meatloaf and his buddy pack up their gear by the light of a lantern, their faces glowing like burnished apples from the wind and the sun, while Meatloaf laughs to the rest of the pier about his luck. If he’s unhappy, you’d sure never know it.
“Guys packing up already?” someone down toward the pierhead yells.
“Why don’t you take up knitting?” someone else catcalls.
“I don’t think you guys gave it a fair shot,” my friend Mark adds.
The Kids are out here, too, probably up past their bedtimes. They have bare-bones “kid” gear, probably not capable of holding up to the run of a king salmon, and this morning I took pity on one of them.
“Here, lemme look at your lure,” I said, and he swung it over to me. It was a lightweight paper-thin spoon, of the type used for trolling, and he could pitch it all of about fifteen feet.
“I’ll get you all set up,” I said, and tied on a good casting spoon, a three-quarters –ounce K.O. Wobbler. Perhaps, in my wisdom, I added a few general pointers in my kindliest voice. Maybe I even patted his head.
Now, at the end of the day, he was back. His buddy—this is God’s honest truth—had just caught a brown trout in the eight-pound range on the very same spoon I had earlier taken off of his line. He tossed the lure I had borrowed him by my gear.
“Thanks,” he said in a sullen voice, and to his words I mentally added for nothing, old-timer.
Folks here on the piers are crazy about fish in a way that a lot of people in the high-dollar boats wouldn’t understand, or more likely, have forgotten. Here, you never hear, “Crap, we only got nine,” and nobody snaps a desultory photo and pitches a fish into the box headlong. People here fight just to be the one who gets to net a fish, and when a big king or rare steelhead is lost the pain is felt by all on the pier.
“Awww!” comes the simultaneous groan.
I love boats—I’ve been on charters before, and will be again. But on this day I think back to the two brothers who floated down the pier to laudatory comments, each holding onto one side of a net which cradled two huge chinooks, and finally I have my response to the well-meaning charter-boat client outside the motel: Heck, man. We feel sorry for you.
I suppose he was referring to we deluded souls who line the wave-washed concrete while the boats slide by in the 5 a.m. darkness. If you’ve followed my column for awhile—and that’s no badge of honor—you know that one of my all-time favorite outdoor activities is fishing for fall-run trout and salmon off of Lake Michigan’s piers. Now, “favorite” would seem to imply a certain level of expertise on my part, but we needn’t go that far. After all, an expert wouldn’t have to run the gauntlet back down the entire length of the pier after pitching into the drink off of an algae-covered rock.
Squish squish squish.
“Refreshing, is it?”
Squish squish.
“You’re in the motel, right? I believe they do have showers.”
Squish squish squish.
“Most folks just cast for them, you know.”
 |
| Photo by Kurt |
The sun and the swells out on the lake can lull a fisherman to sleep, particularly if he hasn’t had a strike in awhile, or at all. The successful pier angler must make a friend of boredom in order to hang in there until a hot stretch, which announces itself out of nowhere with a happy shout from a fellow out on the rocks across the way.
 |
| Photo by Kurt |
Everybody exists by nicknames out here in this little breakwater community, where sometimes you catch one, and sometimes you catch three, but more often you hook four and lose all four. There’s Nebraska Dude, named for obvious reasons, there’s the man my fellow breakwater haunter Mark and I have dubbed William Henderson for his resemblance to the ex-Packer fullback, and there’s us, and I’m pretty sure we’re known to our fellow fishermen as The Bald Guys.
And there are Meatloaf and his pal, who were here already by the time we arrived. By now it’s dark, and they’ve been here on the pier for fourteen hours. Were I more mathematically inclined, I’d point out that during their stay their catch averaged exactly zero fish per hour while they lost 0.13 fish per hour. Meatloaf and his buddy pack up their gear by the light of a lantern, their faces glowing like burnished apples from the wind and the sun, while Meatloaf laughs to the rest of the pier about his luck. If he’s unhappy, you’d sure never know it.
 |
| Photo by Mark Hoffman |
“Why don’t you take up knitting?” someone else catcalls.
“I don’t think you guys gave it a fair shot,” my friend Mark adds.
The Kids are out here, too, probably up past their bedtimes. They have bare-bones “kid” gear, probably not capable of holding up to the run of a king salmon, and this morning I took pity on one of them.
“Here, lemme look at your lure,” I said, and he swung it over to me. It was a lightweight paper-thin spoon, of the type used for trolling, and he could pitch it all of about fifteen feet.
“I’ll get you all set up,” I said, and tied on a good casting spoon, a three-quarters –ounce K.O. Wobbler. Perhaps, in my wisdom, I added a few general pointers in my kindliest voice. Maybe I even patted his head.
Now, at the end of the day, he was back. His buddy—this is God’s honest truth—had just caught a brown trout in the eight-pound range on the very same spoon I had earlier taken off of his line. He tossed the lure I had borrowed him by my gear.
“Thanks,” he said in a sullen voice, and to his words I mentally added for nothing, old-timer.
 |
| Photo by Kurt |
“Awww!” comes the simultaneous groan.
I love boats—I’ve been on charters before, and will be again. But on this day I think back to the two brothers who floated down the pier to laudatory comments, each holding onto one side of a net which cradled two huge chinooks, and finally I have my response to the well-meaning charter-boat client outside the motel: Heck, man. We feel sorry for you.
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