When I was young—like a lot of Wisconsin Outdoor Journal readers, I’m guessing—I wanted to grow up to be a fisheries biologist. But while attending the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, I found that I just couldn’t hack the high-level mathematics courses which were required. I started out in the lowliest remedial class with the other dunces and got an “F.” I took the class again the following semester and received a pity “D.” I then took Math for Dunces B (prerequisite: Math for Dunces A) and again received an “F,” followed by a “D,” and so on and so on, until I finally met my numerical Waterloo in a segment on imaginary numbers. I gave imaginary answers on exams, and thus ended my dream of becoming a fisheries biologist.
     My point is that not all of our childhood dreams come true. Maybe you are a firefighter, or a doctor, or even an astronaut, in which case, hey, well done with that whole landing on the moon thing. But most of us are accountants, or mill-workers, or short-order cooks, and while these jobs may pay the bills, and we may even like them, they’re certainly not what we had envisioned for ourselves.
     Me?
     I’m a courier.
     I like it, but it’s not what I thought I’d be when I was a kid, and sometimes it’s hard to make ends meet. Which is why I took a part-time job working for tips as a male burlesque review dancer-—you know, the type of guy who entertains your wife or girlfriend while you’re away at deer camp. Hey, don’t knock it. I worked only ten hours last week and pulled in a cool two dollars and fifty cents. And that’s tax-free, folks.
     Which brings me to rough fish. We can’t all be walleyes in the lake of life. Some of us are destined to be sheepshead, or suckers, or burbot.
     Or carp.
     I’ve had plenty of experience with rough fish over the years, starting with when I was a kid and sent off to the Department of Natural Resources for a book (which I still have) entitled “Rough Fish, Crayfish, and Turtles: How to Catch, Clean, and Prepare Them, and Why.” I became obsessed with the idea of feeding my family with a resource which, as the book notes, is “available in the fresh waters of Wisconsin and the rest of the United States by the hundreds of millions of pounds.”
     I ran set lines which I checked while doing my paper route, and the carp I snagged accidentally while pursuing walleyes and smallmouths were put to use. Once, I snagged a 30-pounder which I had to swim after, and after I landed it and retrieved one of my prized few Rapalas I pedaled home and cut the carp in half down the backbone with my Dad’s radial-arm saw. We had the fish smoked, and to this day whenever I get those little involuntary eye twitches I think of that carp and the amount of PCB’s we must have ingested.
     Mealtimes at the Helker household were very interesting for a period of time. My mother, ever encouraging, cooked whatever I provided, and my long-suffering father, the original meat-and-potatoes guy, would sigh, look at his plate, and put fork to yet another meal of sucare (we called it that to give it that special Old World ambience.)
     My interest in rough fish did not extend only to their gastronomical qualities. I also cut the “lucky stones” out of the skulls of sheepshead, with an eye toward using them to make jewelry. You know those jewelry commercials they show on television around the holidays, where a woman opens a small box next to the Christmas tree and her eyes get all glassy like a walleye’s and she says something along the lines of, “Oohh, Fred”? Well, imagine your loved one opening a small box after you’ve lit the candles and poured her another glass of wine. Inside the box she’ll find a necklace fashioned from calcareous structures extracted from the skulls of dead fish.
     The result?
     Pure romance, my friend. You’ll have to send the kids off to the in-laws for a solid week.
     I guess my interest in sheepshead continues unabated. A few years ago my friend Mark and I conceived of a tournament as a way for our old group of high school buddies to get together. Mark, a graphic designer, executed the RSVP card for which I wrote the text:
     As you hail, or have hailed, from the Fox Cities, you must be aware of such fishing tournaments as Otter Street and Fond du Lac’s Walleye Weekend. These tournaments, while grand in their own right, do not involve the great denizen of the Winnebago System: the freshwater drum…the sheepshead…the Gray Ghost.
     It is high time that such matters be rectified. So let it here be noted that you are cordially invited to the Gray Ghost Invitational Fishing Tournament to be held at Calumet County Park on May 21st.
     The event will begin, more or less sharply, at 11 a.m., with fishing concluded by 3 p.m. A highly technical weigh-in procedure which is too involved to detail to the layman, but which involves a garbage bag attached to a Zebco De-Liar, will follow. In addition to the honor and glory of it all a prize of sufficient grandeur will be awarded during cocktail hour, unless you are Birdy, in which case you are already too competitive and need no additional encouragement. Those interested may stick around for Poisson au Poivre avec Pommes de Frites, which is French for “Peppered Sheepshead with French Fries.” As far as you know.
     No entrance fees are required. You need only bring your license, fishing tackle, bait, and something for the grill at lunch. Alcoholic beverages may be brought as well, although you should know that overimbibing may cause you to miss the delicate tap of the Gray Ghost and thus forfeit your chance at angling immortality.
     The favor of a reply is requested:
Yes, I am fantastically interested and will attend. It is high time the Gray Ghost gets its due.
I am not particularly interested in fishing for sheepshead. However, the opportunity to drink beer under the guise of a sanctioned function sounds good to me.
You guys have too much time on your hands.

     Maybe this will be the year The Gray Ghost Invitational actually takes place, maybe not. But I will forsake the game fish in the Madison lakes once or twice this summer and instead walk to the creek near my home. I’m sure it’s loaded with rough fish, and some days that’s about my speed. Like I said, not all of us can be walleyes in the lake of life. Some of us are doomed to be forever vacuuming the primordial substrate, endlessly rooting and rooting, grubbing with protruding appendage through slime and muck and mire in search of some half-rotten morsel.
     But then, if you’re a Chicago Bears fan, you already know that.