Why I Fish

The Biz Whispers columnist takes a brief break from business scribbles to examine his passion for the sport of fishing.

The author hoists a hefty smallmouth bass before releasing it. Photo by Mindy Jost.

At least once a year, my heart feels the tug of the North woods.

It’s time to go fishing.

Strip off the old fishing line, all kinky and loopy from the “memory” of being coiled on the reel for a year. Replace it with fresh, new line.

Sort through the tackle box and take inventory. Do I have enough jigs? Spinners? Crankbaits? Soft plastic baits? Sinkers? Hooks? Bobbers?

The answer is always “no,” so it’s off to the sporting goods store to resupply. Fishing gear salesmen love guys like me.

Load the truck and head north — always north.

Sure, it’s an investment of time, travel and money that could be avoided if I just stayed home and fished in Iowa. I did just that many times in the past, but it just...isn’t...the same.

When I retired, I bought a used fishing boat. It was equipped with a 40-horsepower tiller-steered outboard motor, a remote-controlled trolling motor on the bow, and two high-end electronic depth finders. It was the perfect fishing boat. My plan was to make a trip or two up north each year, and then spend many a day launching my boat into lowa waters to fish locally.

After a few years, I sold the boat and I now rent one when we travel north to a fishing resort.

Iowa’s Water Woes

It turns out I didn’t use the boat in lowa. It occurred to me that I no longer wanted to dip my boat, trailer or anything else in lowa’s mucked-up public waterways. The state’s water contamination from nitrogen, phosphorus and who-knows-what has been widely publicized. On Substack, Art Cullen posted an insightful editorial on this subject. It’s highly recommended reading.

For me, it’s not just about the fear of harvesting fish from icky waters. I typically practice “catch and release” anyway, meaning I put back most of the fish I catch. I might keep a couple for a fish fry, but I’m not a “meat hog.” Filling a stringer of keepers? That’s not why I fish.

I just didn’t like the idea of recreation in contaminated water. Also, I prefer the scenery up north over lowa’s reservoirs or small manmade lakes.

At this point, you might ask: So why not move to Minnesota? Well, that that ship has sailed. At this stage in our lives, Iowa is home.

In Minnesota, I have fished Lake of the Woods, Mille Lacs, Crane Lake, Gull Lake, Ten Mile Lake, Leech Lake, Lake Kabetogama, the Rum River and Lake Vermilion, among others.

As a young man, I joined some buddies on a couple of canoe trips along the Minnesota-Canada border, at Voyageurs National Park. We’d paddle for hours until we reached shore, beached the canoes and began our portage. We emptied the canoes and turned them upside down. One camper balanced the boat atop his head and shoulders while his partner gathered up gear. Then it was time to hike up a crude trail to a smaller and hopefully unoccupied lake. Man-eating deer flies strafed us along the way, even biting through thick flannel shirts.

Sometimes this exercise required more than one hike to haul the gear. Worse, sometimes we’d portage more than once in a day. Then, you set up camp with pitched tents.

Campsite Panic

We were amateurs, not voyageurs. On my first trip, we paddled, portaged, made camp and were all set at the lake until we realized something was missing:

Beer! No one had brought any beer into this heart of darkness. The horror!

My friend Chris and I volunteered to portage out of our small lake and make the long paddle back to a Canadian trading post on Crane Lake. They sold beer there. When we returned, exhausted, with several cases of cheap beer, we were cheered as conquering heroes by our campmates.

For sure, the paddling and camping days are over for me. I couldn’t hack those trips anymore. Give me a boat with a motor, and a furnished cabin with indoor plumbing.

I confess there were times back in the day when fishing was simply a good excuse for some of us young knuckleheads to ice down some beer and “party” fish on the lake. Today, that’s not why I fish — not anymore. I rarely have a taste of alcohol while angling.

Vermilion has been my fishing destination of late. It is a beautiful, majestic, wilderness setting. Surrounded by the Canadian Shield and deep forests, the lake shoreline sprawls hundreds of miles and is dotted with 365 islands. It’s home to abundant gamefish: walleyes, muskies, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, northern pike and crappies.

There are trophy fish to be had in Vermilion, too, but I wouldn’t think of hiring a taxidermist to mount a big, dead fish so I could display it on a wall. That’s not why I fish.

Vermilion also offers easy access to Minnesota bike trails. That’s a must — not for me, but for my wife Mindy, who bikes every day and has zero interest in fishing. We agree it’s a workable vacation: I fish while she bikes, and then we reacquaint over dinner at the cabin. She also brings a bag bulging with books to read outside or in the screened-in porch.

A Solitary Man

So I fish alone most of the time. Which is fine with me. Most of my friends have no interest in angling. They’d rather golf. Or watch sports on TV. Or they’re dead.

Alone in a boat, I have the freedom to explore any point, sandbar, island or weed line I choose, as long as I want. The only deadline is to be back at the dock before dark.

I’m not a professional guide or tournament fisherman. Far from it. But I’ve learned a few things. As Ernest Hemingway wrote in The Old Man and the Sea, “I may not be as strong as I think, but I know many tricks and I have resolution.”

The late Tom Kollings, a longtime outdoors writer for The Des Moines Register, once invited me to accompany him to Lake Mille Lacs in north-central Minnesota to fish for walleye with Gary Roach. Roach is a Minnesota fishing legend and has made a career as “Mister Walleye.”

Roach motored us out far to the middle of Mille Lacs, to an area known as the “mud flats.” There, Roach zig-zagged for a considerable time, his eyes glued to an electronic depth finder until he finally found digital evidence of fish on the screen. Roach explained, “The most important thing is to find the fish first. Look at these other guys out there, just aimlessly wandering around. If you want to catch fish, then you have to be on the fish.”

His strategy paid off. I caught a five-pound walleye that sunny afternoon, which we netted, photographed and released.

“Fish fish,” Roach reminded me.

Mille Lacs, incidentally, is a beacon for me because that is where I met my good friend Joe in the ’80s. Joe, a native Minnesotan, owned a resort on the south shore of the lake. My wife, daughter and I were among a group of families that spent a week together there each August. Those were good times and we developed many friendships. Joe and I have shared many laughs together, in a boat or on a golf course.

Schooled by Dad

I learned the basics of fishing from my dad, who’s been gone more than 20 years now. He took our family to reservoirs, rivers and lakes in lowa, where we mostly caught bullheads and carp. Likewise, I taught fishing 101 to our daughter, Katie. She was pretty good at it, but she never really caught the fever like her Old Man.

My dad also taught me how to hunt. We’d join a group, usually including an uncle and a cousin, and we’d crunch through cornfields in search of ring-necked pheasants in eastern lowa. It was kind of ridiculous for a kid who could barely see over the top of standing field corn.

But I lost the desire for hunting years ago. My last outing was with our golden retriever, Maggie, who flushed a pheasant from creekside grassland. I dropped the bird with a single shot, and Maggie went fetching. She was as happy as l’d ever seen her.

Sadly, Maggie developed severe hip dysplasia. It got to the point where it hurt her just to walk, let alone chase upland game birds. We had to put her down. She was only 3 years old.

My disinterest in hunting went beyond the loss of a beloved pet, however. I just didn’t want to pull the trigger anymore. I found no pleasure in downing a pheasant or quail, let alone targeting big game such as deer. In hunting, there is no “catch-and-release.”

Loon photo by Jeremy Hynes on Unplash.

Thoreau’s Insight

So why do I fish?

Henry David Thoreau has been quoted as saying, “Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.”

At age 72, I think I get it. Fishing has always been cathartic for me. It doesn't matter whether the fish are biting, although of course it’s more fun if they are. I just enjoy the process of trying to track down a pod of fish and persuade them to bite something.

Drifting over rocky bottomed water, refreshed by a cool breeze, watching my line bounce in the “walleye chop” rhythm of waves, crooned by the yodeling loons.

Sometimes I’ll see bald eagles perched atop towering trees, scanning the water below. Or white-tailed deer bounding from rocky shorelines and vanishing into dense forest greenery. Now and then, a leaping northern pike performs an aerial stunt before crashing back into the lake water.

For me, fishing on a lake is a welcome, solitary sanctuary for reflection, a place to find peace.

The road north is a path to reviving cherished memories, forged long ago with friends, and between the father and the son.

That’s why I fish.

This column is part of a fast-growing collection of reporting and writing from Iowa writers. Check out their work at the Iowa Writers Collaborative.

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