The Suburban Sportsman

Master versus Apprentice. It’s an archetype that spans literature, film and popular culture. From Darth Vader and Obi Wan Kenobi to Splinter and Shredder to U2 and Coldplay, all who teach are eventually pitted against their pupils. Recently, I faced such a circumstance with my long-time friend Josh.

Master (left) and Apprentice (right)

Josh, though he doesn’t look the part, is an avid angler and learned a large majority of the sport from myself during our many aquatic excursions throughout Illinois. Normally, he consults me on what lure to use and then applies the knowledge with remarkable deft.

However, 20 minutes into the first day on the water during our trip to Duck Lake, of Wisconsin’s Eagle River Chain, Josh challenged my alpha status.

“This lure’s gonna kick your ass,” Josh said smugly as he removed his new Rapala Flat Rap from it’s packaging. “Just watch.”

I ignored Josh’s remark; he always said crap like that when he was feeling even remotely confident in a fishing decision he’d made. And since we were on a lake we had never fished before, I figured I’d remain quiet and let him have his moment.

That mentality lasted for all of five seconds.

In an act of silent rebellion, I began moving the boat into a position that made it tough for him to work the downed-timber along the shoreline.

Just as my diabolic plot to skunk Josh’s infallible lure was unfolding, I caught him setting the hook out of the corner of my eye.

“Muskie!” yelled Josh.

“Bastard,” I thought, and reluctantly grabbed the net.

As Josh brought the fish to the boat, I netted the normally elusive predator and stared at its gold and opaque-blue hue. This was a gorgeous animal, not that large, but still gorgeous.

“Ha,” Josh said, breaking my trance. “First cast. Right out of the package!”

Cole and Jake, who comprised the other half of our fishing fellowship, laughed at the audacity of the situation. This only intensified Josh’s smugness. He was ripe to tear me a new one if I didn’t do something quick.

(Luckily, I subscribe to the master/apprentice archetype, and like all good teachers, I don’t show my students everything I know)

I reached into my tackle box and pulled out my ace-in-the hole, my force-lightning if you will…The Lucky Craft pointer, the Ferrari of jerkbaits

“Josh, you defeated me, and I became more powerful than you could ever imagine,” I felt like saying, as I tied the lure on.

“Watch this,” I retorted instead, and casted the jerkbait, admiring its action as it irradically made its way through the water.

However, as the lure got closer to the boat, my heart sank. Nothing trailed my bait. And as I lifted the immaculate lure out of the water…A MUSKIE NAILED IT.

I WAS AMAZED AT THE STRIKE….and at the fact that I had missed the fish. Josh laughed, secure in his victory.

This scene would become familiar throughout our 3-day excursion in the Northwoods, although the actors would rotate between Josh, Cole, Jake and myself. 14 musky were caught between the 4 of us (8 for me, 5 for Josh), all while fishing for walleye, smallmouth and largemouth. They hit on plastics, jerkbaits, jigs and crankbaits. For 72 hours we were spoiled, and it was bliss.

Josh nows kicks my ass on a regular basis

Though I eventually won the war, Josh won that battle and it stills stings. However, I take solace in knowing that his passion for fishing is blossoming and hopefully he will pass it on to others, just as I passed it on to him. Because really, this relationship is all fishermen have to retain our sport. Lakes are shrinking, suburbs are growing and the aura of the outdoors is fading.

So teach your friends and family to fish, just don’t teach them everything. And Josh, I bought one of those Flat Raps and can’t catch shit on the stupid thing.

One of the great merits of being a fisherman or a hunter is that you experience things few others rarely do. While fishing, I’ve inadvertently swam with dolphins, come toe to toe with 14 -foot alligators and fought sharks twice my size.

However, occasionally angling exploits can have the opposite effect, exposing fishermen to detestable sites that no one should witness. And as the herd of naked elderly men meandered down the beach towards me, I knew I was having one such experience.

The day began inconspicuously. After loading up my car with my walleye gear, beach towel and lunch, I headed toward Mazomanie State Natural Area (a pristine conglomeration of islands along the Wisconsin River) to enjoy the unseasonably warm April weather.

I had noticed Mazo during a hiking excursion to nearby Ferry Bluffs and its islands struck me as a potential honey-hole. They had deep, undercut banks, easy access to the main river channel and plenty of structure current breaks along their outside edge. Additionally, narrow sandbars ran between the islands and the river’s southern shoreline so I could easily wade out to my destination. Little did I know the dark secret these waters held.

Upon arriving at Mazo, I quickly glanced at the warped, wooden state park sign to ensure that fishing was allowed, and then proceeded out to the islands.

Fishing, as expected, was phenomenal. Walleyes were more than obliging, and some smallmouth even joined in the fray. Then, everything went downhill.

I noticed several silhouetted figures approaching in the distance, their figures blocked by the suns glare off the sand and water. I sat up to give the tradition fishermen’s wave, and was horrified by what I saw.

Not 25 yards from me were ten 60- to 70-year-old men, naked as the day they were born. I snapped out of my sun-baked daze, threw on my shirt and began packing…Then the dreaded question came.

“Catching anything?” asked one of the nudists.

“Shit,” I thought to myself, “These are talkative nudists. The men’s locker room taken to some terrible extreme.”

I panicked, and did the only thing I could think of. I bolted. Like a bat-out-of-hell I sprinted through the ankle-deep water, up the beach, past the woods and into my car.

After arriving back in Madison, and doing a more thorough search on Mazo beach, I found out that it is an infamous nudist gathering spot during the summer months.

You know, for all the complaining I do about jet-skis, I’d take them any day over that terrible sight.

As I lay on the stern of the 24-foot Boston Whaler, gazing at the menagerie of charter boats surrounding us, I gradually capitulated to the Florida sun. We had set out this spring morning in pursuit of sharks off of Captiva Island’s infamous

Captain Butch

Redfish Pass, but success had eluded us. The lifeless rod sitting in my hands, the crowded local reef and the guide’s progressively longer hits from his cigarette suggested that our prey had moved to more bountiful harvests. Then, just as my subconscious was drifting towards the girls in the boat adjacent to ours, it happened.

“Tarpon!” Captain Butch yelled as my salt-encrusted baitcaster purged yard after yard of line. Quickly I swept the rod, embedding the circle hook in the corner of the fish’s mouth, kicking its survival instincts into high gear. The acrobatic display that followed is permanently embedded in my memory – flips and turns that even Shaun White would envy. I was frozen in time, mesmerized by the power before me. But the fight that could have taken hours, was over in moments. The same jumps that captivated, me were also my undoing, as the fish eventually wrapped the line and threw the hook. That day I returned to the dock sunburnt and tarponless.

I thought about that fish for the next several years until I had the chance to return to Captiva. Unfortunately, I was met with disappointment when Butch informed me that the tarpon run hadn’t started yet and I had a better chance of catching a manta ray than the 100lb minnow (tarpon do having a striking resemblance to an overgrown shiner) I was after. Defeated, I returned to our resort’s mangrove ponds with my cousin Matt and proceeded to fish for snook and redfish.

After several hours of less-than-productive action, boredom crept in and we began to joke about our grandpa George. A life-long fisherman, Grandpa had a unique style of fishing, often emulated by Bill Dance, which involved as much sitting as possible. Because of his sedentary tactics, Grandpa would frequently cast backward and over his head instead of turning around, usually resulting in a massive bird’s nest rather than a convenient trick. In honor of his approach, and to stave off further lethargy, I attempted a “grandpa cast” into the mangroves. Matt and I broke down laughing as the lure hit the water about 20 feet from shore.

Suddenly, the water erupted around my lure. Regaining my composure I set

The Grandpa Cast Tarpon

the hook, and stared in awe as a tarpon leapt from the pond! I fought the fish for just five minutes on my light spinning tackle, but I was giddy. I landed the fish, snapped a photo and released the silver king back to his brackish domain. I looked at my cousin and laughed, “Scratch that off the ‘Things to Catch Before I Die’ list.” Exhausted, we went back to the room and detailed our encounter to my dad.

This fish, though much smaller than what I hoped to catch, expands upon the theme I spoke about in my first post, “Inspiration”. Fisherman often set lofty expectations, which, while challenging us to become better sportsmen, can mute our overall enjoyment of each catch. Take a step back and remember a three-pound bass, a thirty-six-inch muskie and even a twelve-inch crappie are all fantastic catches. Embracing the above average will make the extraordinary seem even more spectacular.

…As a side note, I still have yet to catch a 100+lb tarpon. This remains one of my life-long dreams, and is second only to catching a permit on 6lb tackle.

The word fishermen brings to mind many adjectives – patient, persistent and rugged to name a few. However, I would argue that the defining trait all successful anglers share is sympathy.

Now countless girlfriends and wives may disagree, but allow me to rationalize…

A fishing trip’s outcome hinges on the angler’s ability to relate to his prey’s physical and mental state. For instance, on a windy day, a sub-par fishermen might head towards a sheltered shoreline or bay because it makes boat and lure control substantially easier. This decision is based on selfish motives and will ultimate lead towards failure.

In contrast, the sympathetic  angler realizes that wind makes a fish’s life much easier, concentrating bait into key locations, resulting in near effortless hunting. This person inconveniences himself, and is rewarded for the effort.

Many anglers enjoy taking this emotional investment further, striving for an empathetic relationship with fish. This selfless mentality is most apparent around the holidays.

During this time, plummeting water temperatures force fish to overhaul their feeding strategies. They pursue slow moving prey to ensure that their calorie expenditure does not exceed the caloric value of the food they ingest (packing on the pounds, essentially). This behavior is often accompanied by fish retreating to their favorite wintering holes. Fishermen simulate these conditions by lounging on couches and gorging themselves on meals prepared by reluctant relatives and spouses. And while the casual viewer may interpret this as gluttonous, it is actually something much deeper.

Despite this obvious altruism and depth, fishermen remain stereotyped as emotionally, well….vacant. Shallow pools of feelings where love means a cold beer and commitment is using the same lure for at least an hour. But in my mind, nothing could be further from the truth.

“Ugh,” I sighed to myself, staring at the half-empty Nalgene bottle inside my blind. “Why did I have to drink all that so quickly?” My mental-rationing never functions properly while hunting. Thanks to this ineptitude, my bladder was now waging a war of attrition against whatever part of my brain controls will power (a tough battle to fight when the skies are empty and you’ve got nothing else on your mind). Inevitably, I concede.

“Well, I gotta pee,” I announce, making my capitulation known to my hunting buddies. What happens next, defies conventional wisdom. While I’m busy stripping off layers of camouflage, the others retract into their blinds, stop talking and start scanning the skies. This is because, without fail, birds will start working our decoys when someone has to urinate.

At first I thought this was an isolated phenomenon, but over the years many hunters and fishermen have detailed similar experiences to me. Deer approaching the stand while texting, fish only striking top-water baits while your head is turned and ducks locking-in while you’re picking up your spread. Apparently fish and game are masters of surprise. Forget about the “watched pot never boils,” cliche. In the outdoors, the un-watched pot instantly evaporates.

These occurrences are so common, that often I will intentionally look away from lures during a retrieve or strike up a conversation when the geese aren’t cooperating. The scary thing is, it works.

So watch for my next post, How to Shoot Accurately With Your Fly Down While Checking E-mail and Picking up Decoys.

“God doesn’t want me to kill, or catch things,” Jake stated flatly between halfhearted casts towards Lake Monona’s jungle-like weedline.

Out of context, this comment may seem like merely a recital of commandment. But for Jake, these words go deeper than a Judea-Christian doctrine. They represent extreme frustration, manifested from years of ardous hunting and fishing excursions. Prior to this point, Jake had responded to countless empty livewells and pick-up beds with the old adages, “Well, at least we got to spend time outside,” or “Any day of fishing [or hunting] beats a day at work.” However, today it seemed that one more fishless trip could banish Jake into eternal pessimism.

I began to mull his words over in my head, seeing as the Madison muskie weren’t cooperating, and I can fish on auto-pilot in pretty much any situation. Was Jake’s inadequacy divinely ordained? Surely he’d done some things that might offend various deities, but nothing to deserve eternal outdoor damnation. So that wasn’t the answer.

Then it hit me. Jake’s perceived failure’s were MY FAULT.

I accompanied Jake on almost all his excursions and would inevitably narrate stories of 100 fish days and endless limits of geese. These tales took place in near-perfect locations, and Jake was using them as a frame of reference for our success. His mindset was due to overly-lofty expectations, instilled by me, and our other companions. Jake was hoping for a Bentley, but the dealers we were frequenting only offered Acuras.

Unfortunately We Can’t All Hunt Land Like This

This is how Jake became my inspiration for this blog. He embodies the sportsman whose success is limited not by talent, but by the land (or water) he hunts and fishes. Outdoor shows and publications paint pictures of pristine waters and bountiful harvests, when in reality we are faced with Jet Skis and small fields. Thus, in this blog I’ll provide stories and share tactics that focus on the functional, not the normative, that will hopefully add to the experience and success of suburban sportsmen everywhere.