ISHMAEL

Call ME ISHMAEL

“Call me Ishmael.” “For there is no folly of the beast of the earth which isn’t infinitely outdone by the madness of Man.” Herman Medville, Moby Dick 1851

Recently, I celebrated one of my favorite weekends of the year, “Euchre Camp”. Euchre (pronounced: you-ker) is an old card game, traditionally played in the North Woods by hunters and anglers at camps to pass time. I host a group who come to camp to play Euchre while hunting and fishing to pass time. We hold it tournament style complete with a trophy for the winning team. It is a big deal for us. We barbecue, hunt turkey, fish, dig leeks and hunt morels, apply first aid to each other and whatever else is deemed necessary.

One member was concerned from a text using auto-correct, that we were going to have “morals” this year at camp. I assured him that we were not going heavy on morals we were hunting morels. He was concerned that we would stop committing such distasteful acts such as fishing with snelled hooks and hand dug bait, use plastic turkey calls and not real maple syrup on our pancakes. Since we would continue to maintain our usual standards, he was glad and relieved to learn we could continue to look down our noses at other camps that were using Aunt Jemima syrup and flys.

The guys straggled into camp in a disorderly fashion, the guys that said they’d be late were early and the two guys who were supposed to be early, were late; they got caught up in a Sheetz tour of stores along State Route Six. They were nice enough to send pictures of beer and pop caves all across the Grand Army of the Republic Highway. I think they are going to get a concert style T-shirt made up.

To pass the time between Euchre games we attempted a fishing trip. Fishing trips terrify me. I am a lure collector aficionado and to me, a cast is only a chance to risk offering up a beautiful lure to the fates of fish and the fathoms of snags in the deep. I had a special different lure on this year, a new favorite. What happened to it has become the stuff of camp legend.

I had cast what I considered a perfect cast along a drop off of a sand bar in some slack water. The fish didn’t agree that it was perfect and let my lure pass un-molested. I thought the fish wanted another chance and tried to repeat the cast. However, that wasn’t a perfect cast and I got too close to the sand bar for comfort. There was risk to snag sticks and junk that catches along the edge of that stuff and so I tried to carefully retrieve my hooked piece of art. Halfway back to shore, my line went taut and the lure stopped dead. Whether or not I got snagged or not has become a matter of debate. We all agree that the line could not be reeled in anymore. Even though I assumed it was snagged because of the poor cast, I had hopefully but only quickly pulled and felt the tightened line to see if anything had clamped down but to me it felt as if I was on an inanimate object.

A plan had to be made because I wasn’t going to break off a beloved lure on any old snag but to get to it, I had to turn my rod over to my brother and work my way down to the river, following the line. At the sand bar and looking along the line into the green water, I was surprised that I couldn’t see the brightly colored lure. Grabbing the line I found that this time the line tugged back. Then the tug turned into a fight, albeit a quick one. When I saw my lure, it was firmly affixed in a huge musky’s mouth! The big fish got near the surface, for a second we made eye contact then he shook his huge head and rolled. My line snapped and he slid back down in the murk, taking my beloved $9.00 lure with him.

Later, back at camp, it was theorized that the line got caught on some sticks and the minnow “swam” in the current behind the snag. When I pulled the line the musky clamped down on the minnow. Of course, I claimed that the “snag” was an advanced technique which I had executed on purpose. However, shortly into our after action review, I was way beyond scientific analysis; I was embroiled in a more, spiritual, version of the event. I recounted the story, to many eye rolls, of how when an angler hand lines a musky there is an endowment of supernatural leviathan powers that occurred over a Narnia like amount of time. I got my nine bucks worth of stories, ending with me being wrapped to the fish in eight pound test line stabbing at the beast to get my hand carved minnow back. While it may not have been as dramatic as I recounted the last one hundred times, something did happen in those few close seconds being so close to such a king of the stream. Speaking of, if you run into a musky offering to sell you a lure cheap; it’s hot.

See you along the stream