I can’t say Steven Berg grew up on my boat, but he, his dad and uncle have fished with me many times since Steve was old enough to turn the crank on a reel. Actually, Steve started when he was almost old enough to crank a reel.
A favored “fish tale” on my boat is the about the first day Steve fished with me, caught a limit of cohos and never lost a fish. Lot’s of people can say that, but not a 6 or 7 year old who took about 15 minutes to reel in each fish, mostly while the fish swam freely, lure dangling from its mouth, swimming hither, yon and anywhere else it pleased as he awkwardly and intermittently managed to reel.
His time on the Brother Nature must have made an impression on him to some degree. Now in the U.S. Army, stationed at Fort Hood, Texas and awaiting deployment overseas, Steve was home on leave. While on leave he had a bucket list of favorite places to visit, food to eat and things to do. Among them, fish Lake Michigan on the Brother Nature.
I explained it’s late in the season, the fall run has been sporadic, at best - actually one of the worst ever - but if he wants to go, we’ll go.
We went. At the crack of dawn, I started deploying the lines and lures we’d be using. One line set, start on the next and, “FISH ON.” It was lucky there were no other lines out and only one downrigger wire. This fish came to the boat hot and had there been other gear would have tangled and possibly been lost. Bad luck for the fish, good for us.
So we had great catching for the first 10 or 15 minutes, then settled in for a morning of great fishing, the remainder of the time - great fishing, just short on strikes or catching. But Steve caught a nice king salmon, has a fishing tale to tell his Army buddies when his leave is over and a memory to rely on when he goes overseas.
No comments:
Post a Comment