The Story Behind the Story of Fishing

I've been sick all week, and I'm still not feeling great. So I'm going to keep this short. For this week's column I wrote about summer vacations in Bergland and fishing. I'm even going to save you a click. Here it is:

Fishing for memories

Every summer as a kid, our family would pack the trailer, pile in the conversion van and make the long trip to Michigan’s western Upper Peninsula.

My grandparents owned a second home in Bergland, just a short walk from the north shores of Lake Gogebic. That was our destination as soon as the Sodus little league season was over.

If you’ve never been to the U.P., there isn’t as much to do there, and towns are spread out, so you better enjoy the outdoors. Luckily for us, we did.

We’d hike through the woods to find the most out-of-place waterfalls my mom had read about, we’d visit the gift shop in Silver City, skip rocks on Lake Superior, and go fishing, a lot.

In the 1990s, there was a small beach on Lake Gogebic, so you could swim, too, if you could stand the leeches, but I preferred to spend my time trying to catch what was in the lake before it caught me.

Pier fishing in the middle of a hot summer’s day is not very conducive to catching a lot of fish, but it’s a great practice in patience. You throw your bobber out toward the lily pads and wait for the perch to have an afternoon hankering. You test your luck with the rock bass hiding among the old pier pilings. Or, if you’re really feeling lazy, you’d thread a crawler on your hook, grab a big sinker, swing for the lake bed, and wait for something bigger to come along.

Fishing was my dad’s favorite way to relax. He used almost all of his vacation time driving to Bergland and angling for walleye.

He taught my brother, sister and I at a young age how to cast a pole. We’d stand in the front yard with a rubber weight at the end of our line and let it fly.

We learned how to line a reel, rig our pole and bait a hook. And we got really good at untangling crossed lines.

So was teaching three young kids how to fish, and helping them fish as much as you fished yourself, worth all the aggravation?

With my dad gone now, and a son of my own, I’ve learned the answer is yes. Because it’s not about the fishing. It’s about the company.

Fishing by yourself isn’t much fun. There’s no one to share your fish tales with. There’s no one to wait out the fish with. There’s no one to show your catch of the day to.

Some of my best childhood memories are those family vacations, and the time I spent fishing with my dad. Not because we caught a lot of fish, but because we got to not catch fish together.

Andy Steinke is features editor at The Herald-Palladium. Email him at asteinke@TheHP.com, or follow him on Twitter @DecodingDadhood.