Woods & Water by Dick Herfindahl

 

As the days start to shorten and the temperatures seem to be a little more normal-like, I am anticipating welcoming the onset of fall. August has always been pretty good to me in the fishing department, but you have to know when and where to seek them out. In August the days are still warm and the nights are cool so what is not to like about an August vacation?

In the years when my sons were growing up, we would take a yearly August vacation and go to Spider Lake. Most of the reasoning for that was it was the only month when most folks that worked at Wilsons didn’t take vacation. They would go to the fair and state fair so, being on the lower end of the seniority list, my chance of landing a summer week was usually fairly good.

Fair week was usually always open so that was the week that we would spend “up north” and even though fishing was a little different in August, there were fish to be had. Spider Lake has a lot of structure and back then I had no locator so I had to fish the “old fashioned” way and I was usually pretty successful. The old “ism” of the Dog Days of August may be partially true, but I was always a firm believer that you could catch walleyes in the weeds at any time of the year.

The oldest of the two resort owners, whose nickname was “Bid”, always had a way of getting my adrenaline flowing and making me feel like the “big one” was just waiting around the next point for me to plop a lure in front of it. I always knew that it was mostly BS, but I didn’t really care. There was something about that guy that actually had a way of making a person believe in himself when it came to fishing.

I would always fish Spider with the thought of muskies in the back of my mind. Now, when you were fishing out of a narrow and shallow 14-foot fishing boat with four people there was not any room for standing and casting, or casting in general for that matter. The rule of the boat for anyone who was entertaining making a cast was to let everyone know you were going to do it. For some reason my youngest son Brad never grasped the concept of the warning shot. There were a few times when a lure would go buzzing past my head and he would yell out, “casting” at about the same time that the lure would go zipping past my ear. I really believe he did that just to get a rise out of me and to test my vocabulary. On one occasion I heard the casting word at about the same time that my cap was being ripped off of my head and was being deposited in the lake. There was a stunned silence for about ten seconds before everyone (my two boys and their mother) broke into uncontrollable laughter. I still had all of my parts so I actually somewhat appreciated the humor of the moment.

I had become quite good at multi-tasking in those days. I could run the motor, smoke a cigarette, drink coffee, bait hooks, untangle lines and take fish off, all while trolling. I would always be up and out on the lake before anyone else, which actually gave me my alone time. I felt as if I had wasted the morning if I heard another boat heading out before I did. Brian, my oldest, would go out early with me religiously, until about Wednesday when he decided that sleeping in would be much better. We would fish until about 8 a.m. and then head in to eat breakfast and to clean the fish if we were lucky enough to have a few on the stringer.

Those were some good memories of camping with my family in a pickup camper. It was a great place to camp because even though the lake access was about 1.5 miles away, you would come in, set up your camper and then tell one of the owners when you were ready to put the boat in. They would give you a dock number which was yours for the duration of your stay. One of the owners would hook up to the trailer and haul you to the access and drop you in. This worked the same way when it was time to leave. You would take the boat to the access and they would meet you there. I wonder if they ever suspected that I was doing a little fishing on the way to the access. That was the kid in me just having to make that one more, one more cast.

A couple years ago I came across an old itemized bill from a week of camping. It had seven nights of camping, at $9 a night w/electricity and a wheelbarrow load of firewood was $5.00 for all the wood that you could fit in it. It had various other items, like treats from the store plus gas and bait and the whole bill was around $115.00. Topping that off was the fact that the owners of the resort, who we became friends with, treated us like we were staying in the most expensive cabin in the place. They were good people who also became friends.

Those are some great memories and ones that I will always cherish.

Please remember to keep our troops in your prayers. We must not let ourselves forget those who are still putting themselves in harm’s way so we can enjoy all of the wonderful freedoms we have today.