Passing on love of outdoors
Proud dad thrilled to create memories with fishing daughter
MINOCQUA, Wis. — Where do you start building lifetime outdoors memories with your kids? Is it getting your 15- yearold daughter up at 4: 30 a. m.?
I don’t know the general answer, but I know what stuck while fishing Friday with our daughter, Sara. Guide Kurt
Justice and I had talked about doing this for years. We finally juggled our schedules, which is no snap with modern teens.
We began fishing Big Crawling Stone shortly after 5 a. m. A pair of bald eagles floated over as we set up to fish for walleye. Two loons wailed sporadically behind us.
Justice had us work jigs and leeches over weed tops. That method isn’t child’s play, but Sara picked it up quickly. Her first catch was a largemouth bass.
Frankly, I didn’t give a damn if I caught anything. I wanted to see her catch fish, and she did. Any mom or dad, uncle or aunt, grandmother or grandfather knows what I mean.
Justice had us using St. Croix rods with 8- pound Stren MagnaThin with ‹ th- ounce Slo- Poke jigs ( firetiger or gold). In weeded areas, he favors Jack’s Weedless Series Jigs.
We fished much shallower for walleye ( shelves in 6 to 10 feet) than I expected in late summer.
Walleye bites can be deceptive, so I was happy when Sara caught a keeper of 17 ½ inches. Justice caught the big walleye of the morning at 19 ¾ inches ( just under the slot).
In a few hours, we fished three similar areas and boated two keeper walleye, five rock bass, five bluegills, 25 largemouth and five smallmouth.
Ah, smallmouth bass. My favorite fish.
Sara latched into the first one of the morning. It was a doozy — what we call a ‘‘ picture fish’’ — of about 4 or 5 pounds. But it was more than she could handle, and it busted off.
More important, she learned how to handle smallmouth and boated several more, though not quite as big.
As good as those numbers sound, Justice wanted to chase more walleye, so we switched to the Rainbow Flowage.
‘‘ There is always something to fish for,’’ he said. ‘‘ The more you fish, the more to like to fish.’’
We started on big weedy flats, which had been producing. We did nothing, so Justice switched to weedy bays.
Sara didn’t realize she had hooked the first pike of her life until it swam at the boat with Justice and I telling her to reel.
Sara caught most of the pike, largemouth and eight walleye ( one keeper) on the Rainbow. It was time. Too soon. An osprey squealed off. A bald eagle coasted out to check. Then a pike bit Sara’s jig clean off, an experience we explained would happen many more times.
We finished on a shore drop- off. By shore, a mallard quacked away, mixing with a loon wailing.
Justice has a stable of guides from Kurt’s Island Sport Shop — ( 715) 356- 4797 — on the east side of Route 51 entering town.
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