I am so glad to be here. The lakes are absolutely stunning. The northern landscape is breathtaking; the trees, the rocks, the shining waters, the diving loons all make me grateful to have the opportunity to come back to this beautiful place. We fish, swim, cook, tell stories, laugh, and enjoy the surrounding sounds of nature, when we can get the kids to be quiet anyway. Papa Rich gives his classic fishing advice:
1. Do not reel the jig all the way up to the end of the pole.
2. Play the fish. Don’t yank the sucker right out of the water.
3. Wait for the person to get the net before you yank the fish out of the water.
4. No snags allowed. 4.1 Don’t snag the engine!
Of course, all of these things happen when you have overzealous fishers in your boat. Listening is infrequent and independent opinions are thick, especially among our teenage campers. By the middle of the week, Rufus is saying things like, “Don’t give me any crap, just do it”. We catch small mouth bass, walleye, and northern pike, although the northerns bit off our lines more often than not. I had particularly poor fishing luck. I spent most of my time, losing jigs, bodies, and bait, breaking reels, tangling line, getting snagged and unsnagged, and retying knots. By Thursday, I had reached my personal quota of how much gear I could lose or destroy and how much of other people’s time I could waste paddling out of snags and decided it would be best to just work the net. It was still a lot of fun to be out there, but catching really is the best part of fishing.

~Joy