AUGUST 24, 2026 – As I begin this post, the sun is sliding toward the horizon with a landing spot just under a month shy of the equinox. I’m seated at the end of the dock in the company of spouse and half of our company, admiring a sky filled with pastels in search of a pattern, much like a plein air artist’s palette after a day sampling colors. A hundred feet from shore, Byron and his son are out in the paddle boat—stationary, lines in the water, patiently waiting for fish that will bite but won’t steal the bait.
Father and son cut a Norman Rockwellian image out there—Byron wearing my “Grindstone Lake” baseball cap and facing the water searching for “the big one”; D. seated in his usual spot—in the shallow aft storage well, holding his new “Paw Patrol – Kid Caster” fishing rod out over the side of their compact vessel.
Yesterday, Byron landed a . . . bluegill . . . which brought great excitement to our corner of the lake. I had to laugh, though, when Byron shouted back to me as I watched from the dock, “Dad, can you get me a pair of gloves?”
On one of the bookshelves inside the Red Cabin is a framed photo of Byron holding up two large smallmouth bass, one in each hand, his arms extended to the sides. Shirtless, he’s wearing a white baseball cap, and smiling broadly. He was 17 or 18 at the time and looked like a movie star on set during a break in the filming of an outdoor adventure film. Years ago when his cousin Hillary saw the photo, though, she said, “So . . . what’s with the gloves?”
“I hate touching fish,” he said, laughing at his piscine aversion. We all joined his laughter. I can relate to Byron’s dislike for touching fish. I never liked touching fish either. Perhaps that explains why as a kid I loved the concept of fishing; loved to cast my weedless gold spoon, weighted with a big chunk of pork rind; loved to reel it in, hoping, that I wouldn’t catch a fish so I wouldn’t have to mess with removing the lure but simply recast as if I were some trophy fisherman. Why, I wondered as I paddled a kayak out to the pontoon, hadn’t I thought to use a pair of gloves to handle all the fish I didn’t catch?
Visitors to the Red Cabin often ask if we fish. It sounds so incongruous, so inappropriate to say “No,” given that we are so much oriented toward the lake and that this lake in particular is taken so seriously by sport fisherpeople. It’s well known for its walleye, northern, and trophy muskies. In our case, being asked, “Do you fish?” is similar to a non-skier occupying a mid-mountain condo at Vail being asked, “Do you ski?” To answer in the negative seems so unnatural, so inexplicable, so wrong, and thus, I always have to add, “But I did as a kid.”
Perhaps I would’ve been hooked today if my dad and grandfather had been more enthusiastic fishermen. They did some fishing when I was young, but they were hardly wild about it. And because they weren’t terribly excited about it, they didn’t catch much—or really, anything that I can remember—and because they didn’t catch much of anything, we never ate fresh fish at the cabin. The closest I came to eating fish was sitting across from Dad at the lunch table on the back porch of the old cabin. On the table next to his plate was always set an open jar of Noon Hour brand pickled herring. I was in high school before I ever tried any and in college before I acquired a taste for it (on Swedish knäckebröd).
And yet, because I grew up in the Land of 10,000 Lakes (Grindstone Lake is in Northwest Wisconsin), I had lots of fishing opportunities, and as a young kid, I made the most of them. (Cont.)
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© 2026 by Eric Nilsson
