Hunter's Moon, Fisherman's Sun

© 2014 Mike Yurk. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/14/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-5054-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-5055-0 (e)

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CONTENTS

THE EXCITEMENT OF OPENING DAY

THE WINTER THE WALLEYES WENT NUTS

WHEN EVERYONE ELSE WENT DEER HUNTING

ODE TO THE WOLF RIVER RIG

SOUTH DAKOTA

ALASKA

THE GOOSE POND

LAKE MICHIGAN

TO GET A FISH FRY IN KEY WEST

THE DOG NAMED MAX

SUMMER VACATION

SATURDAYS

THE WINTER EVENT

GOING BACK TO THE FOX RIVER

THE GREATEST PISTOL OF ALL TIME TURNS ONE HUNDRED

AFTER THE SNOW

HOME FOR CHRISTMAS

A PERFECT SUMMER DAY

GRANDPA’S RIFLE

TIME TO LEARN ABOUT BASS FISHING

THE DUCKS OF NOVEMBER

THE LONG WINTER

Dedicated to

Warren Anderson

David Eccles

Mike Hallas

Howard HoJo Johnson

Steve Kirkland

Haven Miller

Tom Parker

To my friends in South Dakota

Dean and Anna Melland

David and Dixie Melland

And in memory of

Jon Echternacht

1945 to 2014

THE EXCITEMENT OF OPENING DAY

For fishermen it is the most exciting day of the year. It is Opening Day of a new fishing season. It makes getting through winter worthwhile. When it seemed winter would never end with the countless blizzards and days of below zero temperatures there was always that dream of Opening Day.

Talk about Opening Day began right after New Years. Although it was months away, and the worst of winter still in front of us, the thoughts of Opening Day would sustain us through snow and ice. It was only five months away and then four, three, two and then only four weeks and then days away. But no matter how many times you had to blow out the driveway or how thick the ice got on the lakes you knew eventually the snow would melt and the ice would breakup. Opening day was getting closer.

There was Easter and the lake had open water again. The robins returned and spring was here. Opening Day was getting closer. The excitement and anticipation increased with every day. Plans for Opening Day were now in high gear. It seemed like it would never get here. Regardless of how nice the spring weather was after the long winter, it still seemed to take forever for Opening Day to arrive.

When I was young, Opening Day meant trout fishing. My father and I traveled to the far north to Woods Creek just a few miles from the Wisconsin/Michigan border. All winter long we talked about this trip and by the end of April I thought I would burst from anticipation and excitement although it was still a week or two away.

It seemed every day Father and I were talking about Opening Day. A week out from Opening Day, Father and I began to pack and get equipment ready. On Friday afternoon before Opening Day we left our home in Oshkosh for the long drive north. We chatted excitedly about the next day. We stayed overnight at a small motel not too far from the stream and that night we got everything ready for the next day. Rods were put together, hooks and sinkers attached to leaders. There was a last minute check to make sure waders, fishing vests and nightcrawlers were in the trunk when we put the rods in the car.

Even Father admitted he had a tough time getting to sleep the night before and for a young boy like me it was even worse. We were jarred awake by the alarm clock. It was dark and cold outside. Father made coffee and bacon and eggs in the little kitchen we had with the motel room. More often then not frost would be on the windows of the car when we got ready to leave. There was that short but seemingly endlessly long drive to the stream and then finally the tires of the car rumbled across the bridge over the Woods Creek as the sun came up.

Father and I walked along the road alongside the stream and then he cut in through the brush first. I walked a little farther down the road before I cut through the woods to hit the stream. I could hear the gurgling and tinkling of water washing over rocks as I got closer. I stepped off the bank into the water. I now was there; it was Opening Day. I threaded a nightcrawler on the hook and dropped it into a deep pool and usually within a minute or two I felt a tug on the line. The fish in the Woods Creek were brightly colored brook trout, putting up a good fight which seemed much larger then their size.

By late morning we returned to the motel for lunch and then Father took a nap. I was left to my own devices which usually meant reading a book. In later years as a beginning outdoor writer, I would write a report on our opening day results on an old beat up portable typewriter I brought along. I walked over to the motel office to use their pay phone to call my report in to the newspaper I worked for. That was always exciting for me because my story would be in the Sunday papers the next morning.

Soon thereafter I joined the Army. I didn’t realize it then but it was the beginning of a twenty year career in the Army which took me around the United States and three tours to Germany including deployments to Turkey and Saudi Arabia. I would see the world.

There were more Opening Days in different states and countries. On my first Opening Day in Germany there was a pond in the Black Forest were another buddy and I fished for trout. We caught mostly rainbow trout but I did get a very nice brown trout. On the hill over looking the pond was a castle, reflected in the still, clear water of the pond we fished. The fish we caught splashed to the surface and erupted out of the water, sending ripples across that quiet, calm pond.

I returned to Wisconsin to my hometown of Oshkosh to go to the local college where I eventually graduated and got a commission as an Army second lieutenant, returning to active duty. There would be one last Opening Day on the Woods Creek for me just days before I left for officer training in Alabama. This time my kid bother David, who was now twelve, joined us. The excitement was there again in the weeks leading up to our fishing trip, the anticipation of the night before, getting rods and gear ready and the all so long drive to the stream in the darkness of the early morning. David fished with me and we caught our limit of brookies within a couple of hours. David and I were very happy.

There was another tour to Germany and more opening days there and then back to Alabama for over four years. In Alabama there were no Opening Days. Fishing was open twelve months of the year. We were in the foot hills of the Appalachian Mountains and every winter we got a brief snow storm and occasionally some ice in mid January but you can still fish then. As much as I appreciated the year round fishing I had to admit I missed Opening Day and the build up of excitement and the anticipation of the last few days before the fishing season would start again.

In North Carolina I moved into the heart of the Appalachian Mountains where I found trout fishing and Opening Days again. On that first Opening Day I took my two daughters and son, with another Army officer I worked with to a small trout pond. The night before was full of the same anticipation as I loaded my van with fishing equipment, readied the coffee pot and got everything organized for the next morning. Even the two girls were exited so it wasn’t nearly as hard to wake them as it was on the mornings they had school. As we were waiting for the sun to come up the kids drank hot chocolate, the two adults had coffee and we all ate donuts. As the sun broke above the pine trees we lined up along the pond and started casting. We caught a bunch of brook trout by the time we stopped fishing in the late morning and my son Todd caught his first limit of trout. I have a photo of him with a huge smile standing in our backyard proudly holding a stringer with his limit of trout. It was Another great Opening Day.

Three years later I was back in Germany. I met another Army officer who arrived the same time I got there. He had two sons and they liked to fish. For a couple of months we talked about Opening Day. It was just like any other Opening Day. The night before there was getting fishing rods rigged, nightcrawlers were dug, gear packed and sandwiches made. It was still dark by the time my van left for a trout pond in Darmstadt in central Germany. The three boys were excited and even the two adults were anxious. After all it was Opening Day.

We got our daily fishing permits at the pond and found an open spot on the bank and cast out. My son Todd caught the first fish, a twelve inch rainbow trout. But soon we all were catching trout. At the end of the morning when we left, one of the boys struggled to carry the fish basket heavy with rainbow trout.

There would be another Opening Day in Germany. We moved to Bavaria and Todd and I fished another trout pond in Bamberg. We got there at daybreak and positioned ourselves on a small muddy point. It had rained for several days before and although dry for the morning of Opening Day, gray clouds overhead told us it wasn’t going to last for long. On the first cast of the season I caught a fourteen inch rainbow trout. That is always a good way to start the season. On the way home later in the morning rain drops splattered against the windshield of the van. We were one trout shy of our limit and all of our fish were between twelve to fourteen inches. I have a photo in my office of Todd and I kneeling next to the trout laid out on the stone patio in front of our house. That night I grilled the fish over a charcoal fire. Another great opening day.

I distinctly remember two Openings Days I missed. One was in North Carolina. The weather forecast for Opening Day called for snow and in the early morning I woke to find six inches of fresh snow had fallen over the night and it still was snowing. There were frantic telephone calls between me and my buddy but we finally concluded we weren’t going to get out. I spent the rest of the day roaming around the house like a caged lion, cursing the falling snow. Although it wasn’t the official Opening Day we did get out the next weekend and caught a bunch of trout. Our first trip of the season had been postponed because of the snow so perhaps our Opening Day was just a week delayed.

The other time, some twenty years later after I moved back to Wisconsin, I threw out my back. It started the weekend before when I was pushing my boat off the trailer at a small lake where we were going crappie fishing. By mid week, when I should have been getting line on reels and organizing tackle boxes, I was in such pain I could not sit, stand or even lay down. Ten days later the pain finally went away with the help of very powerful drugs. But I had missed the opening day and was severely disappointed.

I retired from the Army and moved back to Wisconsin on the western side of the state and the excitement of Opening Day would return for Father and me. My parents and my wife’s mother would drive across the state to our house on Friday. That night I would grill steaks and Father and I were going in and out of the garage, putting rods and tackle boxes in the boat. I remember Father standing in the garage next to me as I worked on the boat and what a wonderful feeling that was with the memories of our past Opening Days. The excitement of the night before was still there.

We would not be trout fishing nor would we be getting up in the dark any longer. We were going bass fishing and we woke about mid morning and casually got ready to leave. There might not have been the hurried frenzy we had known years earlier but we were no less thrilled to be fishing together again on Opening Day. I made sandwiches and packed two bottles of beer for each of us in the ice chest. It was one of the few times I brought beer into my boat. It was Special Export, my father’s favorite beer.

Then there was the short but seeming still too long a drive to one of our local bass lakes. Father held the bow line as I pushed the boat off. We motored down the lake and started casting crankbaits against the bank. I would hear my father yell I got one. His spinning rod came alive and the fish took off and dive while he was cranking on the reel. I would have the net ready. You never want to lose the first fish of the season.

At noon we stopped for lunch and ate our sandwiches and drank the first bottle of beer. We saved the other beer for later in the afternoon. As we fished we talked about the Opening Days we had before. It was good to remember those other Opening Days while we were catching fish on a new Opening Day. Although my father became too frail to trout fish, he still came every Opening Day to go bass fishing with me. Father died shortly after Thanksgiving of 2000. But on the first Saturday of May earlier that year we fished together for one last Opening Day. We had five last Opening Days together and for that I feel very lucky. I miss my father on his birthday and Christmas and Father’s Day but I feel his loss most strongly on Veterans Day (he was a Marine Corps veteran fighting in the South Pacific during World War II and I called him every Veterans Day) and on every Opening Day.

After Father passed away I invited my wife Becky to join me on Opening Day. We developed our own Opening Day traditions. During the week before, I get the tackle boxes all set up and replenished from the previous years fishing so we were ready for the new season. The boat is checked over and batteries are charged. The Friday before Opening Day I strip old line from reels, put on new line and finally put rods in the rod locker in the boat. We are ready.

We fish the same lake every year. It isn’t far from our home and it is full of bass. Most of those last Opening Days Father and I fished together were on this lake as well. We have everything streamlined so we do not waste a lot of time once we get up in the morning on Opening Day. We are out of the house quickly and once again the short drive to the lake seems to take too long.

We found every year to be different. The weather never seems to be the same two years in a row. We have had everything from cold and rain to warm, sunny days. We always caught fish but sometimes we caught more fish and sometimes less. But it doesn’t matter. We were never skunked and the first fish of the season is still a thrill as much as it was when I was a kid. The long winter is officially gone and I caught a fish on Opening Day.

In the last few years I have been blessed to have two Opening Days each spring. The first Saturday of May is Opening Day for Wisconsin and the second Saturday of May is Opening Day in Minnesota. I think you can never have too many Opening Days in a year so I fish both of them.

For Minnesota, I go to a cabin called Drakes Hideaway which sits on a lake, Cut Foot Sioux in the far northern part of the state. In some respects it is like when Father and I went to the Woods Creek in