Perhaps it’s the transient periods of Spring like weather recently when it isn’t snowing, Dairy Queens reopening on the Ides of March or just cabin fever, but I have spent a lot of time recently thinking about fishing with my father.
He passed now more than 10 years ago last December but growing up Sundays from Spring to Fall were reserved for fishing. The winter months had some periods of ice fishing but for the most part if there was not open water we didn’t fish it and I wasn’t a huge fan of staring at a hole in the ice for hours with cold hands and toes trying to keep the water in the minnow bucket from freezing and killing the live bait.
Truth be told, I flunked out of Hebrew high school held on Sundays because it turns out the teachers didn’t think it was possible to master the works of Chaim Potak, Isaac Beshevis Singer and Elie Wiesel between November 15 and March 15.
It remains the only school I have attended that I didn’t graduate from. Since my father saw fit that fishing was also important I didn’t complain about missing another four hours of school growing up.
What I do miss the longer my father is gone is the ability to ask him about his parents, growing up, business, girls, sports and Chicago history and politics.
Above all else, I learned the fishing trips were not about fishing inasmuch about spending time together. We would usually have little problem catching perch, smelt, crappie, bluegills, bass, walleye or catfish, depending on the season and location but the experience went far beyond catching fish.
The Sunday fishing trip would start on Saturday afternoon. Getting the trailer on the back of the car, checking the trailer lights, getting ice for the cooler, pop, candy bars, chips and bait for the next day. We would take the trailer to the gas station and fill up the gas tank for the outboard boat motor and pick up the other supplies and sometimes bait depending on whether the wax worms and night crawlers were fresh.
After that, it was back home, getting the ice in the cooler, organizing the tackle boxes, nets and fire extinguisher. My father insisted on everything being in its right place.
As I got older, I learned more and became responsible for more, eventually getting everything hooked up, strapped down and driving to one of our favorite lakes or rivers, based somewhat on published fishing reports or just intuition that one spot might be better than the others.
Most Saturday nights I couldn’t sleep because I was concerned I wouldn’t wake up in time to go fishing or my father would forget I was supposed to go. As I got older, sometime Sunday morning came earlier than I wanted it to, but nonetheless, we left the driveway by 4 AM to launch the boat and get to catching fish we would come home later in the day, fillet and cook for our family. We would stop at a bait shop and pick up minnows or leeches and usually some more tackle that we didn’t need but believed the guarantee on the package that the product would catch fish.
In high school, I decided to assemble 6 fishing poles with different lures, jigs, rigs, hooks and different reels and fishing line. This way if I used artificial bait, I would have a couple of poles, live bait, a couple of others ready to go and If the weather conditions changed, I could switch to a different colored fishing line or rods and reels that did better if you fished off the bottom or had to cast into tight spaces to lure the fish.
I probably picked up the idea from watching the Saturday morning fishing shows featuring colorful characters like Babe Winkelman, Roland Martin and Bill Dance. I appreciated how they had different set ups to maximize their time on the water.
My father initially wasn’t too thrilled with the idea. He nicknamed me “6 Rod Kaplan” which didn’t really sound anything like Babe Winkelman but I grew to like the name. It stuck. He would ask me “6 Rod Kaplan, how did you make out on your algebra exam?” or “6 Rod, did you finish your French homework yet?”
He was concerned about maintaining all these rods, reels and fishing line. Keeping the rods in a place where they wouldn’t break. If the fishing was slow, I would have all 6 poles off the edge of the boat, increasing the chance one or more could end up “in the drink”, which did happen, or very close to it. My father treated these mishaps like they were sentinel events in a hospital. A full root cause analysis would ensue looking at how a snag dragged a fishing pole into the water that was precariously perched on other fishing poles and a cooler or seat.
But my father realized one would increase the probability of catching fish with more hooks in the water than fewer, particularly if there were fewer fish or “the bite wasn’t on”.
And that is how on one Saturday in the Summer I saw my father pack eight poles along the inside of the boat where there were normally two. He even installed a custom rod holder to accommodate the additional equipment.
The next day I went fishing with Eight Rod Kaplan.
