Fly fishing with Uncle Joe and Dad

[bassman]

I told this story on here about 10 years ago and think it's time to read it again.

My uncle Joe was quite the guy. Worked his whole life in a brewery in Wausau WI. Maybe the free beer at lunch contributed but Uncle Joe was about 5'8 and around 350#s. My dad and family would make frequent summer trips to visit and go up north fishing. Both Dad and Uncle Joe loved fly fishing, but Unc could never get his timing down. When we fished in one of those old wooden round bottom skiffs they rented back then I'd be in front seat because Dad trusted me to keep flies above our heads. He'd be in the middle and Uncle Joe in the stern, where his wildly waving line would not endanger anyone except himself.

One day we were out on a lake in northern WI and catching 'gills and crappies in the evening on small poppers. 'Gills were mostly small but crappies nice, some even slabs. Now my Uncle Joe was one of the early proponents of "selective harvest" you hear talked about a lot today. His philosophy was if it selected his bait, it was harvested. After the evening's fishing we'd cull half the ones he threw in the bag and clean up a decent batch of pan fryers. Anyway, I digress and will go back to Uncle Joe's episode that night.

Understand fish were everywhere, the take was active and fish easy to hook. Now Unc was a God fearin' man and never used profanity. The closest he came was "Jeeze and Crackers" and being a true WI cranberry bog, webfooted, beer drinking cheesehead he made sure we knew he was saying "Cheese and Crackers". Well, as the evening wore on it seems like Unc's casts were getting worse and worse. AND THEN...he let the line slap the water behind him as he often did only this time a 'gill about 4" grabbed his popper and was quickly launched thru the air in an arc that coincided with the present location of the back of Uncle Joe's head. We heard the big smack and turned to see Unc holding the back of his head, ball cap in the lake, fly rod dropped to the floor of boat, and him giving out "Jeeze and Crackers" one after the other. Now seeing this, uproarious laughter ensued, and remembering the old round bottom skiffs, I soon realized why my Dad always made me wear a life jacket even tho I was a good swimmer. We didn't tip the boat (amazingly enough) but did take a few quarts of water over the side. The rest of night and rest of trip was one of those where everytime we looked at Uncle Joe we'd fight this little snicker that forced it's way through while he just glared at us.

Dad and Uncle Joe are gone now, but some great memories are still there.

Another time Uncle Joe took me perch fishing with cane poles and one of those old wood rented boats. While we flopped our casts out there and waited patiently for the bobber to go down I'd lift and set the hook the moment the cork dipper. Uncle Joe was always a lot slower. His bobber was getting pulled to the side and suddenly mine twitched. I set the hook and lifted the cane pole about the same time he did and in a short time we had a perch hanging between us with both our hooks in his mouth. Now having described Unc above you can understand my concern when he got to laughing and "Cheese and Crackers" with that old round bottome lapstrake rental rocking to the gunnels. Uncle Joe lived in Wausau WI and we lived outside of Chicago so fishing trips always took us north to Joe and Ethel's for at least a starting point. Great days back then but how could they have been so long ago?

[sodbank]

baseman ,That’s a wonderful story! I’ve always said there are two things almost as good as fishing , the anticipation and the memories.
Thanks for sharing.

Doug

[Sandan]

Thanks Nick