Tuesday next I head south to rescue my older/oldest/justfriggin’old brother from the sins of civilization (as we know it) and take him to the land of bread, honey, and brook trout.
From the days before the Internet, or even electricity in some places, Butch and I have celebrated the “High holy days of Spring” on the last Saturday of April. We weren’t always together, but a phone call would be made, or a letter written and tales re-told of those times “Back in the day”.
In our early years, it would be spent at our Uncle Pete’s, then Grandpa and Grandma’s and then Uncle Griff’s house on Union Lake, near Pontiac, Michigan. All of our mom’s relations would be there as well as half the population or the surrounding area. The party would start about 5pm the evening before and would eventually break up about noon the next day. Most were there to pay homage to Grandpa, as he was the most experienced fisherman and story teller that most had ever met.
He’d tell us stories of when he was young and would fish the Straits of Mackinac for Lake Trout and Whitefish, in a rowboat. His Grandmother, who was a born and raised Ojibwa, would make him lures and supply him with tallow to heal his line creased hands. There weren’t any fishing poles then and he fished like the old guy Ernie Hemmingway wrote about. He would fish the channel between St. Ignace and Mackinac Island, his home, and if the current was right, or a fish didn’t pull him towards Detroit, he’d be home the next day.
Earlier he fished the Jordan River for Grayling, but the brook trout was always his favorite. He said the Grayling were much tastier, but the brookies were a lot prettier and fought twice as hard. He was working on a railroad then, for a lumber company, and it was the lumbering that eventually decimated the Grayling population. Brook Trout though, they were a little more adaptable and he met my other grandpa while the two of them fished the stretch between Websters and Rogers bridge. The limit was 50 then and some days it would take them ALL day to achieve it, but most days it was done in a mornings time.
Later, when they were both under the command of “Black Jack” Pershing in operations against Poncho Villa, they fished together on the streams of the Sierra Madre’. He said the trout tasted like “Mexican mud” but they fought just as hard and it’s coloring was more appreciated in a land where color was such a premium.
After WW1 and before WW2, they fished together again in the Jordan River for it’s Brookies and the large Browns that began to travel up it’s tributaries. They were accustomed to the 5 pound brookies, but the Geman Browns loved the taste of brookies too and they’d catch bucket loads of them at 10 pounds apiece. My dad later showed me the different holes where these huge fish were caught but the depth and the topography had already changed from those years before. My dad used to guide the boat for the two and did it so often, he hated fishing himself.
Not long after WW2, Uncle Ted, my mom’s brother, bought property a mile north of East Jordan on Lake Charlevoix. Grandpa would spend as much time there as Grandma would allow, and it wasn’t uncommon for mom to wake up and have her dad cooking brook trout and morells for breakfast.
In the early 60’s, another of my mom’s brothers, Pete, took up residence on Union Lake and Grandpa would spend as much time there as work permitted. Grandpa and all his sons were stone masons and work was good, but starting a week before the opener, Grandpa and the boys would start doing rain dances. He had some bullshit story about how his grandmother taught him the dance, but I think he was kidding. It looked to me like a bunch of drunken old guys stumbling around in circles with whiskey bottles in each hand.
It was during those years that I began my participation in the event as well as the sport. The weeks, and then days leading up to the ‘opener’, were spent checking the reels and the tackle box to insure everything needed was there. As the day of the ceremony drew closer, anticipation and the excitement grew, far outgrowing that of any other holiday.
Next weekend, my brother and I, along with Don, Doug, B.B. and Dave will all meet in Eckerman in preperation of this years celebration. At midnight, on the morning of the “High Holy day of Obligation”, all of us will stand and make a toast to those who’ve fished before us, and those who come after. We’ll toast the fish, the water, and the land it travels though, as well as all of us who fish it. Good luck everyone, may there be calm winds and following seas, and a story in every boat.
