CROSSLAKE, MINN. - When my friend Mike Arms and I fish together we might as well pose as used car salesmen, should anyone ask. Mike is a priest and I am a journalist, and these days, used car salesman registers considerably higher on the societal food chain than either of our occupations -- no slight intended against auto peddlers.

In fact some years ago my admiration for the auto trade business only grew when on Lake Street one day I traded a '63 Buick hardtop for a Lowrance Green Box depth finder, even up. The depth finder I suspected had been stolen, inasmuch as the owner of the auto-trading establishment, a Mr. Mad Man, seemed to have quite a few of the gadgets on hand, ready to deal. Alternatively, my Buick was junk, a push rod having cemented itself very neatly into its block, a pussycat V8 anyway that --had I the available funds -- really should have been bored and stroked. The upshot is when I tossed my keys to the Mad Man and strutted home, I did so gleefully, a little toe-heel, toe-heel action, anticipating some very exciting fishing that summer.

So it goes, if you're lucky, come the warm months, rod and reel in hand, a fact I was thinking about last week as Mike and I launched his john boat into a small lake near Crosslake from which we hoped to extricate limits of sunfish and bluegills.

A friend of mine keeps track of the number of days each year he's on the water, fishing, and I admire him for it. The practice sets the stage for self-inflicted tongue lashings, should the fishing-day number wobble too low, month to month. Also, and to cite another benefit of record-keeping, regarding marital bliss there is probably a top-line number most anglers dare not exceed, much like the red demarcation on a tachometer, for fear of everything blowing up, the Buick hardtop being one example.

A word here about sunfish, a species about which, in angling literature, few well-crafted sentences have been written. And no wonder! This is not high-minded stuff, sunfish angling. A waxie, a worm, a bit of a leech. Impale any of these on a 1/32-ounce jig, tie on a cheap bobber and pretty much there you have it, a cold beer tossed in on a hot day to top things off.

Well, OK, a simple man's pleasure. But it's also true, as Mike will happily tell you, that all God's creatures are equal, except those, perhaps, that taste as good as sunnies, and except also those that, when hooked, and upon pulling an angler's bobber into the depths below, fight as mightily as a sunny does. These creatures are equal, but better.

We didn't have beer along the other day, Mike and I, but the rest of the world was ours, by the tail. The sun shone, the fish bit, the john boat leaked just enough to give it character, and in keeping with the average-dude thing we had going, we were happy for no particular reason. The day was enough, that and our rods and reels and bobbers and the prospect of laying into a mess of sunnies.

Trout for reasons that probably have to do with the cold water they require and the impeccably beautiful scenery that almost universally surrounds it seem always to inspire pretty writing. Which is how my sons and I began this fishing season, casting for trout, in March, between snowy banks, catching and releasing the odd brown or rainbow, feeling the moving water, and loving it. Then there was steelhead fishing up north, Lake Superior in the distance, water spilling over smooth rocks, pooling before gathering in eddies and riffles, and the payoff: big, migratory fish occasionally inhaling big flies. Wonderful specimens, these, colored as if by angels, and more complex in their seeking than, as Mike and I did last week, simply hanging a rod over the gunnels of a leaky john boat and waiting for a bobber to sink.

But better, these steelhead, than sunfish?

And the fishing "better" for them, too?

I don't know.

Walleye fishing began this season for me on Crane Lake in the border country, and was so-so, with sufficient numbers to sizzle come suppertime. But the fish weren't jumping in the boat, you had to work for them, and in between bites there was small talk that inevitably led to big ideas. This is part of fishing, too, as if in fresh air the angler is able to summon something akin to original thought. This can throw the surprised fisherperson for a real loop, and might go a long way toward explaining the sight, regularly, on thousands of Minnesota lakes of lone anglers or even two or three of them hunched over day after day, fishing, sometimes in a fancy boat, sometimes in a wreck, the anglers satisfied enough whether the fish are cooperating or not.

Among Minnesota anglers, the adrenaline junkies confine themselves largely to bass, largemouth or small, and muskies. In the boundary waters a couple of weeks back, smallmouth bass were on their beds, or just heading there or leaving there, and the males were eager to take surface baits cast in their directions. Combustive stuff, this -- whack! whack! -- and the more of it you see, and feel, the more you want.

The wonder is that only a rod and reel are needed to fish. Grammatically, that's a simple declaration. But its interpretations are limitless, as are its possibilities. A rod. A reel. Own these and a walk, often, soon follows to a nearby park and its lake. Then waters farther distant are sought, and, in many instances a boat is eventually purchased.

The plot by then has thickened remarkably, because the rod and reel are no longer mere instruments of sport but sources, equally, of curiosity, inspiration and confidence.

The other day Mike and I ended our outing with sunnies enough to feed six. To accomplish this, we hadn't tied size 22 midges onto 8X tippet, or made long shadow casts from midstream as Brad Pitt's stand-in did in "A River Runs Through It."

We were just a couple of guys with rods and reels who lobbed tiny jigs overboard, hoping for the best.

We found it.

Dennis Anderson • danderson@startribune.com