IN NORTH-CENTRAL MINNESOTA — Fishing stories often are not only about fishing. Frequently misunderstood as tales of conquest, or attempts at conquest, the best of these yarns instead often regale the vagaries of family or friendship, or sometimes the settling of scores whose origins defy recollection. "Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing it is not fish they are after," Henry David Thoreau observed years ago, and he had a point.
We were on the water a short while after daybreak because Marv Koep figured low light would be our best shot at catching a few walleyes. Mike Arms, a retired Catholic priest pal of Marv's and mine, and a veteran of more than one sunrise service, was good with the early wakeup call. So we launched Marv's boat into Pelican Lake when the sun was angled perhaps only 20 degrees above the horizon. This was a few mornings back and we had the lake nearly to ourselves.
Attempting to catch walleyes in July beneath blue skies with no wind and temperatures soon pushing into the high 80s can be tough sledding. Yet as Marv brought his boat on plane, billowing our light jackets, the morning bore the eternal promise of possibility. The rest of humanity must be as clueless as stones not to be here, we figured, and we high-tailed it to our first honey hole.
"The water temperature is already 78 degrees,'' Marv intoned over the outboard's rumble.
Except in spring when he'll impale shiners on bare hooks or small jigs to seduce walleyes, Marv's a redtail chub man. Known in Minnesota angling lore as the owner, with his wife, Judy, of the now-shuttered Koep's Nisswa Bait and Tackle, Marv is a veritable repository of all things fishing within a 100-mile circle of Brainerd.
"Bottom is about 28 feet,'' he said, settling his boat to a stop. "We didn't always fish this deep to find walleyes in this lake. But the water's so clear because of zebra mussels the weed line is farther down.''
Redtails are expensive and Marv has learned through the years he loses fewer of them if he baits everyone's hooks rather than allowing clients to perform this rudimentary function themselves. We're fishing as friends, so Marv was essentially off-duty. But he can't shake the habit, and soon enough he performed this service. Then, the three of us lowered our chubs to the bottom, where they swam vigorously, anchored by sliding sinkers.
Bass and muskie anglers sometimes upchuck the tired observation that walleye fishing is "like watching paint dry.'' Repetitive casting, they argue, is a faster and more productive way to cover water and also less tedious.
