Dennis Anderson: When learning to fish, there are no age limits

At age 80, wanting to learn something new, Cynthia Bend -- now 84 -- took up fishing. She had canoed with her dad when she was a kid, and otherwise spent time outdoors. But her dad didn't fish and, ultimately, neither did she.

"I had ridden horses a lot, but had taken a bad fall when I was 73," said Bend, of Afton. "That was the end of horses for me. I needed something else to do, and thought I would like to fish."

But Bend's crappie-seeking forays this spring onto a small Washington County lake -- though fun -- hardly were productive. She hooked a few fish. But mostly she just rowed her jon boat from spot to spot, tossed out a line, and caught nothing.

Enter Kate Wolf, who visits Bend's home on alternate weeks to clean.

Wolf's is a different life story.

Growing up near Tomahawk, Wis., she regularly fished brook trout in the north branch of the Pine River.

"My first rod was a tag alder branch and a string," she said. Her father toiled in a nearby woodworking mill -- "they called it a sliver mill" -- and she fished as much to put food on the family's table as she did for pleasure.

Wolf joined the Army when she was 17, and while stationed in North Carolina, regularly pursued catfish. She also fished in Washington state before returning to Wisconsin where, during one six-year stretch, she lived off the land in a cabin on the south fork of the Flambeau River.

"I had a canoe I used for transportation," she said. "But I had no electricity and no plumbing. I had a garden, and I hunted and fished."

So it was earlier this spring when Bend mentioned she enjoyed fishing but didn't catch much, that Wolf perked up.

"Why don't we fish together?" she suggested. "I'll see if I can help."

Equipment-wise, Bend was living in the past, Wolf soon learned. Her "tackle box" hailed from an era now long gone. The hooks inside it were outsized and rusty. And the line on her fishing reel should have been replaced years ago.

"She's a wonderful woman," Wolf said, "she just needed a little help to catch fish."

On their first outing, conditions were tempestuous. Skies were clear, but the wind howled.

Still, Bend, a onetime competitive swimmer, insisted on rowing.

Were these two men in a boat instead of two women, perhaps the cynical grumbling that attended similar excursions by Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in the movie "Grumpy Old Men" would have ensued.

But -- going out on a limb here -- women are different. Wolf knew how to fish. Bend wanted to learn.

And a beginning.

"I found out Kate knew her stuff," Bend said.

Outfitting Bend with light line, a small jig, a few split shot and a bobber, Wolf soon had her fishing partner into a mess of crappies.

Certainly the two had plenty to talk about between bites.

The daughter of the late St. Paul playwright William F. Davidson, Bend had summered in the Afton area since she was a girl. She took a degree in English from Carleton College, and later earned a master's degree in human development.

Wolf, by contrast, lives in the country near Martell, Wis. She can skin and butcher a deer as adeptly as any other hunter, and regularly enjoys a meal of fish caught by her own hand.

Which, Thursday morning, is exactly what Bend had in mind when she pushed off alone onto her favorite small lake, seeking an evening's dinner for herself and her husband, Meredith.

"The crappies aren't biting like they were a couple weeks ago," Bend said later. "But, using the equipment Kate gave me, I caught enough fish for dinner.

"My husband likes to eat fish. But he doesn't like to go fishing, and he certainly doesn't like to clean fish," she said. "So I filleted each crappie, one at a time."