Naturally Nebraska

Casting a baited hook into the water is part question, part surrender. Sometimes the answer comes with fins. Sometimes it does not come at all. You can buy the best rods and reels, the flashiest lures, the fastest boat and the fattest nightcrawlers on the planet, and Mother Nature can still send you home skunked.

That is part of the fun. Fishing takes effort. We cast, wait, reel, rebait and cast again, working for every hookup. Still, fishing is not golf. I have never been upset over not catching fish.

I was a serious fisherman for many years. In my 20s and 30s, I regularly went fishing for a few hours after work two or three times a week in spring, summer and early fall. Weekends meant longer excursions with my fishing buddies.

We caught a lot of fish, and I kept a lot of fish. My family ate many meals of channel catfish and crappie back then. I was young, and times were lean. Fishing equipment, permits and gasoline were not free, so keeping fish helped justify the investment of money and time in my hobby.

One of my favorite fishing memories did not include fish at all.

My family and I were fishing at a sandpit along the Platte River near Odessa. On a previous trip, a friend of mine had reeled in a couple of nice catfish. We did not have a scale, but each probably weighed 15-20 pounds – and that is no fish story. Those fish were enough to send us back with big hopes.

We were still setting up lawn chairs when the tip of the rod on my daughter Becky’s Johnson Century 225 spinning combo began twitching. Then it lunged toward the water. Like I had taught her, Becky grabbed the rig and arched back with a hookset that would have put any of those famous TV anglers to shame.

The fight was on.

Soon that reel was screaming as line ripped from the spool. We were screaming and laughing, too, as Becky gained a few yards on the unknown animal before it swam off again. The epic battle probably lasted barely two minutes, but it felt like 10.

I was standing in water up to my knees when that little girl finally reeled in the catch of her lifetime, at least up to that point: a monster-sized spiny softshell turtle, not at all happy about being removed from its murky lake-bottom lair. I think Becky and I were both exhausted after I unhooked that reptile and we watched it disappear back into the depths.

My days as a serious angler fizzled out a couple decades ago, right about the same time I began busying myself with writing and photography. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy fishing. In recent months I have fished from Chadron to Halsey, from the Nebraska-South Dakota border to central Minnesota and even one afternoon on the Potomac River while visiting Washington, D.C., back in April. I had a few hours to fish for blue catfish there. I did not catch any fish that afternoon, either, but just like on Nebraska waters, the memory still came home with me.

I have caught thousands of fish since I reeled in my first one nearly 50 years ago at Plum Creek Park in Lexington. I still remember it – a green sunfish, or maybe it was a bluegill.

I do not go fishing nearly as often as I used to, and we almost never keep fish anymore. But when I cast out a line or two, whether anything is biting or not, I always come back home with a stringer full of Nebraska fishing memories.