I’M 7 MILES OFFSHORE from Lorain, Ohio, being verbally abused. To get here required an alarm set for well before dawn, an hour-long drive from my motel, and a backbreaking run across a Lake Erie that woke up on the wrong side of the bed. It’s the kind of rough that’s not so shitty you need to call it off, but shitty enough that your calves and ankles are going to feel it later from helping you keep your balance all day. I’m trying to get into a good position to crank in a fish, but I’m not getting there fast enough for a frantic Captain Ross Robertson.
“You need to move to the front of the boat right now!” he yells. “How am I supposed to reach the tip of the rod when the fish gets close if you’re standing there? We really need to get the communication going here, or this just ain’t gonna work!”
The last time I’d been chastised like this while fishing was during a white marlin tournament in New Jersey in 2006. There was $500,000 on the line, and we had just hooked a nice fish after zero bites in six hours.
But this time there’s no marlin or money at stake. I’m fighting a walleye. Or at least, I think I’m fighting a walleye. There’s 150 feet of monofilament, a banana weight, and a big planer board between me and the fish. It feels slightly heavier, I suppose; the rod is bent a little deeper than it was while just dragging the planer on the troll. If I do anything but reel steadily while standing like a statue, I’ll be hollered at again.
I get that walleye tastes good, but unless the sole objective is meat on the table, I’ve never understood why people do this. Not when you have smallmouths, muskies, pike, lake trout, and steelhead swimming in the same waters. All I can think