GaryOsberg.com

The Minnesota fishing opener is tomorrow, and I will not participate. I have never been one for getting up early and getting out there before the sun comes up.  I prefer to fish in the late afternoon and early evening.

My interest in fishing is only because of my son Erik and his son Walleye Willie. When we purchased a lake place 50 years ago, I got a fishing license for the first time in my life. I still have the fishing pole that I bought. Erik was not even two years old that first summer. His Uncle Duaine made a special short fishing rod for him and soon we were casting for Bass from our sailboat.

Earl Benson, the warehouse manager at General Office Products, was the one that taught me how to fish for Bass. Erik hated the process of putting a live frog on a number 2 hook with a slip sinker, but it did produce fish. Today it is almost impossible to find frogs anywhere . Minnows, leeches and night crawlers seem to work best for Walleye.

When Erik was 15 years old, our next-door neighbor, Obie, took Erik to Canada and Erik caught not one, but two 9 pound 15 ounce Walleye. He brought one of them home and we had it mounted.  

Erik is an “ambassador” for Otter Tail County, which has more lakes than any other county in Minnesota. One thousand forty-eight at the last count. He has volunteered to be a host at the Governor’s Fishing Opener in Mankato tomorrow.  It looks like he and his guests will be fishing in the rain.

“Arrange whatever pieces come your way.”  Virginia Woolf