(First published about 1996 in a Port Clinton, Ohio, newspaper.)
Rachel's reluctance grew more noticeable as the boat picked up speed at the mouth of the Grand River.
She didn't say anything, but having been nine once myself, I could guess what she was thinking.
How much faster will this boat go?
Will I have to put those minnows on the hook by myself?
Are those doughnuts for anybody?
It was our first real fishing trip, just the two of us. There had been other outings, but her little sister, Lauren, and their mom were always along. You know.
The week before we had such a trip at Mallard Lake at Oak Openings Preserve Metropark near our Toledo, Ohio home. The girls fished for bluegill with tiny hooks stabbed into bread balls. Rachel, our oldest, concentrated as if she were performing surgery, but without success. Lauren, her carefree sister, effortlessly reeled in a carp the size of a football, then spent the rest of the night rubbing it in, in that sing-song six-year-old way that drives big sisters to the brink of violence.
Leaving the Grand River in our wake as we headed for the horizon on Lake Erie's central basin, it was already clear this trip was different for both of us. It was a real fishing trip on a real boat on the big lake – no bread balls or bratty sisters, just dad, some chewable Dramamine and high expectations.
I didn't grow up in an outdoors kind of family. My dad wasn't a fisherman. Still, when he noticed my interest in it he made sure I had the opportunity and a pushbutton Zebco 33 fishing reel. Today, I am in a better position than he was to pass on a pastime that will last a lifetime.
As a family, we have taken the same approach to hiking and camping – making new traditions, hoping we are instilling in our daughters the appreciation for the outdoors my wife, Beth, and I discovered more or less on our own.
We traveled Lake Erie from Toledo to Buffalo, Point Pelee to Put-in-Bay while I was doing research for a book. We spent whole weeks exploring the western shore of Lake Michigan, Kentucky hill country, and a plateau in Tennessee.
It isn't always easy, but the effort will be worth it one day, we tell ourselves. Pit toilets and mosquito bites are small prices to pay for memories of campfires and waterfalls.
I hoped the outing at Grand River would be for Rachel one of those memorable experiences like my first real fishing trip on the Maumee River in Toledo with a friend and his stepfather when I was about 12. I borrowed the waders and an Eagle Claw fishing rod that my friend gave me a couple years later when his step-dad, Ray, passed away.
I landed at least a couple dozen white bass in a couple hours that day, probably 20 more fish than I ever caught in a single fishing trip up to that point. It was one of those magic days – the first for me – that keep a fisherman coming back.
Whether we're camping, hiking, fishing or attempting any other family outdoor pursuit, we are seeking just such magic moments. Limit catches that make up for being skunked the weekend before. An unexpected panoramic view of the lake that compensates for the campground that looks nothing like the brochure promised. A pizza place or movie theater that appears out of nowhere just about the time it starts to downpour.
When our boat finally stopped an hour after leaving the dock at Grand River, Rachel swung the Eagle Claw rod over the side, pressed the button on the Zebco 33 and plunked the spreader into Lake Erie.
The first fish was exciting, but the double she caught on the next cast was the magic moment, for her and for me. Two fat fish dangling from the end of one line!
The story she wrote for a fourth grade class assignment talked about how she caught more fish than her dad that day – 12 or 15 or 17, I think. The number of fish, like the size, grows each time she tells the story.
Another outdoorsman – maybe even another outdoor writer – was born.
[Update: Rachel is now married and expecting her own child, who I'm expecting to take fishing in the years ahead.]