Hooked

By Per Peterson
Kyle Hanson can remember the length of the walleye he caught on Lake of the Woods last year and its weight. He can tell you who he was fishing with and where. And if you ask, he can probably tell you what he was wearing, too.

And this was about 10 months ago — proof that when it comes to kids and fishing, the memories made while trolling on a boat or dropping a line off a simple fishing pier can last a lifetime.

“My dad had to hold the rod, because it felt like a snag, but it was a fish,” Hanson said about his big catch, which has since been mounted where he can proudly display it in his home in Marshall. “I was really excited when my dad yelled that it was a fish.”

The big catch — a 29 1/2-inch, 10-pound walleye — was part of the 10-year-old’s victory that day. It seems when the family gets together up north, they like to break up into teams and go head-to-head to see who can bring in the most fish. And Kyle’s put them over the top.

“We usually have little competitions; it was me and my uncle against my dad and Juan Esparza, one of my dad’s friends,” Kyle said. “I caught three fish, my uncle caught five fish, my dad caught two and Juan caught three, so, yeah, we won. We make jokes about the winner gets 10 bucks or something like that, but that would never happen.”

Kyle’s old enough to appreciate his time on the lake with his family.

“It kind of feels like we’re bonding a lot,” he said. “We don’t get to do it a lot because we only go to see my uncle and grandpa like, three times a year.”

“He gets really excited about it, and he only gets up there a few times in the summer because it’s a seven-hour drive,” his mother Penni Hanson said. “It’s a lake we grew up fishing on when we were kids, so they know the spots to take them out.”

Penni Hanson also appreciates the fishing trips up north. She knows the good things that happen on the lake make a lasting impression on her son and are moments that need to be taken advantage of.

“Those times are priceless,” she said. “Those are memories that he has and can share, and those are the times he’ll always remember. He can tell you in detail what happened that day, and that happened way back in July.”

Kids and their families across Minnesota can start another year’s worth of fishing memories today as the 2008 fishing season officially kicks off at a lake near you — or one far away for that matter.

The fishing opener has long been a tradition-filled day for thousands of Minnesotans, even to the point of being celebrated like some kind of mini-holiday. The opener is a day die-hard and novice anglers look forward to as soon as the calendar changes, and is also a reminder of what the sport means to the Land of 10,000 lakes.

According to the Department of Natural Resources, Minnesota is first nationally in totals sales of fishing licenses per capita. Also, as many as 35 million pounds of walleye and 64 million pounds of panfish have been harvested in one year, according to the DNR.

But as immense and impressive as those numbers are, the kids could really care less. For them, it’s not about numbers and statistics. It’s about having fun and being outside.

“I like being outdoors a lot,” said 9-year-old Mitchell Sueker. “It’s really fun to be with my grandpa and my dad. We only get to do that once in a while, so when we do it’s really fun.

“Once, me and my grandpa were on a dock and we caught, I think, 12 fish just off the dock,” he added. “We got to eat those, so that was really fun.”

“The main thing for me is it’s spending quality time as father and son,” said Mitchell’s father, Erik. “A lot of times, we’re all so busy in our lives, all doing different things, so this is the time where it’s not the TV, not the computer. It’s enjoyable for both of us.

“Even multiple generations — we have grandpa coming out with us, too, so it’s not only father and son, but grandpa, too. Fishing is something you can do your entire life at any age.”

“There are opportunities out there for moms, dads and kids who just want to fish,” DNR information officer Tom Conroy said. “It’s gotten a little more difficult over the years because there aren’t as many mom and pop resorts — the small little cabins on the lake where you could go out and stay for a few days, sit on the dock, and you could afford it. That’s changed because those resorts are disappearing, and lakeshore property has gotten really expensive.

“The DNR is working on developing lakeshore areas with places to fish; what a great opportunity for dad and mom to sit in their lawn chairs, have a lunch and watch their kid catch his first sunfish,” Conroy added. “It doesn’t make any difference to kids what they catch."

Zachary Drum, 12, of Marshall, who plays baseball, football and basketball, also hunts pheasant, geese and “every now and then, duck.” He, like others his age, enjoy spending time with his family.

“I just like being outside on the lake or in a blind,” he said. “It’s fun to be with family.”

Drum’s grandfather, Bruce Grow, has run Co-Zac Bait Shop in Marshall for 10 years now — Co-Zac is a combination of his grandson’s names, Cody and Zachary — and joked that he won’t be out on the boat for this year’s opener because he’ll be pretty tied up at the shop. But he says when he and his grandkids are free, he enjoys taking them out. For Grow, it’s turned into a generational thing with the family.

“My dad started taking me when I was, golly, real young, and I just got into it,” Grow said. “And when Zach and (his brother) Cody got old enough to go hunting and fishing, I just started taking them. I take Zach goose hunting and fishing, but he’s in basketball and football and everything, so he doesn’t get a whole lot of chances to go. But it’s fun when we do. He loves to fish.”

It’s a good bet Zachary, who’s been fishing since he was 6, loves it even more since his winter outing in South Dakota when he landed a 22-pound catfish while ice fishing.

“It was real big and I didn’t know if it was going to fit through the hole,” he said. Landing the fish took “probably, like 10 minutes. It was hard. I didn’t think it would have these pointy things on its fins, and the fins wouldn’t go through the whole. Finally, it quit and put its fins down, so we got it through.

“I’m more determined now to catch one when I go out,” he added. “So I’ll sit there and wait. I think I have good patience when it comes to fishing — but not anything else.”