Jim Dorr

Editor’s Note:  We publish this on August 18, 2021.  Note the date in Jim’s photo.

This story is superficially about the excitement of a young boy during a great evening’s fishing. But it is really an ode to that boy’s parents. The bass were hitting that night on Upper Bottle Lake, outside Park Rapids, Minnesota. I caught one after the other, casting into the weeds with a Johnson Silver Spoon. Some of the bass were among the largest I had ever caught.

Notice I said “I.” My dad didn’t catch any. He was too busy rowing and putting me in position to catch fish.

I was very excited.  Fuller’s Tackle Shop in Park Rapids would weigh your largest fish, enter them in their annual fishing contest and then print their annual “Golden Book” with entrants’ names and catches. I just HAD to enter. So we fished until dark, then raced down gravel roads the 14 miles into town to get the fish weighed before they lost weight. I still remember the trees flying by in the headlights. You see the results in the photo.

By the time we got back to our cabin it was very late. Now the heroine steps into the story. Not just this night, but every night on these trips we would fish until dark and then come back to have an amazing late dinner of fresh fish that only Mom could cook. I don’t know how she put up with that —it was her vacation, too. But as I write this my mouth is watering for the taste of those fish, always of course with extra lemon.

Time moves on. I release fish now. It is good to see on Google that the Whippoorwill Resort is still there - so many have closed. Fuller’s, a seven-decade institution, is now gone. And so are my parents. But the memories of that night are a tiny sampling of the many sacrifices they made for that young boy.