CASCADE, Idaho — A small fleet of fishing boats ranging from one-person kayaks to low-slung, rocket-propelled bass boats squeezed me from my preferred perch hole Sunday morning near my campsite at Idaho’s Lake Cascade State Park.
Rather than stress and feel aggrieved, I pulled anchor and rowed my cedar-strip rowboat 200 yards northward before dropping anchor again. The nearest anglers were a father and daughter fishing from huge sandstone rocks on the shoreline 75 yards away.
Around lunchtime, I pulled my stringer aboard and counted 12 perch; three of them 12 to 13 inches long and built like smallmouth bass.
When the same hole failed miserably early Monday, I rowed back to the site I abandoned the day before. My friend in Cascade, Chris Weber, — a former Poynette resident who worked 10 years for the Columbia County Sheriff’s Department — now guides perch anglers full-time on Lake Cascade. Weber, 35, suggested this spot and a few others within rowing distance, and suggested I cast a blade-bait lure, which I dubbed the "Weber Blade," since he designed it.
“Cast it out, let it sink to the bottom with a tight line, and then work it back, twitching and reeling it,” he said, making the motions with an imaginary spinning rod.
The fishing improved slightly, but my 9 a.m., after unhooking and releasing several undersize perch, the action died. The slow action gave me time to survey the few boats nearby. Three were 12- to 14-foot aluminum fishing boats with tiller-control engines. The other craft was a traditional Western double-bow drift boat.
Including my cedar-stripper, all these boats had one thing in common: Their owners and passengers were all old guys. Four of us fished alone from small boats, and two were trolling from the drift boat while a third stroked the oars.
You’d expect old guys to outnumber younger anglers on a weekday, given the assumption that most seniors are retired and have more free time. But how many of us geezers typically fish alone? I’ve never kept track or seen research on the question, but are old-timers more apt to fish alone than folks in other age groups? Is that stereotype from “Grumpy Old Men” correct, that even if old guys know each other and fish the same lake, they prefer to fish from their own boats or ice shanties?
Anecdotally, it would seem so. Some friends tell me they struggle to be useful at boat launches. Others say they no longer can climb into or out of boats unless it has pontoons and a flat deck. Once there, however, some say they feel too wobbly to leave their seat.
Those factors aren’t surprising. Evidence of such problems show up in the Department of Natural Resources’ annual reports of boating fatalities. Old guys often drown after falling from boats while hauling up anchors, yanking engine-starter ropes, manually tilting small engines up or down, or losing their balance and falling off the transom while answering nature’s call.
Sadly, despite feeling less spry in their boats, few such old guys were wearing a lifejacket.
Not to sound too judgmental, but the only old guys wearing lifejackets Monday morning on Lake Cascade were the three men row-trolling for trout in the drift boat. As I watched one old guy tottering back and forth in his 14-foot aluminum boat, squeezing past his large dog to lower his bow-mounted trolling motor, I half-expected him to topple in.
Still, I think most old-timers prefer fishing alone simply because they can’t find compatible fishing buddies. They prefer to fish for specific fish, in specific waters, and while using particular techniques. Some dislike electronics, others hate trolling, and still others only want to fish near home for two or three hours in the morning or evening.
No doubt, sharing the same fishing boat requires well-matched preferences and temperaments. A few lucky guys married women who enjoy fishing and let their husbands be the guide and captain. Either that, or the wives or girlfriends don’t trust their man to wear his lifejacket or follow boat-launch etiquette when fishing alone.
Again, though, most fishing wives aren’t fools. They can distinguish stupid from stalwart. For instance, I spent last Tuesday confined to my tent during an all-day rain, looking out the flap as occasional lone old guys trolled for trout or cast for perch. One guy putted along in his old fishing boat with an aging Johnson outboard, dragging one lure behind a handheld rod. Despite the rain and 50-degree temperatures, he wore only a ball cap, light jacket and everyday pants. His only heat source, as far as I could tell, was the cigarette clenched between his lips.
By fishing alone, guys like him don’t have to worry about someone quitting on them and forcing them to give up. If perch don’t bite despite endless casting, location changes, fresh bait or new lures, some anglers press on undaunted. This is the only way, of course, to test such tolerances.
Imprisoning a friend on your boat or inside your ice shanty when it makes sense to go home ensures you’ll usually fish alone. Personally, I admire friends like Tim Watson and Dom Flock, who drill enough holes to risk calving an iceberg. And no matter how many holes they drill, they’ll fish each one methodically through blizzards and blinding snow. As much as I admire them, I won’t leave the ice shanty in heavy winds to prove I’m their equal.
Likewise, I admire muskie anglers who pound the water dawn to dusk, seldom pausing between casts except to light a smoke or silence their cell phone. Still, I beg off after two full days with such diehards. I’d rather troll for salmon or cast slip-bobbers for perch or bluegills.
In the end, I’ll always choose fishing with friends and family over going alone, just so long as we agree beforehand on what fish we’ll target, where we’ll go, and how long we’ll stay.
Unless, of course, the fish are really biting. In that case, they better be willing to stay. Success sometimes takes a while, y’know.
Patrick Durkin caught these rainbow trout late in the morning on Idaho’s Lake Cascade after failing to find much success on yellow perch. — Patrick Durkin photo
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