Time has a way of getting away from us.
I hadn’t been fishing with my dad, Paul, since I was in college. That’s over a decade ago.
We hadn’t been on a road trip together since we drove the nearly 20 hours from our home in Loup City, NE, to Greensboro, NC, for my track and field Junior Olympic Nationals. We camped along the way and drove the family’s Ford Freestyle. I was 18.
Our last fishing trip together came the summer before my senior year of high school when we went to Calamus Reservoir. We went up to Big Alkalai earlier that year. That was half a lifetime ago for me.
Boats are docked outside Ballard’s Resort at sunrise ahead of another day of fishing.
But last week we finally made time stand still for us.
Dad and I took a nearly 12 hour bus ride to Ballard’s Resort on Lake of the Woods, just a few miles south of the Canada-Minnesota border.
We didn’t catch either of these walleye, but the group on the boat, much like a fantastic pair of grandparents, told us to grab them from the cooler for a picture.
We caught walleye, sauger, northern pike, smallmouth bass, and lake sturgeon. Got rained on, hit by north winds, and burned in the sun.
We ate three meals a day together. Drank beer and Tennessee whiskey together. Enjoyed the company of complete strangers.
Our guide, Tommy, took care of us and our new fishing buddies. Ted, a Navy retiree, and his wife Ardith (Art) balanced the boat with Mark, a retired Marine, and his wife Lou. Ted and Mark would give it to each other and Tommy and us. Even when the fish weren’t biting, the mood was light and fun.
Art, who just celebrated her 80th birthday, out-fished us all. She caught the largest walleye for our group at 24 inches. She also caught the largest smallmouth bass my dad had ever seen, and he’s seen a few fish.
Our cabinmate Bill was on his 29th trip to Ballard’s since 1998. He said he wouldn’t keep going up there if it wasn’t worth the time and money. I didn’t understand when he said that the first day we arrived. I understood as we left.
My dad and I, with Ted being the ornery sailor, made sure to take plenty of photos even while moving between fishing spots.
I didn’t get much going until day three, when I was able to get a 17 inch walleye, a bunch of sauger, a decent northern pike, and that weird, dinosaur fish called a sturgeon. Dad was able to get a sturgeon too, the first he’d ever caught.
Dad and I got time together we haven’t had in years. He’s been chasing my youngest sister with her collegiate track career, his grandkids from my other sister, and even my own daughter a bit, all while being on the tail end of a teaching and coaching career dating back to before I was born.
I’ve been covering the Huskers, a full-time gig year-round, and advancing my career while balancing time with a young family. I get married this week.
We’ve been busy.
That feeling of being too busy didn’t come up when talking about where he’s been adventuring this summer from Wyoming to Tennessee, how my daughter just keeps growing, and reminiscing old fishing and camping trips and when I was lucky enough to play high school sports for him.
We were even able to record an episode of my new podcast Hey Dad! on the deck outside the bar, right off the river. We talked about him growing up with Granddad up to his time now as Papa, the difficulty and joy in coaching us kids, his college experience as an athlete at Kansas and Nebraska.
That episode comes out tomorrow. You can subscribe on Spotify here, or find the podcast on other major services.
On the bus ride home, I kept thanking Dad for going with me. He kept telling me he wouldn’t have missed it. I know I’ll ask him for more trips going forward.
Time got away from us for more than a decade. We’re not any less busy in 2022, but for a few days we slowed time enough to make some much needed memories.
Let’s do what we can to keep time in check over the next decade.
