My father does not know how to fish. He pretended to be interested one time during a family vacation in Minnesota, and promptly cast the lure, line, and pole into the lake. I grew up fishing off Lake Geneva piers and the shore, but my indoctrination came from early morning Geneva fishing trips that were guided by my grandfather and uncle. My grandfather is dead, my uncle no longer fishes, and I have to concede that my early morning fishing trips are rather limited, but I still love fishing. Few activities are more idyllic, but in the spirit of transparency, I must admit that I might fish more to fulfill my desire for perpetual motion than because I actually love fishing. That might not be true, because I do love fishing, and I love catching fish, it’s just that many times I fish without any hope of actually landing fish. I fish because I enjoy the smooth retrieve of a lure over the rocky bottom of Conference Point. I fish because I enjoy the sense of anticipation when I drop a live perch into 40′ of water off of Fontana’s Uhlein Creek. I fish because I love it, but moreover I fish because I love Geneva Lake.
Fishing Geneva is not an easy undertaking. Well, the fishing is easy, it’s the catching that is confounding. Geneva is chock full of fish, large and small, but every one wary, every one barely willing to nibble on whatever it is that you’ve dropped under the surface for it to inspect. The fish here, like the people who vacation here, are smart. They’re discerning. The reason that artificial lures don’t work that well on Geneva is because the fish have seen it all before. You’re going to have to get up pretty early in the morning to fool fish that have been shunning lures since Chief Potawatomi first plunged his spear into the crystal clear waters.
I wrote about ice fishing last winter, and while the “sport” has some appeal, my interest in anything usually wanes after I get too cold. Summer fishing is great, but I’m more of a casual Geneva fisherman than a competitive one. As a child, I loved pulling up the round rocks that bordered the small creek that babbles its way through the Loch Vista Club association park. If the stream-side worms weren’t cooperating, I’d turn over the flat flagstone rocks that made up the section of the shore path in front of my childhood home. I had no trouble catching rock bass, bluegills, northern pike and largemouth bass off my parents pier, and famously landed the biggest largemouth I’ve ever seen pulled from Geneva right off of a neighboring pier one May afternoon. I must have been about 15, and yes, that hairstyle is for real, and so are those sweet purple plaid pants. It was like 1993, so leave me alone. I let that bass go, as I’ve always felt a sense of protectionism towards the fish of Geneva. I’ve watched one too many fishermen keep their limit of smallmouth bass on June afternoons to ever keep a single fish from my beloved waters.
I caught the small northern pike in the top photo during one particularly lazy weekday afternoon last September. I remember texting several clients while I sat on the still lake, soaking in some therapeutic early autumn sun. A sail boat, with a windless sail bobbed a ways off in the distance, and two kayaks paddled nearby through the motionless waters. I sent texts that I thought might encourage those clients to come to the lake to experience what I was experiencing. Texts that I figured would make them envious of the lifestyle that owning a lake home here affords. I sent those texts to convey my enthusiasm for the way the water looked on that glorious afternoon. I sent the texts, but many of them went unreturned. And so I kept fishing. Methodically casting my way from Conference Point to Club Unique, never intent on catching, but blissfully content in the fishing.
This summer, as it was last summer, my kids will search for worms to fish with. They’ll turn over the same rocks that I turned over 25 years ago. They’ll walk the same white piers, and gaze into the famously clear waters, waiting for a rock bass, or a largemouth bass, to find the wriggling offering to their liking. When the fishing turns tedious, my kids will drop their poles, shed their shirts, and swim. Once they’re sufficiently cooled off, they’ll pick up their poles, and fish some more. They’ll enjoy a summer of fishing off those white piers, and whether they’re catching or just fishing, they’ll be making memories that I know from personal experience will last a lifetime. Me? Well, I’ll be fishing along side of them. Thrilled to watch them grow up learning a skill, and pleased that their Saturday mornings will be spent with their eyes affixed on the water, not glued to a television screen.