Our Outdoors: Small Hands, Big Fish

As I skidded a rock bass across the surface of the lake to the boat, my buddy Einar, stateside on a visit from Norway, asked whether or not the fish was the biggest rocky I had ever caught.

I told him that while it was a good one, as a child I had caught a few that were over a pound and many others near that mark. I can recall holding one up that spanned the width of both of my hands as my cousin did the same while we trolled black-and-white Daredevle spoons for northerns with our dads, back in the day. That particular fish was the biggest rock bass I could remember catching.

I then related to my guest how big most of the panfish were when I was a child. Bluegills were as big as my face, and seemingly got bigger and bigger as my ninth summer wore on. Their bellies filled with hatching caddisflies in June, then army worms in July, and the resulting big brown moths that skittered over the surface in August, producing pumpkinseeds and bluegills as thick as my mom’s homemade hamburgers. Those fish shone with all the colors of the rainbow; various sunnies decked in turquoise, blue and orange, while bluegills shimmered with deep purple iridescent bodies and periwinkle jawlines. The colors seemed to add to their breadth and depth. I can see them flopping around on the dock, frantically searching for the edge and splooshing back into the water with a little guidance from my hands.

Each one of them was a big deal. Like stories about the good ol’ days, panfish angling under a red and white bobber just seemed to produce bigger fish way back when. Though I don’t like to believe those fish are the same size as the ones that congregate off the dock today, more and more, I think they were. As a result, I am forced to deal with the fact that I have gotten bigger and my view of the world has gotten smaller.
The same two-hand stretch I measured fish with back then now covers 18 inches, where before, rock bass and crappies easily stretched beyond the circumference of my manual measurement into epic proportions. There may have been one or two white bass that went pinkie-to-pinkie since then, but most panfish have fallen well within those borders since my fifteenth birthday.

With maturation into adulthood, those things that were a big deal, like a five-dollar paycheck for a day of lawn mowing or a four-pound northern pike, lose their significance. And with my adult focus now on muskies, bass and walleye, like many anglers, I tend to lose sight of those fish which filled my field of vision with the wonder of nature, and every swirling bluegill or green-and-yellow perch seems to get smaller and smaller.

Though the quarries we pursue might be different these days, it is important not to lose the sense of excitement that came with our first fish which was probably a perch, a sunfish or maybe even a bullhead. Take some time this season to cast off a dock for perch, chase a school of crappies, or work a weedline for bluegills, remembering that at one point this was as exciting as life could get and was all we really needed for a good time on the water.

Better yet, take a kid along and see the excitement in their eyes as they hold up a monster six-inch bluegill, or an eye-popping eight-inch perch. Nothing seems as big and exciting to a young angler as a bobber going down and a “massive” panfish coming up…in our outdoors. 

Editor's Note:  Nick Simonson, is an avid fisherman, hunter and writer from Valley City, ND. As many of you know he has been an outdoor journalist for years, writing his column "Our Outdoors" for his hometown newspaper, the Valley City Times-Record and offering the same writing to viewers of the Total Outdoor Network as a Field Staffer for Fishing Buddy Outdoors.