The Lake Where You Live

If you live on a lake and you’re also an angler, you surely have a couple of friends you also call fishing buddies. I have a few, two of them brothers who live about four hours away, one (Charles) who also owns a seasonal place here on Birch Lake, and another (Ted) who lives full-time in the area.

Fishing buddies are to be treasured. They are not necessarily easy to find. It’s sort of like finding the ideal tennis partner, someone of about the same ability who’s not overly competitive. Or a bicycling companion, who’s in roughly equivalent physical shape and so neither leaves you behind nor slows you down from your preferred pace. 

Or a golfing pal, comparable ability not necessarily required (you’re really playing against the course, after all), but of similar temperament and in agreement on amateur courtesies like mulligans, and “gimme” putts.

But there’s more to a fishing buddy; it’s a uniquely intimate relationship. Because you spend hours together in the confined space of a boat anywhere from 14 to 18 feet long, it is essential to be fully compatible.

That means you take similar approaches to the sport. You prefer the same species. You employ basically the same tactics. You generally agree on the boundaries between keeping fish and catch-and-release, and you share a fastidiousness about observing regulations. 

You have like tolerances for the curveballs that fishing throws — the sudden rainstorm, for which you both come equipped with rain suits that you put on without whining. Or the occasional day when nothing is biting — you largely agree on when to keep trying and when to admit defeat and leave the water early.

And speaking of that, it helps to have matching expectations on how long to be out. Years ago I wanted to fish with someone willing to stay on the water all day. No longer. I prefer someone who targets the prime-time hours — after supper until sunset, and maybe the occasional dawn patrol, on the water before the sun is up, all done by nine o’clock.

It helps if a partner is flexible, sometimes able to go fishing at short notice in an especially promising condition, like an all-day windless overcast, ideal for surface lures or for flicking a panfish popper with a fly rod. 

But most of all, fishing buddies combine the generous and the stingy. The generosity means taking a buddy to special places and sharing tools, tips and methods. I am a better angler, and I know about more great places to fish than I would otherwise, because of my buddies. I hope they would say the same about me.

As for stingy, that means being tight-lipped with others when it comes to information about favorite spots. My pal Ted and I have a favorite bluegill lake about which we tell no one. Even in private conversations we call it “that lake I can’t remember the name of.”

And finally, fishing buddies shows a similar reverence for the resources and the prey. I’m never surprised when one of my pals marvels at a sunset over the lake, or says upon landing a big bluegill, “That is a beautiful fish.”

I’m privileged that a few friends count me as a fishing buddy. It is an exalted status. 

Ted Rulseh is a writer, author and lake advocate who lives on Birch Lake in Oneida County. His new book, “Ripple Effects,” has been released by UW Press. You can learn about it by visiting his website at https://thelakeguy.net.