It was the kind of June morning when everything is covered with a thick dewy residue that feels like fresh rain. A thin veil of fog clung to the trees and glass-like waters of Gohere Bay. The stillness of the air, the cool weight of it, reverberated with far-off echoes. Words and sounds hung in the stillness, wending around ancient rocks, through the aging log cabins of the camp. This was the morning Jerry Wills would take his young, adventurous wife, Amy, for her first day of real fishing.
Jerry had been a guest at camp since before he could remember. Every year he followed along as his father and uncles made the trek to Gohere Bay, at first he was carried, later he would carry light bundles and packages, then heavier suitcases and eventually be trusted with the grey and gold tubes that carried the family heirlooms, the fishing poles. Every year he carried the tubes carefully, gently he would unscrew the caps and remove the shining rods of cane and bamboo and, later, fiberglas and graphite, taking in the bright logos; Zebco, Johnson, Garcia, Pfluger. The previous year he had been given a Plano tackle box, not the two tier model, he had one of those at age seven, but the double hinged, multi-tray model with side-access drawers. Jerry was well versed in the traditions of the camp and the men who made the annual pilgrimage in search of walleye for lunch and musky for mounting.
Jerry married Amy, the previous fall and couldn't wait to share all he had learned in his years on Gohere Bay. And so they made the drive north, stopping at wayside outlooks and eating at small local diners Jerry remembered from his youth, sharing stories from past trips with his dad and uncles. Amy took it all in, sporting her new backwoods look of ponytail and flannel. She only wobbled slightly entering the tiny fishing boat and traipsing about the rocky and muddy island, was happy with her shiny new hiking boots.
And so Jerry and Amy headed out in the silence of the misty morning to a tiny reef-island only a few hundred yards from camp. Jerry had raised a musky here the previous year and was hoping for another shot.
Through the misty fog, the two could be seen from the main dock at camp as grey silhouettes as he tied the steel leader to his line. Amy leaned forward in her seat, admiring the skill in Jerry's hands as he worked. She sipped coffee from a thermos and adjusted her ponytail, taking in the early morning quiet. She struck up a light conversation as he worked and snippets of conversation could be heard across the stillness on the docks at camp.
As the camp came to life, guests and guides watched the pair, sitting like an abstract painting on the lake. As they worked, loading boats, taking the casual cast off the dock, waiting for breakfast and making shorelunch plans, they could hear pieces of conversation, sounds, laughs, words, the clinking of metal hooks on the splash rail of the boat, scraping of boots in the fiberglass hull. There were nods and comments and ribbing with smells of breakfast hanging over the dock and lodge building.
All at once, the peace was shattered and the air filled with the thrill of fight. There was the heavy clunk of rapid movement in a small fishing boat, thrashing of water as a large fish struggled against a set hook, the grinding and squealing of gears as the drag set on the reel gave way. The boat rocked with Jerry's movements as he sought to lead the fish to the boat, a crowd gathered on the dock to see the magnificence of a mature musky breaking water, scales shining against the grey morning water. Jerry cranked on the handle of the old Garcia, a gift of years ago, holding the tip of the rod high, maintaining tension on the line, his voice strong and clear, "Grab the net" was answered by a voice, much smaller, but every bit as clear, clear enough and strong enough for all the collected camp on the dock to hear, "That is NOT coming in THIS boat".
A sudden stillness, more painfully still than any forest or mirror-like lake, reverberated across Gohere Bay. Though the guides and guests and cooks and cabin girls collected on the shoreline and up the dock could not see the faces with their eyes, in their collective minds Jerry and Amy were as close as the fog that drifted aimlessly across the Lake of the Woods that June morning.
By the time Jerry had landed the boat and secured it to his spot at the dock and Amy had stylishly tied the tails of her flannel shirt and cuffed her sleeves below the bend of her elbow and the two of them walked side by side to the main door of the lodge building, the crowd had dissipated. There were no words when the pair entered the dining room and sat at a table near the windows. There was no razzing, no taunting, no congratulatory back-pats. There was only the silence and stillness of a June morning on Gohere Bay where the dewy mist of fog hung like a veil to the trees and glass-like waters of Lake of the Woods.
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