This here marks the youngest author of a fishing story to date for Fishing in America. Arlo Sloan from Minneapolis, Minnesota wrote this. And instead of typing up his words, here’s a scan of them to more completely capture the vibe. Read to the end because there’s an important moral to the story. A lesson for us all.

(I loved this story so much that I wanted to capture it in two paintings, because the finale to the tale is equally deserving of an illustration in my humble opinion. For this one I also recorded the fisherman’s story and transcribed it into text. He preferred to remain anonymous, so that’s why his name isn’t included. READ PART ONE FIRST.)

Part Two:

I guess the part two to that story is - it’s pretty funny, but it’s sad. As you can see, I have deep freezers. I’m pretty notorious - this all happened when I lived at my mother’s house. I’m pretty notorious for getting a lot of wild game and leaving it in my freezer for a bit longer than I should. And back then, this freezer was at my mother’s house, in her garage. And when I caught that fish, I cleaned her, and she had eggs, and I saved the eggs. I don’t know why, because I don’t even eat caviar, but I saved the eggs in case somebody wanted to try it. And then I cleaned her, and I wrapped her up in a double or triple plastic bag, and I put it in the freezer, and my mom was so excited with such a big fish. And then I forgot about it for a couple months, which was horrible. You should eat it right away, but I’m notorious for this - that freezer is full of fish right now. So yeah, so I had that in there. And I thought to myself one day, “Oh, my God, that fish has been in there for two months. I gotta… I gotta do something.”

So I talked to my grandma up north, and I said, “Hey, you know, can you give me some pickling recipes?” Because she pickles stuff, so she goes, “Yeah.” So I get these recipes, and I go out to my freezer because she mailed them to me. Hand written recipes for pickling fish. She’s so nice. She mailed me these recipes. Best grandma ever. So I get these recipes, I go out to my deep freezer and I go, “I’m gonna pickle that fish now.” Because, you know, if you leave a fish too long, it’s not really good to eat it on the stove or anything, but you can pickle it and it’s gonna turn out pretty good. It’s not gonna turn out the best as if it was fresh. But that vinegar - really, I don’t know if you know about Northern but they’re really bony, so when you pickle them, those bones actually dissolve. So you get all meat and you don’t get any bone. But you can take out the y-bone from a Northern pike too. When you fillet it, there’s a way to do it. You just got to practice. But a lot of people, I’d say, like 90% are pickling Northern because they get all the bones out so you yield the most and you don’t have to deal with anything.

So anyways, I got this recipe and go up to the freezer in my mom’s garage, and I’m digging through it. There’s a lot of animal pelts to dig through. I tan pelts and make clothing out of them. Like hats and coats. And so my freezer was filled with beaver hides that my uncle caught. And so I’m digging all this shit out, throwing it all over the garage, looking for my fish - that big, eight pound, seven pound fish, whatever it was. I’m just throwing everything. I’m like, “Ma! Where’s… you see my Northern?” She goes, “What Northern?” I say, “My big one.” She goes, “Oh, that big Northern?” I go, “Yeah.” She says, “Oh, I gave it to the crows.”

So my mom - my mom is… we’re very different. So my mom’s part native, and so she doesn’t like throwing away food. So she gives everything that we don’t eat - our scraps - everything that we’re gonna throw away goes to the animals. Under a pine tree in our yard. So she gave it to the crows, thinking… She goes, “Well, that’s been in there for years, hasn’t it?” I’m like, “Mom, I caught it two months ago!” and I was so pissed. I was like, “I was gonna pickle that!” And I was like, “Don’t you ever throw away my Northern pike again!” And I was so mad I never even got to eat that fish… But they’re my favorite birds, crows. So I’m like, “At least it went to my favorite bird.”

But it’s such a crazy end to that story. It still went to something good. I actually had seen the crows in our yard, and some Northern pike scales and pieces scattered out there a couple days before that, and I go, “Oh no.” It’s so normal that my mom’s throwing stuff out to the animals, that I didn’t even ask her. I didn’t even go, like, “Oh, that’s my fish.” It could have been any Northern pike. I didn’t even know it was mine getting ate for days, like, three days of me seeing it. So that’s, that’s my story, I guess. For ice fishing.

(Note: I recorded the audio of this fisherman telling his story and then transcribed it. He preferred to remain anonymous.)

Part One

So me and my best friend - his dad is from Mexico… His whole family’s from Mexico - We got together years back, and he started coming with me on my hunting and fishing adventures. And he’d never been ice fishing. So we went down to Wisconsin to the driftless area and bought an ice house for 80 bucks. And we came back and we went to Shady Oak Lake in Hopkins, Minnesota. It’s one of my go-to Metro clean lakes. I go to that lake because it’s got a spring, a warm spring, and it’s clean water. It’s three small lakes connected, very small. The one in the middle is where I go because all those lakes are very shallow, but I was able to find a 36 foot drop, and that’s the deepest in the lake.

So anyways, we got that ice house, and we went out there and set it up and started fishing on that 36 foot hole. We drilled some holes by hand and pushed the ice house over it. We sat there all evening, into the night, and it was really cold that year. It was 2019, so right before covid, and we weren’t really catching anything. We caught some sunfish and maybe a perch. Nothing special. But he was happy to be out there with me, and I was happy to be out there with him - his first time ever doing this kind of stuff. So it was cool.

Technically, what I did, from my knowledge, is illegal. It’s not that big of an offense. I don’t even think I knew it was illegal. I might have known it was not good.

But, anyway, we had that ice house. It was a pop up with a hard shell and a sled. And it had holes with plastic covers that can cover up your fishing holes when you’re not using them. I have these old ice fishing poles - there’s no reels on them. It’s just a wood stick with an ice pick that you stick in the ground, and then you hand-fish. So I put some new 80 pound braided thread on there, and I set it up to where I had three sucker minnows. In the state of Minnesota, you’re allowed to have three pieces of bait on one line, all within nine inches of each other. I put a big weight above the minnows, so when I drop it down the minnows just spin around near the bottom. This is a bait I set up for Northern pike because I love Northern pike. I grew up eating it. That’s my favorite fish. They’re hell of a fight. A lot of people don’t eat them. I love to eat them.

Anyways, we were calling it a night, and I said, “Well, let me drop my stick in the hole.” And the cool thing about that stick was that it’s wide enough that you can just set it on top of your ice hole, and then, you know, it’s not going to go anywhere. So I say “Well, I’ll leave these out here all night. We’ll come check it tomorrow.”

We worked together too - we did at the time. So anyways, I dropped that down into the water, and left it there, with his line out too. We closed up the holes with the covers and snapped them in place to lock them in. We left our paper there on the ice house, which you’re supposed to do. If you leave your ice house unattended, you have to leave your phone number, name and fishing license number, so if a DNR officer finds it, he can call you if he has a problem.

Yada yada. So I’m trying to make this quick, because I know otherwise, I’d be here all night. I’m a slow talker. From northern Minnesota, trying to make it quick. Anyways, we leave them down in the holes. We were dumb kids. We didn’t think about tomorrow. We didn’t think about weather. We didn’t think about anchoring the fish house down. We thought, “Oh, it hasn’t blown around right now. It’s heavy enough. We’re fine.” We packed up our stuff, left the house, went home, parted ways, went to bed. He picked me up in the morning and we went to work.

Well, that morning we had 25 to 30 mile-an-hour winds with 60-70 mile-an-hour gusts. It was insane. And it was negative five out. We worked at the car wash at the time, and I remember I was power spraying. It was probably about 9:00am and the eastern wall of the entrance of the wash was a big piece of ice from all the spray. At that time of year we’re doing tons of cars. A hundred cars an hour - we’re busy. So I’m spraying these cars and I’m just like, “Fuck, man, this wind is crazy.”

And I’m just thinking, “It’s only 9am and that ice house is out there.” I looked at my weather and saw 65 mile an hour winds. Oh my God. So I’m like, “We got to get to the ice house.” So my buddy, he was a driver, so he hopped out of one of the cars. He pulled up under the track as I was spraying. I go, “Hey, come here,” and he runs over, and I go, “We got to take our break together. I’m going to make it happen, because we got to go check that ice house.” He’s like, “Yeah, man, it’s really windy.” And I’m like, “Yeah.” So I convinced my boss. I don’t know how, back then I just - I worked with these guys for so many years, I convinced them to let me and him go on break together.

So we break at 11am, the lake is five, six minutes away. So we shoot down to it, and when we get there, I run out to the edge of the lake, and I see this black thing, like… moving. Not where my ice house was, but a ways away. But it won’t go any further - it’s shaking, but it won’t blow away. The wind’s just blowing across the lake. Western wind. So anyways, we run out on the lake, and I say, “Oh, it’s my house!” And you couldn’t see what was happening until you got really close. It’s like a, “What is going on?” kind of a situation. You wouldn’t think what happened happened.

So we get up close and see something in the air. It’s my fishing line. The holes are way over here, and my ice house is way over there, probably, I’d say 15 yards away. And there’s two tight lines coming out of the hole. And I go, “What the fuck?” So I get down to the first hole, and thought that the lines overnight got tangled up, and then that wind came and pulled the house so they were stuck under the ice together and couldn’t blow away.

Well, as I was messing with the line, I realized that it wasn’t because they were tangled together. It was because I had caught a big Northern pike that was lodged sideways in the hole, and tangled up with my buddy’s line. And she couldn’t really swim properly, and I guess she got wrapped up, and then when the wind blew, it pulled her up, and she went bam, sideways, up under the hole. So she’s lodged up under there, not moving, just stiff. And I’m trying to pull the other line, and I can’t, and I go down in the other hole and see her - I see her sideways, and I couldn’t make out what it was. The side of a Northern is kind of green, whitish. And I’m like, “What the hell?” And I realize now that the Northern is holding my ice house from blowing away.

So I take my knife out, and I grab this custom fishing gaff a buddy of mine made for me and another fishing pole. I grabbed the line that was holding my house, and wrapped it up using the leverage from the gaff and pole, cutting my hands all up as I was wrapping it. I was trying to get slack in the line so that I could get the fish out, without losing it. I knew if I just cut the line, the fish would swim away. So I get a little bit of slack, and then I go wham, and I cut the other line, and then I go down to the hole, and I get that gaff down in there, and I turn her normal, and I pick her up. I had to reach down and turn her with my hand and pull her out. It was a 10 pound Northern. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t realize till later after I cleaned her that she was filled with eggs too.

Oh! By the way - the best part about the story I left out because I’m going so fast, is when I cut the lines, my ice house just completely flew across the lake and collapsed into itself. It just busted up in a tangled mess. It was just wrecked. It was wrecked.

So, mission successful. I had a big Northern - she was 28 inches long, and my scale, which is an old scale, said 10 pounds. But a lot of people tell me nowadays that those old scales are not accurate, so I don’t want to say for sure she was 10 pounds, but that’s what the scale said. So those new scales are a lot more accurate. I’m guessing if she wasn’t 10 pounds, she was at least seven. She was so heavy, she was all girth. And that lake is crazy because it’s so small, but it produces such big fish. I have pictures to prove it, of like two and a half/three pound bass out of there. And I’ve caught a 32 inch pike out of there too, off a jumbo sucker in the summertime.

And my buddy was so pissed off. He’s like, “We went all the way to Wisconsin, and now the ice house is ruined.” So, we had to cut it all up. We had to break it up into small enough pieces and tie it all up because it was so windy we couldn’t get it out of there otherwise. But then I had this giant, 28 inch Northern - I mean, giant doesn’t sound right when you say 28 inch, but she was… she was so girt, like, so much girth, it was crazy. I was just like, “Man.” Then we went back to work. So that all happened… within 20 minutes. We got all of that to happen and threw it in the truck and went back. And then I cleaned her later that night.

She was alive, by the way, which is the saddest part about the story. I feel horrible because I don’t like to do that. But I mean, she was in that hole, alive the whole time, and not dead, like you would think - she was very alive. Because when I pulled her up, she was flopping all over me on the ice, and I stabbed her in the head right away with my knife and just put her down so that she wasn’t suffering. Because I immediately felt so bad. It was the first thing on my mind. I was very excited, but at the same time feeling very bad about the whole thing, knowing it was my fault that she was in that situation from my stupidity. There’s a lesson learned, for sure: don’t do that dumb shit. Don’t leave a hole. Don’t leave it overnight, especially with another line there. And don’t case your stick under the cap of your ice house.

And I think if I remember right - on my buddy’s line, there was a sunfish. So it was kind of like… I did not care about that fish at all. Yeah. When I pulled that Northern out and I saw that sunfish, I didn’t… I didn’t even care. I was so happy about that pike.

Thanks for reading! What follows is fly fishing extraordinaire Patrick Larkin’s story:

Elias is an old friend from college that I’ve drifted in and out of contact with since graduating in 2009. He’s a lanky, brainy, far out, philosophizing type prone to bouts of drinking and smoking hand-rolled unfiltered cigarettes. We were close for a time in college, sharing poetry, getting drunk, and occasionally boxing with a group of friends. About 6 years out of school, after having no contact, he hit me up to stay at my house during a writers’ conference in Minneapolis. In the evenings he filled me in on how he spent his days: tending to two grumpy little tyrants, his children. Come naptime he snuck in some time staring at graphs to day trade measly sums on the stock market, dreaming of making it big. We had a good night or two drinking and shooting the breeze, reminiscing about raucous times. And then he was gone, back to his domestic confines in Ames, Iowa. I didn’t hear from him for a long while. In 2021, a mutual friend paid him a visit in Iowa and found out he had gotten into fly fishing during the pandemic. That was music to my ears - I had also gotten into fly fishing and had come to the realization that curating friendships around my main hobby - playing music - had left me with scant contacts interested in fishing and the like. After reconnecting yet again, we set up a time to hang out in the Iowa Driftless.

Before heading to Iowa, I performed what had become a ritual for me. I spent two days fly fishing for trout near LaCrosse, Wisconsin. I tromped around small spring creeks, crashing through brush and slapping down hoppers, scaring a lot of fish and occasionally getting lucky. I slept poorly in the back of my station wagon at a campground where dog owners with behemoth campers sat in chairs in a circle all day. I smelled like pee and mud, and subsisted on granola bars and oranges. In my last creek before I headed to Iowa, I remember trudging through tight bramble and willow clusters before stumbling into a massive pool of water with feet-deep silt near a beaver dam. Disgusted by the manure-smelling muck, I grimaced and cast a hopper. A nice chunky brown trout leaped out of the air for it. I wrangled it into the net and grinned for no one but myself. Satisfied with my catch, I emerged from the stream, hopped in my wagon, and headed to Iowa to meet up with Elias.

I met him at a campground on a popular creek about a half hour from Decorah. I rolled up and gave him a hug, and we peppered the air with small talk of our drives and our households for a while. The campground was a bit tight. We were about ten feet from some dudes with a deep fryer, two coolers full of Bud Light, and a big sound system. On the other side was a group of six other dudes who all drove pickups and drowned worms for stocked trout all the live-long day. They greeted us with gap toothed grins.The mineral blue creek lay just past our picnic table. It was manicured and full of big fat, dumb rainbow trout that had been stocked within the last few days. Being far too proud to fish stockers right in the campground, we walked a mile or so up the creek where it was wilder looking, amongst late-season wildflowers in a prairie.

We had a good time catching some stocked and some wild fish, and eventually went back to camp where we drank whiskey and smoked little hand-rolled ciggies, and made campfire pies. At one point in the evening the deep fryer dudes were doing some experiments, dropping whole chickens and loaves of bread and whatnot into the thing and watching the flame shoot up 15 feet or so with modern country music twangin’ on. One guy next to us on the other side insisted on offering us bacon-wrapped rainbow trout - we tried, but were unable to refuse. While we ate this decadent meal of stocked fish raised on dog food wrapped in pig, Elias caught me up on his life. He was going through a divorce, while at the same time his dad was dying and his mom was sick, and his wife had just finished testifying against a childhood sexual abuser. It was a very rough time and this trip was a needed moment for him to catch his breath. Phooey. Then Elias described a spot he had in mind for the morning. It was going to be grand. On this note, we snoozed.

We woke respectfully early, slurped some coffee and little packets of oatmeal, and drove past some churches, some telephone poles and a lot of corn. Mist was still rising from the valleys. We pulled off onto a little dirt road and parked where it ended.

We walked on a grass path through some restored prairie for a mile before descending down a hill and finding the creek. At first glance it was a bit of a disappointment - it was a beaver dam laden mess. Big stale pools too slow to drift a fly through, and skinny shallow little runs too cramped to work with. Beautiful and wild, but tough fishing. So we kept walking downstream to find better water, carrying on a meandering conversation. Eventually, we wound up along a much nicer stretch.

In fact, it seemed like a dream. Beautiful bluff on one side, a giant moss-covered boulder, crisp clear water rushing over rocks into a deep pool full of promise. And the promises were kept - the fish were cooperative. We took turns pulling brown trout out of the hole. Eventually we spooked it and moved on. Eureka! Even more fish. They were taking flies top water, below the water, nearly every cast. We hole-hopped past each other until we got up to another nice big pool. It looked to be a neverending fountain of trout. We took turns pulling in the speckled salmonoids, each one seemingly bigger than the next. They were so plentiful that we started keeping them - I wore a stringer full of dead fish along my thigh while we continued to slay ‘em. At one point, Elias got stuck in muck and ended up falling, filling his waders. We laughed and he walked it off, dumping his waders out in the grass and laying out in the sun to dry off while I continued to land some nice chonky brown trout. It was mid-day and we could not believe our luck. It was, as Elias coined, “gemmy.”

It was amidst this magical feeling that we were confronted with a middle aged man and what seemed to be his mother and a mangy mutt. Not a very threatening dog, despite the intent. They bluntly informed us we were trespassing on their land. To our left was a sign identifying State Forest Land, and to our right was these irked Iowonians in plaid layered over wrinkly Iowa Hawkeyes t-shirts. We looked deferentially up at them from the water. We apologized, saying we hadn’t realized, and got out of the water and started walking. Not satisfied with that, they escorted us stiffly to what was definitively state land.

We shrugged it off and resumed fishing. After twenty minutes, they approached again. They’d been surveilling us to make sure we were being compliant landless paupers! Apparently we had not. They let us know that due to a bend in the creek, we were again a foot or two into their property. I scoffed a bit, but we again apologized and moved on. We walked maybe another 100 yards upstream, figuring surely we were out of their hair by now, and got back to it. There was another dunk tank of a pool before us, and we were catching like gluttons. Elias pulled in a nice big buck brown on a dry fly take. He cleaned it and handed it to me to put on my stringer. Just as I’d strung the fish, up rolled a golf cart.

It was driven by the same middle-aged man we had interacted with twice. Beside him was an older man - his father, the master of the land. A beaming emblem of a farming, land-owning, God-fearing Iowonian, with a red face and a look of confused rage.

“Put it down, dad,” we heard the son say with a compelling urgency.

I caught a glimpse of the old man storing something in the dash - was it a small handgun? Likely so. I backed up as the angry man climbed unsteadily out of the golf cart. Elias watched cautiously from the opposite bank.

The patriarch began righteously yelling about how we had no respect, how we interrupted his football game, how these damned fisherman from Illinois come here and think they own the place, and they drive fancy cars and have fancy gear, and how the DNR purposely doesn’t label the property lines, and how they let their section of creek turn into beaver dammed shambles and how they don’t even mow the grass. He carried on for a bit, letting it all out in big bursts. But then, there was an unexpected pause.

He stared at my midsection.

“Oh,” he exclaimed, “Hey!

“They’re keeping the browns! You’re keeping the browns!”

A knowing grin came over his face. “Hey, that’s great! Most of these idiots just let ‘em go!”

I was perplexed, but tried to maintain a stoic look and demeanor.

“Yep,” I told him, “I like to keep ‘em when there are brookies around…”

I held up the stringer to show him the lifeless slabs, mouths agape.

He smiled and gave me a thumbs up. Then he started talking about how there aren’t supposed to be any brown trout in the creek, and how there are dams in place to stop them from moving upstream, yet they still show up. He insinuated that DNR staff were sneakily stocking browns on and above his section of creek, perhaps to undermine him.

This train of thought slowed, at which point I sought a segue.

“Hey, thanks, and, sorry again. We’ll keep moving so we’re sure we’re off your land.”

“You guys have a good one!” he said, grinning. He hopped in the golf cart, and they were off.

Elias, who’d been quiet through the interaction, let his eyes get big and let out an exaggerated sigh, before shaking his head. Then he suggested we call it a day. We hoofed it well into the sanctuary of public land.

Before we wrapped up, I wanted to catch one last fish. So I hopped in the creek a half mile walk up, and threw a classic elk hair caddis into a narrow section between overhanging clumps of grass. The fly drifted downstream for a moment, before a healthy little brook trout took it in an elegant little leap. I held it for a brief moment, admiring the nuanced vermiculations on its back, the bright orange belly, the occasional red dots with blue halos mixed in with all the yellow dots, the deep green scales, the slight hook jaw. The kind of beauty that my aunt would use to argue that god exists - living proof.

I let the fish go, and climbed up the bank. We walked through the prairie back towards the road, with wildflowers swaying all around us.

Lauren writes:

I’d like to tell you about a very special fish. When I was eight, I won him at the county fair by throwing a ping pong ball into an empty fishbowl. My brother also won a fish; I guess the game wasn’t that hard. Brian made fun of my fish because mine was all white, while his was bright orange. He said, “Your fish has leprosy.”

I said, “He isn’t sick, he’s a warrior, his name is… Spartacus.”

Brian’s fish died the next week. Ha!

Spartacus was still going strong after a whole year. I loved that fish. I was very good about feeding him on time and cleaning the fishbowl. Each morning, I scooped him into my hands and pet him. He would move his mouth open and closed as if to say, “I love you, Lauren!”

Around the anniversary of bringing Spartacus home, I went to sleep-away camp for the first time. I entrusted the care of Spartacus to Mom.

When I came home from camp, Mom looked guilty. She told me “Laurie, I’m sorry, but when I was cleaning the fishbowl, I accidentally dropped your fish down the drain.”

I was devastated. I felt so guilty for abandoning Spartacus. I started sobbing. I cried for so long that Mom got uncomfortable. She said, “Calm down Laurie, it was just a fish!”

“It wasn’t any fish; it was my Spartacus!” I wailed.

Mom told me to go wash my face with cold water in the bathroom. I ran the tap for a long time as I splashed my eyes, but the tears kept coming. It was my first broken heart.

Through swollen eyes I had a vision— Spartacus floating up from the sink. Then I realized that it wasn’t a vision— Spartacus had floated up. And he was still swimming! The drain must have been very clogged to have allowed him to survive in the trap for days.

I was so happy for Spartacus. I picked him up in my hand and pet him, then I put him back in the bowl. He swam around with vigor.

I sprinted downstairs. “Mom! Spartacus is alive! Can we give him a feast to celebrate?”

“That’s wonderful, Laurie! But fish can’t tell when they’re full. If you give him too much food, he could gorge himself to death.”

I certainly didn’t want that to happen. “Well, he deserves something for all he went through. Can we buy him a girlfriend? He seems lonely.”

Mom and I went to Walmart, where my family bought all our things, and I picked out a shiny orange girlfriend for Spartacus.

I brought the lady fish home and put her in the bowl. I watched her and Spartacus swim back and forth for a while. Then I was called downstairs for dinner. When I came back upstairs, there were no fish in the bowl. Instead, there were pieces of fish: scales, chunks… one fin had even somehow flown over the top of the bowl onto the floor.

Poor Spartacus! It seems that the lady fish had eaten Spartacus and then because she ate too much, she exploded.

I washed my face with cold water, and there was no fish to swim back up from the drain and console me.

I like to think that Spartacus put up a fight and was the truest warrior to the very end.

I never bought another fish. There can only be one Spartacus.

I know what you’re thinking: “Sam, shouldn’t you actually illustrate more people’s fishing stories before you go so far as to make a logo for your hitherto unsubstantiated claims that you’re going to illustrate 47 stories and make them into a book to circulate far and wide?”

Long answer: “Nooooooooooooooo.”

Sorry but I’m not going to apologize if what you’ve opened this newsletter for was to seek my repentance.

Thanks for subscribing, more soon.

The story goes, my father was setting up camp after leaving us down by the river bank to fish. It was me and my brother Chris who is younger than me and I believe he was six which would’ve made me seven at the time. 6-7!

I had a method of fishing that was one of my own. I would flip a Zebco upside down with the button engaged and pull the line out by hand, as if I was fly fishing . Then I would wave it back-and-forth in the same manner, you know? As regular fly fisherman would. This time it went a little different.

Picture us standing on the large rocks above the water and right below us was a drop off and some water deep enough to sneak right up on some them fish.

So I’m doing my whipping thing and I must’ve caught something behind me and the button clicked while I was pulling so when I was yanking forward I had caught what I believed was a tree. So I yank and I yank and I yank to get the hook free but when I turn around it’s just my little brother with his mouth wide-open trying to scream, but he’s in too much pain so he can’t breathe or yell or anything so he’s just standing there with my hook directly in his arm. I stopped yanking and then he let out a long scream and here comes dad.

I believe I said, “Sorry dad I thought I was snagged.” He then said “You were! Yeah, right into your brother’s arm!”

I wasn’t allowed to do the fly fish anymore.

(Above is a painting I made of my grandpa, William Weggel, a lifelong fishing enthusiast)

Attention all fishers young and old, novice or expert, passionate or dabbler! This is a call for story submissions. I, Sam Robertson, want to illustrate YOUR fishing stories. FishingInAmerica.com has begun. Yes that domain was available, much to my delight.

I’m looking for a wide range of true stories that orbit around the world of fishing in America. I’m looking for surprise, humor, big emotions, fear, triumph, diverse experiences. I’m not looking for stories where you necessarily caught the biggest fish in the world. If the story you want to share only tangentially relates to a fishing experience you had, that’s just fine. You can push the boundaries of what fishing in America means. I want to dig deep into the crevices of America. Your illustrated stories will be posted to my new website, and when I get enough, I hope to self publish it as a book.

I will be funding this project personally. Accepted submissions will receive $25 immediately, and then if and when the book comes to fruition, you’ll get a copy. If I choose your story, I’ll send you over a short contract to get your consent. Stories should be no greater than 1500 words.

Lastly, my illustrations won’t have any actual likeness to anyone. If you’re unfamiliar with my previous illustrative work, you may check out www.MisterRobertson.com to see my style.

Thank you, I can’t wait to read people’s stories! Fish on!!

Evan writes:

Sam Robertson is a local artist who has long explored themes of fish and fishing, though only in the past few years has he actually discovered the thrilling and meditative nature of fly fishing for himself. His paintings, often set in a surreal or psychedelic version of the great outdoors, use humor to explore the human condition and our complex coexistence with the natural world. Learn more about his art, fishing, and cool future projects here!

What came first for you—art or fishing—and how did the second one sneak
into your life?

I’d say art. As a youngster, I liked the idea of fishing but didn’t have anyone to show me the ropes, so I’d go to the same fishing dock in Eau Claire, Wisconsin over and over and never catch anything but little bluegills. Then I mostly gave up on fishing for the next 20 years while learning to make art. In high school my brother exposed me to the author Richard Brautigan. His collection of short stories called “Trout Fishing in America” was very influential to me. It most likely primed me to give a hoot about trout in the first place, so then when I’d see pictures of friends fly fishing for trout on social media, it looked so idyllic and captivating. Sometime during the pandemic I bought a cheap rod and some waders and I loved it immediately, even in my initial ineptitude. I can’t get enough of it. I’m always so happy standing in a creek, even when (usually) I’m not catching anything.

Was there a particular moment when you realized fishing was influencing
your art (or vice versa)?

At some point (before I started fishing more in my 30’s) I noticed that fish were in quite a few of my paintings. I’m not exactly sure why I kept revisiting the fish theme besides liking how they look and thinking about them as a symbol of the subconscious. As long as I can remember I’ve had dreams about fishing. Weird ones, where I’m fishing indoors, or inside a cave, or there’s a tiiiiny little pond, yet huge fish live below the surface and I’m trying to catch them. My paintings started out perhaps a little critical of fishing and hunting, subversively reflecting on the consumer culture portrayed in outdoor gear catalogues and hunting/fishing magazines. Back then hunting and fishing seemed to me more like a human quest to dominate animals and the natural world, but I’ve since come around completely and believe that there’s few things more transcendent than meeting nature in that way. You can fish alone or with friends and either way it’s amazing. I can’t get enough of it. And the few times I’ve eaten fish I’ve caught with friends while camping are among the most joyful experiences of my life.

How does time on the water shape your creative process? Do ideas strike
mid-cast, mid-sketch, or when you’re untangling your line for the tenth
time?

I don’t know if I get many painting ideas when I’m actually fishing. But it calms my mind and makes me feel connected to the world. I like thinking about the water and the bugs and animals in it and how bodies of water connect like a primordial highway system. I love how streams and rivers are incubators of life, and how the fish and animals have wandered around freely in them forever. Just eating each other endlessly like maniacs. I’ll get lost in these thoughts while casting around and I’m able to access a similar flow state during painting sessions when I’m lucky. A day or a weekend of fly fishing goes by seemingly in the blink of an eye. Twelve hours on a creek feels so short. Same with painting when I’m feeling it.

I also like how fishing in itself is such a creative process. You’re working through problems all the time, making connections, trying to figure out what works. And it’s so collaborative. I learn faster when I’m fishing with friends. But then there’s also the sense of community if you’re out fishing solo. Everyone wants to know how it’s going. “Any luck?” “Catching anything?” “What’d you catch it on?” Strangers on the shore who are also fishing usually have helpful snippets to offer, or we exchange flies. Someone’s gifted me some split shot before to help get nymphs down to the bottom quicker. It feels like everyone has time for you, something that doesn’t happen quite the same way in the busy city.

What elements from fishing—textures, patterns, movement, quiet—show
up most in your work?

My paintings often take place in nature, so there’s overlap there. In my art I use humor to explore the human condition and how we coexist with the rest of the natural world – at times harmoniously, but often through destruction. I think the headspace I’m in while fishing parallels where I am while making art. Huge bursts of excitement wash over me while fishing when I’m thinking of how to catch something that I can’t even see. I love that you have to wait till the fish jumps or you reel it in close before you even know what you have on the line. Once last summer I thought I had a 10 or 11 inch trout with how it was fighting but when I got it in my net was a humble bluegill. The mixup had me chuckling.

With fishing you get rewarded for patience and planning. There’s a direct parallel to creative processes for me, where I’m in a similar spot of blindness. I don’t know what’s below the surface of my mind. I usually don’t know what I’m going to paint or make next, but when I’m open to the process, I can land an idea in my proverbial net. Fishing and art are so thrilling.

Fish have such distinct personalities. Do you have a favorite species to
capture artistically, and why?

Carp, trout, salmon, and bass have all shown up in my paintings. As well as a bunch of hybrids I’ve invented. I think I’ve painted a lot of carp because when canoeing down the Mississippi 15 years ago, a big one jumped out of the water and I saw it hit my friend in the back. It was quite surprising. It landed in our boat and we killed it, and meant to eat it but we couldn’t figure out how to fillet it. It had so many bones and I’d never filleted anything at that point so it was a bad place to start. We left it on the shore and ants found it right away and started going to town.

Are there fishing environments or moments that inspire you more than
others?

Nothing beats just standing in the water, looking around at all the glory. Or finding promising fishing holes when you’re bushwhacking around a stream you’ve never been to. Or coming up to a beaver dam and seeing just how much the water and entire environment changes around those. One memorable event fishing last summer in Preston was in the morning on our last day there when hundreds of swallows came flying out of their rocky dwellings to get their fill of some bug that had just hatched, and I tried three types of dry flies before matching the hatch with a pale morning dun. Then they were striking like mad for 30 minutes. That had never happened to me in such a dramatic way. I have a really hard time reading the water still. But when there’s a big chunk of time to truly reflect on what’s going on internally and out there in the world simultaneously, I feel like things start to click.

Which is harder: landing a trophy fish or finishing a piece of art you’re
completely satisfied with?

I’m lucky to be able to consistently finish paintings – to get them to a point that I’m happy with at least. I’m still an extreme novice at fishing so I haven’t caught too many large fish. I caught a decent-sized bass on the Namekagon river last summer, but that’s the exception, not the norm.

Has any fishing misadventure ever accidentally inspired a masterpiece?
That aforementioned jumping carp. Another time on the banks of the Mississippi down south, a friend and I struck up a conversation with an old fisherman and he handed me a fish, I think a decent walleye if my memory serves me right. I asked him “where do I hold it?” and he said matter-of-factly with no trace of humor, “It’s a fish you can hold it anywhere.” I drew a picture for that one but have since lost it.

More recently I painted one called “Babe I’m Gonna Be Late, Sorry.” It’s inspired by that difficulty I have calling it quits for the day, even when there’s something important going on after. This is the painting:

What do you hope anglers feel when they see their passion reflected in
your artwork?

Excitement to get back out on the water. And the humor that comes with the fishing life.

Is there a message you hope people pick up about conservation or the
beauty of aquatic life through your art?

I hope people have fun and meaningful experiences in nature – solo or with
friends/family. I’m not positive if that shows up in my paintings, but I put my soul into them, and respect nature so deeply, so maybe some of the wonder I experience when in the great outdoors gets funneled through the paintings to the viewer. I’ve got a project I’m going to reveal soon that will hopefully transmit those messages more clearly and directly. Stay tuned. You can follow along on my instagram @samrobertsonart if you’d like, or check out the next Fishing for All newsletter where I plan to divulge more. But just as a little teaser, I want you to get thinkin’ about if there are any good fishing stories you have that might lend themselves to being illustrated…

Thanks for reading, and thanks to Evan for asking such good questions that got me to think deeper about fishing and art! I want to fish and make art as long as I live. This last painting here is called “Red Zebra Midge.” It was the first fly I learned to tie, and the first fly I tied that I caught a trout with. They look so small and insignificant in yer hand, but they’re mighty. I wanted to capture their nature in a painting to immortalize their wonder.