Labor Day spells the official end of summer, and another season of Off the Hook fishing reports.
   In years past I have taken this opportunity to print wild exaggerations and flagrant lies. I know what you are thinking–I did that all summer long–but the difference is, on Labor Day I let the readers do the writing.

   Emil Koskimaki loved to fish, and he sure could tell a story. Both skills served him well in the following tale he liked to share with Ray Maki.
   One day many years ago, Emil was fishing for lake trout through the ice on Keweenaw Bay. He leaned over in his tent to pick something up off the ice, and his car keys slid out of his coat pocket, dropped through his fishing hole, and sunk down into the deep.
   Emil was stuck! With no way to get home, he decided he might as well keep on fishing. After awhile he felt a mighty tug on his hand line. He set his hook and pulled up a fine lake trout, his biggest catch of the day.
   As the fish popped out of the hole, it spit something out onto the ice. Imagine Emil’s surprise when he looked down to see his car keys glittering up at him. The fish had swallowed them, then miraculously brought them back to their owner.
   Emil scooped up his keys, moved them safely away from the hole, and gently removed his hook from the big fish. Then he gave it a pat and slid it back into the water–a fitting tip for a very special delivery.
--Ray Maki, Watton

   One morning this past summer, I was sitting in the Ottawa Sportsmen’s Club drinking coffee and visiting with my best friend and hunting buddy, Ole Svensrudd.
   Our topic of discussion had been the upcoming 49th annual Turkey Shoot, and why they didn’t give away lutefisk rather than turkeys for prizes. The conversation drifted to pickled herring, then turned to fishing.
   Ole’s food supply was getting pretty low, as he had been laid off from his seasonal job the end of March. At least if he had fish, he would not go hungry.
   Ole had a buddy, Jerome, with a camp on Rabbit Bay where he liked to go fishing. He suggested we make a trip. Jerome had a boat and outboard motor we could use, and Ole assured me it was in good working order.
   At daybreak the next day we slipped Jerome’s boat into Lake Superior, the surface of the water shimmering like glass. It was going to be a good day on the water.
   With me handling the tiller and Ole doing the navigating (I swear Ole can smell fish underwater), he guided me to a shallow reef far offshore. I put on an orange Little Cleo. Ole clipped on a white Haredevil, like a Daredevil, but with a tuft of fur on the hooks. Ole says the fish can smell it better.
   We were working the reef when Ole hooked a nice one that headed into the deep waters of Big Blue. This was a big fish, and it was peeling line off the light tackle at an alarming rate! Ole said he had only about 150 feet, and soon it would all be stripped off.
   I tried to follow the fish, but as luck would have it the motor wouldn’t start. Ole looked at me and said, ‘I’m not losing this one, partner. Stay put, and I’ll be back!’
   Then over the side of the boat he went, cork grip of the rod firmly in his teeth, paddling to stay afloat while the big fish steadily pulled him out to sea.
I watched in horror as Ole soon disappeared from sight. “Oh man,” I thought to myself. “Ole has really gotten himself into a tight spot now!”
   After what seemed like an eternity, I heard muffled yelps coming from the opposite direction. Ole and the fish had gone in a big circle and Ole was bringing him in, his head cutting a ‘V’ in the water with the rod grip still firmly clenched in his teeth.
   As Ole came closer I could see the dark torpedo shape of the huge fish that was pulling him. “Holy Moly Ole!” I said to myself. “This is just like Ernest Hemingway’s Santiago in his famous story, ‘The Old Man and the Sea.’ Ole has trailed that fish right around in a circle and worn him out.”
   The fish was on the surface now, heading right toward the boat, his bladder full of air. I quietly picked up the landing net from the bottom of the boat, then deftly dipped the net under the huge lake trout–bigger than the one on display at the Hilltop Restaurant and twice the size of ol’ Ole.
   Ole came up alongside the boat next, fishing pole still in his mouth, and I grabbed him by the back of his neck and swung him onboard. I was so glad to have my old hunting buddy back! Ole spit his pole in the bottom of the boat and said he’d had enough fishing for one day.
   The fish was big enough to last Ole a couple weeks, and was a ‘fat’ to boot, just the way he likes them. Fortunately I was able to get the motor started, a loose screw on the computer control box being the only problem.
Sounds fitting, doesn’t it?
--John Stenvig, Pelkie