Finding a reprieve from football - and the world - with a fishing rod | Telander

Sometimes you need to go fishing to think about football. 

That’s what I did Sunday, since the Bears were off and the world was too much with me. Tear gas, pepper balls, immigration, inflation, government shutdown, on and on.  You know what I’m talking about. Nature was a getaway. 

John Voorhees, my friend for over 50 years, and I walked up the Lake Superior beach from my family’s cabin outside Ontonagon — not a person in sight for miles in either direction — to the mouth of the Flintsteel River where it empties into the lake. Sometimes after big storms out of the west, like the gale that sank the Edmund Fitzgerald, sand will pile up and the river will be closed.  It was wide open this time, clear and cool and too deep to wade across.

We hooked up our rods just about the time the first group of NFL games were starting. But we weren’t listening, watching or updating. Here we were. Let us try to be here, I thought.

The sky was blue with wispy cirrus clouds giving way to cumulus clouds off in the direction of Canada. Maybe a storm was brewing.  Who knew? Storms come and go across Superior like projections on the largest movie screen ever, often playing out silently, doing nothing nearby, headed toward Quebec.

Behind us was a multi-acre bog and the pine, hemlock, birch and hardwood forest that spreads like a carpet across the U.P.

Everything was serene, gorgeous. And for some reason, I started thinking about Tyrique Stevenson. 

Last year, the Bears' cornerback orchestrated the infamous ``Fail Mary’’ touchdown giveaway that handed the Washington Commanders a ridiculous win and started the Bears on a losing slide from which they never recovered.

The Bears play the Commanders again this Monday night, again at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Md., and the fans there are sure to let Stevenson hear it.  For the most part the guy has recovered well—his sell-out, swan dive interception against the Raiders last week was a sign of great effort.  And he’s always had the talent. But did he learn enough from last season’s end zone bomb to leave the immaturity behind?

``I’m starting to believe I'm happier in having that moment," Stevenson told his teammate, safety Kevin Byard, recently on Byard’s podcast. He meant the seconds he took looking at the crowd, yelling at people in the stands, rather than paying attention to the disaster unfolding behind him. "I would have never changed, and we'd still be having the same conversation we had when you first got here—you seeing the potential in me."

I hope it all works out for Stevenson. I played cornerback for a couple years in college, and I well remember how a hideous mistake can play with your head like a cat with a ball of yarn. The Bears, indeed, seem to be nearing a crucial moment—either they’re on their way straight up, out of the yarn, or they’re headed back down into the tangle where they’ve been for years. Guys like Stevenson could make the difference. 

My buddy, John, was an All-State fullback and linebacker at Spalding High School in Peoria, back when I played at rival Richwoods High School.  I didn’t know he’d end up at Northwestern with me, a year after I got there, or that we’d be friends for life.  What I do remember is us playing Notre Dame at Dyche Stadium and slippery Irish quarterback Joe Theismann breaking free in the middle of the field, maybe on his way to a touchdown. John calmly clotheslined him with a clubbed forearm the way a tree limb nails an unsuspecting cyclist. 

I was elated and impressed.

John was a public defense attorney for years and is now a fishing guide in northern Wisconsin.  I came along on this little outing mainly to walk, explore, immerse myself in nature’s peace and watch John do his expert fly casting.  In its way the casting is like a lullaby of calm.  I brought along an old spinning rod from my garage with a single rusted Daredevil, which I attached straight to my perhaps 6-lb-test line. No leader, no drag adjustment, no prep, nothing.

I knew northern pike liked Daredevils—caught quite a few that way--but I doubted I’d encounter one. No big deal. I didn’t plan to spend much time casting.  Once the Bears were out of my head, I’d toss a few shots out there, pull in the lure and enjoy the day. But then, of course, several casts in, a big square-headed northern snatched my lure just where the deep water rose up to the shallows, whipped its head, the line snapped, the fish vanished, and abruptly everything was calm again.

John scolded me for my foolishness. Fishermen should always be prepared, for the love of God.  Like middle linebackers. But the day was sweet, unseasonably warm, and soon John was making those soothing arcs again, the orange-tinted line gently touching down in the water. Football and everything else was far, far away. 

And life was good.

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