Fresh bluegill filets and fried potatoes. 

December 28, 2012 – Friday

18 degrees/cloudy skies/calm winds

Pentoga Road

We’re up super early this morning. Sargie has to have some blood work done at the hospital in Iron Mountain before work so the girl has the early morning lantern lighted.

I left for the lake as soon as Sargie left for work on Thursday morning and wasn’t disappointed. With the final syllabi of my classes due to be uploaded in the next couple of weeks, I promised myself I’d get back home before noon so I might begin working on the ending stages of next semester’s academic work.

With holes drilled and the Clam in place, I immediately caught a bluegill, then another, and another. I peered out the window and saw a flag waving on each tip up. People pay money and spend vacation time to do this. I’m retired and live a mile down the road. It was Yooper fishing at it’s best and for that particular moment in time, my life couldn’t get any better.

Though the flags produced only small bass, I continued to catch bluegill, not huge, but certainly of good enough size to bring home and clean. When fishing slowed around 10 AM, I mentally validated my hunter/food gatherer card, packed, and left. There was more than enough meat for the table.

The smaller of the bluegills I caught on Thursday. I'd cleaned the first half, the bigger ones, immediately. These are thawing in cold water so they can be filleted.

Working on classes was next on the agenda. With calendar in hand, I matched class times and due dates and began penciling in some of the actual nuts and bolts that make teaching via distance work. After three hours, I turned off the computer, rubbed my weary eyes, and sat back in my chair. The classes are almost finished.

Knowing Sargie had to leave so early this morning, I hurriedly ran through the shower, dressed, and hopped in the Blazer so I might arrive in Iron Mountain before dark. I rode home with her last night and will keep her company during the drive and time in the waiting room this morning. She has to work at 9 and I should be home by midmorning.

And we feasted last night. While Sargie prepared the fish with flour, egg, and seasoning, and cut potatoes, I started the propane burner in the garage and was soon applying my culinary expertise to fresh filets and spuds.

Now think about it… fish caught through the ice from very cold water within the past 24 hours, some as recently as six or eight; garden potatoes, still crisp as the day they were dug, Pontiac Reds, thinly sliced and flash fried on a cold winter evening. We ate like queens and kings last night. Yooper candy. Mmmm.

I’m not sure what today’s agenda holds. Bluegills are like one’s health; there’s no such thing as “too much.” I should spend a couple of hours in the barn and shop putting away tools that have been flopped on the work bench with a mental promise to put them away properly at a later time. There’s another hour or two that needs to be spent on the classes… crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s. So much to do, so little of me. Have I ever told you that a man’s work is never done?

So are the tales of Pentoga Road… 

The Packers play Minnesota this weekend in the last game of the regular season.