Fresh Fish Took a Direct Path to Mom’s Heart

Fortunately, my mom praised every stringer of perch, bluegills, crappies or bullheads I brought home from Lake Mendota in Madison, Wisconsin, during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Mom was more hesitant about squirrels and venison I hauled home, but none of it suffered freezer-burns. After all, Winifred Anne Durkin was the daughter of a talented sausage-maker, Joe Frank, in nearby Cross Plains. She also grew up during the Depression and World War II, so she knew scarcity, and valued free meat and those who provide it.

Mom seemed to especially appreciate fish she didn’t have to touch until I filleted and skinned them, then all she had to do was check for bones while washing the fillets. I’ll never know how many bones I missed when filleting my catch because Mom reliably plucked every bone she felt or eyed while processing all that fish meat.

For a time, she let me think my work was flawless. But then I took too much credit when her mother-in-law said fish somehow tasted better when she didn’t have to pause to pick bones. Without making too much of it, Mom said, “Well, I found a few when I rinsed them, mostly far back in the ribs.”

Mom wasn’t too particular about what fish species I brought home, if I filleted it. That included bullheads, a homely and slippery fish with no scales. Bullheads often spike unsuspecting kids with the sharp spine on their dorsal and pectoral fins, but Mom didn’t hold that against them. She liked eating bullheads so much that my brothers and I seldom threw any back, no matter how much these fish grunted and burped while getting unhooked.

Few folks today target bullheads, but during my childhood they’d bite when nothing else would. Bullheads were a Midwest staple through the 1970s, flourishing in waters polluted by sewers, mink farms, chicken and livestock processors, and other largely unregulated waste producers.

In fact, bullheads were so common from the late 1800s through the 1960s that they generated sport and commercial fisheries in parts of the Great Lakes region. Not until the Clean Water Act took effect in 1972 and water quality improved did bullhead populations recede, giving way to abundant bluegills, crappies, walleyes, yellow perch, white bass, largemouth bass, and northern pike.

But no matter which fish I caught and which ones I brought home, Mom didn’t fuss. She liked eating fish, especially on Fridays, Lent or no. The only fish I released were those too small to render eating-size fillets or meet state-imposed size limits.

And no matter how fast the fish were biting, Mom seldom showed much interest in fishing itself, especially if it meant confining herself to a boat for four hours. Still, I recall her joining us occasionally to fish perch with droplines on summer nights when Dad borrowed his cousin’s pontoon boat and joined the “perch fleets” off Lake Mendota’s western shoreline. Mom usually outfished the rest of us, sticking an arm out a window in the boat’s screened cabin, and hauling in her line hand-over-hand when hooking a perch.

Not until she and Dad bought a summer home on Lake Poygan northwest of Oshkosh in 1977 did Mom regularly fish. Their place came with a boathouse and aerated livewell, which the previous owner built to hold catfish he caught on setlines and sold to fishmongers.

Their property was bordered on the north by Poygan’s lakeshore and on the west and south by a dredged channel that’s 10 to 15 feet deep. Fishing was best along the channel and regularly produced crappies, bluegills, and northern pike, as well as perch and walleyes on occasion.

This setup proved perfect for two people who liked to fish without leaving shore or setting a schedule. When Mom needed, she slid her fishing pole into one of the 2-inch diameter PVC pipes Dad hammered into the bank, and then fetched a coffee, returned a phone call, or retrieved fresh bait from the garage refrigerator.

Fishing for my parents wasn’t necessarily about sharing a hobby, quality time, or good conversation. No, when the action stalled, Dad drifted off to weed his garden, feed their birds, or nail birdhouses into every tree, post, or overhang he could reach. He trusted Mom to stay on task, and deposit her panfish into a 5-gallon bucket he eventually toted to the livewell.

That was Mom’s kind of fishing. If a fish swallowed her hook, that was Dad’s problem. She set aside her pole and let the fish swim in the bucket till Dad performed surgery. Likewise, if her line broke or snarled itself into a ball, she set it aside for Dad’s service. Meanwhile, she grabbed another rod and reel from the boathouse and resumed fishing.

When grandchildren showed up, Mom invited them to sit, fish, and visit while she watched a bobber or two. There was no urgency. If the fish didn’t bite by the rear pier, she would try near the birch or by the cottonwoods. And if that didn’t work, she went inside to knit, cook, sew, or needlepoint.

When Mom’s catch of crappies and bluegills crept toward her bag limit, she and Dad went inside for lunch and made a phone call I always welcomed.

“When are you coming down to clean Mom’s fish?” Dad would ask. He and Mom could fillet, skin, and chill their own fish, of course, but they liked having an excuse to invite my family over.

Those calls ended forever when Dad died seven years ago. Soon after, when Mom found the two-hour drives from Madison more trouble than pleasure, my fish-cleaning service became irrelevant.

And now, as of Aug. 24, 2024, Mom’s gone, too. Yes, she lived a long life, and no one should feel cheated when living nearly 94 years.

Still, you never want it to end. You’d rather keep reaching into a bottomless bucket and grabbing another fish, giving your mother eternal reason to smile.

Winnie Durkin, left, fishes for crappies on Lake Poygan with her granddaughter Ali Dibble during a recent spring.