“Inside every adult, even an American city-dwelling Zionist Jew, lives a little kid screaming he wants to be let out and go fishing. My little kid has screamed louder than some.” – Me
How To Turn Fishing Trips to Quebec into Vacations with Jewish Twists
I don’t know if we can ever go back there again, Canada’s view on “the two-state solution” being today what it is. But over the past half-century, few Americans have drunk more Canadian beer on Canadian lakes and a river than me. We started at a log cabins’ camp on one side of the lake near Val des Bois, and then for decades stayed at a place on the other side. On the last trip we moved back and I told the then owner, “I was here fifty years ago.”
But what gave two of these fishing trips “Jewish twists” (and hence a place on this website)?
We went mostly for bass, but once-a-Purim hooked a pike and as rare as that walleye, the latter much coveted as fresh water’s undisputed tastiest fish. One morning Max and Brandon and I each caught a walleye, and it says some place in the Talmud “Whoever has not tasted walleye freshly caught by himself, his son and his grandson has never in his life tasted tasty fish.”
It gets better. The first year I’d tagged along with some friends, but then started bringing to that fishing camp and lodge on the lakeshore more and more relatives of three generations. In the end there were a dozen of us, my cousin and I each with spouse, sons and grandkids. I suspect the only Jewish customers this second generation fishing camp owner and expert fish fryer ever had. “Bring me today’s catch,” he told us one morning, “and I’ll fry ’em up for your dinners.” Alas, that day we caught only three keepers. “I hope you know you’re getting off lightly,” I told him, handing them over. “How’s that?” he asked, a little uncertain. “When Jesus had three fish he had to feed five thousand Jews. You only gotta feed twelve.”
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