Cold, wet, and windy, I could not be happier to be back home from Chicago. My wife and I spent a week in the Windy City walking around town and seeing the sights. We quickly discovered that we simply cannot walk as fast as everyone else does in the bustling city. I expected the traffic on the street to be fast, but even the pedestrians were keeping the pace of a cheetah.
Excuse me if I sound dated, but everyone maneuvered around like well-oiled machines while staring down at their “I-phones” with the little white cords dangling from their ears. Nobody looks anyone else in the face anymore. There was no friendly nodding hello to strangers or making small talk while waiting for the bus. I guess I was expecting a little more personality from the city folk. I have been away from any major cities for a long time, but I did not realize how long until this week.
We saw the top of the Sears Tower, checked out a few museums and ate some excellent food. Deep-dish pizza and Vienna Beef Chicago Dogs were my favorites, but the Sushi and Thai food were fantastic as well. Our last two days of vacation were spent up in Kenosha, Wisconsin, which is just a couple of hours north of Chicago. All I knew was that there was a charter booked for a day of steelhead fishing on Lake Michigan and I was all for it.
Our party showed up at the hotel lobby at 6 a.m. as instructed only to see lightning and thunder cracking directly above the hotel. Naturally, the captain was not about to launch the boat so we waited out the storm for a couple of hours before it started to clear up. We arrived at the marina and walked out to a 46-foot Bertram with coolers full of refreshments and I quickly forgot about Chicago.
I was back in a more comfortable element for me. Or as my wife said to me as she saw my face light up with joy, “You are with your peeps again.”
The fishing was good; the weather cooperated just enough to make it comfortable for everyone onboard. Even the guys who were clearly hung over managed to keep everything stomached for the day.
Lake Superior is my favorite, but the fishing out of Kenosha was pretty cool. The whole town is into it and anglers were lined up along the shore in front of the hotel. I am talking about two or three hundred anglers in a half-mile stretch of shore. They were mostly slip-bobber fishing with spawn sacks or casting spoons.
It was really neat to watch and walk around at our own pace while striking up conversation with random strangers. My kind of town.
Cory Christianson, a graduate
of the University of Iowa, has
worked as a fishing guide on
the Gunflint Trail since 2000. If
you have any fishing reports or
stories to share, send an email
to: christiansoncory@hotmail.
com or call 218-388-0315.
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