58 Nebraskaland • May 2022
THE LAST STOP
By Justin Haag
SMILING FOR, AND AT, PHOTOS
Through the years, I have taken countless pictures of
my son and daughter holding fish. From dinky perch and
crappies to much larger bass and northern pike, no catch
has been off limits for a snapshot. Chances are, you have
been exposed to some of those pictures in the pages of this
magazine and other Game and Parks materials.
Now that my son is in college and my daughter in high
school, the photos bring a smile as I look back at them and
relive the years along the shoreline, on kayaks, on ice or in
a boat.
One photo from the mid-2000s makes me smile a little more
than the others. It is a low-resolution image taken during an
impromptu trip to the nearby Chadron City Reservoirs. I'm
holding a largemouth bass and at my side is my preschool
son, Sawyer, his prized Spongebob fishing combo and a little
bluegill. Sawyer's Cabela's hat is hardly shading his chubby
cheeks, and his Husker shirt is barely containing remnants
of his baby fat.
Moments prior to that photo, I had helped him set the
hook on that little bluegill, the first of many caught that day.
After assuming full control of the rod, he gritted his teeth,
laboriously turned the handle, and said, "Dang, it's hard."
The struggle came as some disappointment to his father.
"What kind of wimp am I raising here? It's just a little
bluegill," I thought.
Soon, I would see a much larger fish — a largemouth
bass — rise to the surface and create a swirl. It was then
apparent why Sawyer was laboring during the retrieve.
Turns out that small bluegill, fighting a struggle of its own,
served as a superb lure for a nearby bucketmouth looking
for a meal.
Thankfully, I had a little point-and-shoot digital camera
with a timer along that day to document one of the first of so
many of my kids' prized, and not-so-prized, catches.
My budding angler got a hands-on lesson about how the
food chain works that day, while Dad got a lesson that things
are sometimes not as they first appear in fishing … or, of
course, in parenting.
