Behind the Badge
Where the Goal is Secondary to the Journey
District Game Warden Zachary Schuchard
Imagine with me if you will, a cool calm morning on the water’s edge.
The shoreline is packed shoulder to shoulder, rods are swinging back and forth, the zip of fishing lines whizzing by with anglers all hoping to land a whopper.
What are you picturing?
Maybe the Missouri River packed with anglers trying to hook into a paddlefish?
Or maybe the canals of Devils Lake crawling with anglers hoping to fill a stringer of walleye?
I’m guessing you weren’t picturing kindergartners on the banks of Dickinson Dike, but that’s what I’m describing.
Toward the end of May, kids from elementary schools in Dickinson were brought out to Dickinson Dike for a couple hours of fishing.
Pretty lucky kids! I don’t ever remember my schools taking me fishing as a field trip.
Although if they had I might not have gotten back on the bus to go back to school.
I set out early that first morning so I could make sure I had enough rods untangled and rigged up.
After getting them ready to go, I took them over to the Dickinson Dike and got them lined up against the information display kiosk.
I wanted to make sure all the kids had to do was grab a rod, get a worm on the hook, and get fishing.
The bus arrived and dropped the kids at the nearby park.
A couple minutes later the shrieks of excited children started getting closer and closer until I could see little bits of neon clothing through the bushes.
Then, out popped my supervisor leading roughly 30 kindergartners.
We got them all outfitted with a fishing rod and had them wait by the lake for us to come bait their hooks.
Once everyone had their equipment and a baited hook, it was time to teach some of the kids how to use the rod/reel.
There were a few accidentally short casts and a couple close calls where I almost ended up with a hook in the ear, but we managed to get everyone’s lines in the water and teach them well enough that they could reel in and cast out again on their own.
I walked back and forth between the untangling lines and reapplying worms to hooks, just waiting for the unmistakable excitement from one of the kids who had one hooked.
Unfortunately, over two mornings of fishing not a single fish was caught.
Our department had recently stocked the lake with trout, bluegill and catfish.
Sometimes after transplanting fish it takes a while to start feeding again.
I was pretty disappointed we couldn’t even get a bluegill to bite on a worm, but my disappointment was washed away when one little girl that I had been helping said “This is so much fun!” I said “Yeah? You’re having a good time?” kind of skeptically, because no one had caught anything and thanks to the hard winter/winterkill the shores were sporadically littered with dead catfish.
She said, “Yeah!” and mentioned she and her friends were all having so much fun.
I asked her what parts she was having fun with, and she explained to me they had seen an otter (really a muskrat), birds, golf balls from the nearby course, lots of turtles, and dead fish.
It took me by surprise that all the things I had overlooked while in pursuit of catching fish turned out to be the source of their enjoyment.
Of course, they wanted to catch fish, but their excitement wasn’t squashed by the lack of fish being caught. It was simply transitioned to the next exciting thing.
The kids had a great memory to look back on and I was reminded of life lessons thanks to this little girl - don’t let the end goal get in the way of enjoying the experience and to be open to change.
Lessons a lot of us could probably use some practice with.
So, in the future when the fish aren’t biting or the birds aren’t dropping into the decoys, take time to notice and appreciate what is around you.
You might be surprised to find all the things you’ve overlooked in the past.