In the 17 chapters contained in "Fish Stories," author Frank Koffend covers a lot of ground. Having spent almost the entirety of his eight - plus decades on this earth fishing (or learning how), there is a lot to be learned in the written material here.
Koffend begins by telling the reader a little bit about himself – he grew up in Central Wisconsin where, for little boys, fishing was as common as playing marbles at recess. Being the fifth of five kids, Frank was given almost complete freedom by his mother (some readers might be shocked to learn of his exploits on 39-mile Lake Winnebago in a tiny boat, no life jackets, as 9-and-10- year-olds. When Frank was 14, he and a friend rode bicycles to Canada. The next year he went with the same friend on a hitchhiking adventure – approximately 6,500 miles from Wisconsin to Los Angeles, down to Mexico and up the Pacific Coast Highway to Portland, then back through Idaho, Montana and Yellowstone to his home in Wisconsin.
The following year, when Frank was 16, he ran a Pitch-Til-You-Win game at a traveling carnival.
Being the fifth kid, and nine years behind his identical twin sisters, Frank felt he was obviously a mistake but made the best of it by promising himself one of the finest, and most adventurous - lives possible.
In Chapter one of his book, Frank takes fishing history way back to medieval times, when Dame Juliane Berner wrote the first and most complete book about fishing that had been circulated to the masses. In chapter two, though, we learn about the Chinese in the fourth century who used silk lines to fish while trolling. He also describes how hooks have evolved, from the indigenous people of the Americas using chert and bone, to European blacksmiths forging them from metal. The history of fishing line and hooks is a lot more interesting than it may sound.
In chapter three, one of the most famous fishermen of our time, Sir Isaac Walton, mentions a new invention briefly in his 1655 work called "The Compleat Angler" something called a "wheel," which is actually one of the first reels. A century later, a man named Onesimus Ustonson advertised his "multiplying brass winches" for fishing in 1770. By the 1800s there were precision reels on the market, made by Germans, and the sport of fishing quickly became accessible to the common man.
In the following chapters Koffend covers everything from artificial baits and lures to the companies who produced them and the men who created them. One particularly entertaining chapter features the Mepps squirrel-tail spinner lure and how the company's owner still pays the same for a squirrel tail as he did decades ago.
Chapters nine and ten cover the baskets used over the years to put fish in, as well as the outboard motors that kept the fishing boats moving along on the water. Chapter eleven covers some "really big fish" and Frank's encounters with them, while chapter twelve is all about a topic that is dear to the author's heart – the love that kids have always had for fishing.
In the pages that follow, Frank spins tales of canoeing the dangerous Canadian boundary waters of the Quetico and beyond (all with a line in the water), as well as his more genteel times as a youth summering on Lake Winnebago. It was there that he learned the ins and outs of sailboat racing (all while usually keeping a line in the water).
Koffend's last few chapters highlight his time on a property he co-owned with a friend on "The Pike" in Wisconsin, how the Henry and Cremora Rogers house in Appleton, Wisconsin (his current northern home) has a connection with sport fishing, and a few memories of some his finest pescatarian experiences.
This book is one that anyone can enjoy, even if they've never picked up a pole.
