At 4:25 AM on June 30th, Luke Welsh is already fishing for perch off the pier at Belmont Harbor. It’s the last day until August that perch fishermen are allowed to keep what they catch, and the end of the best month of perch fishing Luke has ever seen. Some of the old-timers claim to have seen better, but Luke, 40, has fished the north woods of Wisconsin and a good number of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes without ever seeing such an abundance of big perch. He’s reached the limit of 15 at least a half-dozen times this month, and is looking to have one more go.
On the nights before Luke goes fishing, he sleeps on the couch so the alarm won’t wake his wife and 18-month-old son when it goes off at 3:30. Lewie, 39 and unmarried, doesn’t have those kinds of concerns.
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Lewie and Luke don’t hang out much except on the pier, but they have more than fishing in common: Although they both have jobs they need to get to later this morning (Luke markets blues records, Lewie is a painter and plasterer), both also harbor entrepreneurial dreams of locating or creating a niche market that will put them on easy street. In 1994, Luke produced a cassette and CD called Goin’ Fishin’: The Greatest Fishing Songs Ever–15 Classic Country & Novelty Catches. In 1997, Lewie developed Weenie Babies, a line of plush toy penises with names like “Hand Solo” and “Chewcocka.” In 1999, Lewie took a few hundred of Luke’s leftover Goin’ Fishin’ tapes to Uncle Fun on Belmont, where they’ve sold pretty well. The Weenies, however, never quite found their market, and Lewie still has about a thousand of them in his apartment.
“I got a great DVD for you: The Making of ‘Who’s Next.’” Oh man, is it cool! They got a little thing on Keith Moon in there–” Lewie is interrupted by a tug on his pole. He reels in a small, dark, ugly fish with a square jaw and heavy jowls.
Lewie catches another small fish, this one a smallmouth bass. He kisses it and throws it back. “Kiss him on the head, kiss him on the lips, and throw him back in.”
Luke switches bait. He’s been using minnows; now he starts using soft-shell crab.
The guy next to Luke catches another perch, larger than the last, and puts it in his pail. Lewie catches a perch that’s not quite a foot long and puts it in Luke’s container.
