When it comes to fishing, this Mom had the right touch

I fished with her in fresh and salt water. She woman-handled everything from big muskies to black tipped sharks.

A presumptive conversation with remaining members of my family would probably result in high praise for a very gutsy woman - Sylvia, my late mother.

It started for me on Lake Zurich. It was my father and mother and yours truly in a dilapidated, wooden fishing boat anchored right off a heavy weed bed.

Sylvia always out-fished my father and me. It didn't matter the species, she scored first and foremost.

And then we expanded our fishing grounds, which found us cruising in another rental boat on both Channel and Pistakee lakes.

As I've written in previous columns, my father chose his cars by the size of the trunks, which had to allow for a small outboard motor; a half-dozen fishing rods and reels; a dinged-up metal cooler; Kaypock (commercial flotation material) boat seat life preservers; two gas cans with some oil; and a jumbo minnow bucket and a monstrous muskie-size landing net (not that we'd see or catch an Illinois muskie). The cooler stored Sylvia's lunch creations because she always made sure we had plenty of eats for a day's outing.

Because I am light-skinned and left to my own devices, I had a tendency to fry my face and arms with sunburn. Sylvia made sure I was covered head-to-toe with whatever suntan lotion was on sale at our local drugstore. My father stood up to the sun proclaiming if the enemy didn't get him in the South Pacific, then Mother Nature wasn't going to do him in by tossing sun rays and heat stroke at him.

Channel Lake was our place for big bluegill and largemouth bass. It was also one of my mother's favorites as well because she would nail an occasional northern pike while tossing a Johnson Silver Minnow to weed bed edges.

Crivitz, Wisconsin was the next step in our familial evolution. The Caldron Falls Reservoir as well as the Peshtigo River provided just what we wanted: bountiful, jumbo crappie; big smallmouth; and an occasional muskie, aptly hooked and landed by Mom with her Johnson spin-cast rod and reel.

And as the years rolled by, Dad suggested he take Mom to Ontario for walleye and muskie hunting.

Dad purchased a "heavier" spin-cast rod and reel for my mother, claiming she needed heavier gear to handle the bigger fish. Off they went, leaving me behind to find my own way on Chicago's lakefront and polluted ponds scattered throughout the city.

It was on Eagle Lake in northern Ontario where Sylvia went through a heavy bout of serious back pain.

Their native guide took the folks out to some location many miles from the lodge. Sylvia managed to wrangle a thick, collapsible boat seat from the lodge owner. But even with that accouterment firmly affixed to a middle seat Sylvia tried her best to keep the pain to herself.

After catching and releasing her second muskie, the guide decided to move to another location. Off they went, with the bow of the boat plowing through heavy waves. Of course, not being there at that moment I could almost imagine what followed.

My mother was tossed around like a cork afloat in the water. Each time the boat went through the high waves and slammed back down, Sylvia would call out to slow down. The guide ignored Sylvia's pleas and continued an attack mode of torture.

My father sat in his seat aghast when he saw Sylvia pick up and oar and "club" the guide into submission.

• Contact Mike Jackson at angler88@comcast.net, catch his radio show 7-9 a.m. Sundays on WGCO 1590-AM (live-streamed at www.1590WCGO.com) and get more content at www.mikejacksonoutdoors.com.