Friday the 13th

Henry and Oliver at the Italian restaurant.

April 13 was Ann’s birthday, and I wanted to make it a good one for her, mostly because she deserves it, and also because she had put so much into my birthday. Being on a Friday, it seemed like a perfect time for a road trip. Why not make it a road trip that would help us on our quest to make every recipe in Cooking Wild? My target: Walleye.

This required some advance planning. The first step was retrieving the boat from my parent’s farm and getting it sea-worthy. The boat was fine, but the trailer lights needed some work. By some work I mean fidgeting with them for an hour or two, for a few nights in a row. Finally, they were all aglow.

Another step was further educating myself on Walleye. I got some books from the library and read several websites. I determined that Stockton Lake would be our best bet in Missouri.

Next, book accommodations for Stockton. This was harder than I anticipated, not because it was hard to find a place, but because there were too many options. I finally settled on Cabins at Stockton Lake, www.cabinsatstocktonlake.com. I picked the smallest cabin, but it still had a full kitchen, and the boys didn’t even have to share a bed. And being April, it is still the off-season, so rates were $20 per night cheaper.

Now that we were beginning to get the hang of trout fishing, we would be trying a totally different kind of fishing in which everything we had learned was of no value to us whatsoever. In addition to my books and websites, I sought advice at the Bass Pro. The first three people I talked to in the fishing department just shrugged, and said they had never fished for Walleye. They referred me to the fourth.

“Sure, I’ve been Walleye fishing twice,” he said. “I never caught one, though.” But his uncle had caught Walleye, at least one, at least once. He shared his uncle’s tips with me, which were consistent with the books and online references I’d read.

The next challenge was finding a restaurant for Ann’s birthday dinner. Ann’s such a good cook that it kind of hard for her to eat out, because the food usually isn’t nearly up to the standard that she cooks  for us at home. To get from Columbia to Stockton, you can either take 65 through Sedalia or 54 by Lake of the Ozarks. I opted for the Lake route, figuring it would offer more options. It had plenty of options alright… about 100 bars, all of which had similar bar and grill menus. Not the best choice for a birthday dinner, so I started searching upscale. There were several of these, too, but most were steakhouses. I get my steak from the farm, and I’m confident no restaurant will match it in quality. Plus, these fancy-schmancy places were getting $40 for a dinner. Not from us they weren’t.

Finally I found Biggy’s (www.biggysatthelake.com) Although the name was suspect, it is an Italian restaurant that makes all their own pasta, sauces and bread. And it had prices that seemed more appropriate for a mid-Missouri restaurant.

Ann likes surprises, so I kept her in the dark about all the plans, although she may have suspected something when I just happened to stay up until midnight two nights in a row to work on the boat trailer lights. By the time Friday morning came around I was too beat to muster a special birthday breakfast on my own, so I buzzed over to Uprise (www.facebook.com/uprise-bakery) and brought home croissants, muffins and a Latte.

In previous years I’ve put a priority on making a birthday cake from scratch. My track record has been hit and miss, so this time I opted for a mix. But I still wanted something a little different, so I found a Tres Leches cake mix. I knocked it out that afternoon, squeezed the cake caddy into the cooler, and we were off.

Biggies didn’t disappoint. Ann had lasagna and I had ravioli, and both were great. We drove through a hard thunderstorm shortly before getting to Stockton, and it was still pouring when we arrived.

The cabin was very comfortable, and spotlessly clean. It’s always interesting to check out the kitchen in a rental cabin and see what you have to work with. In this case there were about three varieties of salt and a five-pound container of cinnamon. The cookware was everything you would expect, and some things that you wouldn’t, like a large non-stick wok.

The table service was also ample. This is somewhat ironic, as there was no table. The cabin could sleep up to seven people, but did not have a kitchen or dining room table. There were two stools at the bar. Ann noticed this immediately, I wouldn’t have noticed until meal time. I’m pretty sure the cabins were designed and furnished by men, who probably thought people would rather eat on the couch why watching television. My other clue about the masculine influences in the decor: two magazines on the coffee table, one on cage fighting and the other on welding.

Henry and Oliver work on their short game.

The next morning it was still raining hard, so we opted not to get an early start. We went to the lodge, and Henry and Oliver had a go at the putting green, which was flooded, while we talked to the manager. He said the walleye were hard to predict, due to the crazy warm early spring, followed by a more seasonal cool-off.    

We finally took to the water later that morning. It had cleared off, so from the little I knew of walleye, our mid-day chances might be slim. We gave it a go for a couple of hours without luck, so we took a break back at the cabin. We had an earlier dinner at the cabin (Stockton has an excellent grocery store), and then took back out to the water.

In case you’re considering going for Walleye yourself, here’s a summary of the advice I read and tried:

• Fish the windswept points: Check.
• Fish the shoreline around downed trees, rocks and debris: Check
• Fish the shelf, where it drops off deep: Check
• Use a jig: Check. Try a nightcrawler on a jig: Check. Ditto for a spoon: Check. Ditto for a spinner: Check.
• Use a natural looking minnow is bright light: Check
• Use a brightly colored minnow when skies are overcast: Check.

I could go on, but you get the picture. All of the efforts resulted in one fish, a perch that Ann caught on the new birthday fishing rod that Oliver had given her the night before. It could have been a keeper, but with only one we decided to let it go.

I got in a little fishing early Sunday morning, but we needed to get back for Henry’s lacrosse game, and another storm came in when we were getting ready to leave anyway.

It was a fun weekend. Stockton is a very nice small town, strikingly well maintained and clean. It has recovered well from the tornado that hit it a few years back.  Tell me another town in rural Missouri with a population of under 2,000 where you can get whole-bean coffee, or a cappuccino (thanks to Hammons Nut Emporium, www.hammonsproducts.com).

We all would have loved to have caught at least one walleye, but my expectations weren’t that high going in. Maybe later this summer. I hear you can catch them at Long Branch.