By Sun Outdoor Columnist Eric Davis

I spent the summer of 2012 in Woodworth, North Dakota working for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service as a biological science technician. I worked on a project at Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge, home of the largest nesting colony of American white pelicans in the world.

When I was offered the position, I asked the biologist some questions about life in the area and what there was to do. She said most people fish and some play slow pitch softball. So, when I packed my car for the 23-hour drive, I made sure to include 2 spinning rods, a tackle box, and my baseball/softball glove.

After a couple of weeks of settling in, I asked the refuge mechanic, Harold, about any good fishing spots nearby. Harold was an avid fisherman who would talk about his fishing trips at our Monday morning meetings. Unfortunately, all his advice was for someone with a boat. I did some research online and found a lake nearby that was stocked with northern pike and the best fishing was from a pier/dock within a park.

I went on a sunny Saturday afternoon and fished for a bit. I had a couple of pike hit my spoons as I retrieved them, but they did not get hooked. That Monday I talked about my outing with Harold when Dustin, the seasonal tractor operator, said he would take me fishing in his boat. We talked fishing for a bit and when I told him that I had never caught a walleye, he was so surprised that he must have thought I was lying.

We picked the afternoon of the day we banded pelican chicks as the day to go fishing. I met Dustin at the launch and threw my gear into his boat. We launched the boat and he instantly got one of my rods set up with a bottom bouncing harness. He threaded a nightcrawler onto the hooks to show me how it should look and threw it over the side of the boat. I opened the spool and let it go to the bottom.

He told me to quickly reel it up a little to keep it from tangling on the bottom. Once I got the weight of the rig skipping along the bottom, I watched the rod tip jiggling from the spinning blades on the harness. It was maybe 30 seconds later that the rod tip bent over as a fish ate the worm. I reeled it in and was pretty excited to see it was a 13” walleye. Dustin did not have the same level of excitement and I quickly learned why. I promised to let Dustin have any fish I caught because I do not eat fish due to allergies.

The issue was the lake we were fishing had a size limit of 14” so the fish had to be put back instead of going home with Dustin. We kept fishing for a few hours and caught a couple dozen fish, with a handful big enough for Dustin to bring home.

While we fished the first time, I found out that Dustin and his twin brother were in a fishing league. The league was held every Tuesday at one of three lakes, with the lake rotating each week. I had found my way onto the Woodworth slow pitch softball team, with our games falling on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Dustin and I worked out a plan where I would fish with him on Mondays after work to help him find where the fish were (putting back what we caught) so that him and his brother could go back Tuesday to catch them for their league. Points were based on fish species and size when brought to the launch at the end of the night.

Our plan worked out wonderfully, as Dustin and his brother ended up winning the league despite missing the first month of fishing when they were away at boot camp for the National Guard. I got to get out from the lonely bunkhouse on the refuge one night a week to enjoy fishing in some extremely beautiful places in North Dakota and I learned how to bottom bounce and troll with crankbaits to catch walleye and northern pike.