Fishing or Wine, What’s more Romantic?

Jon Watching Boats Pass in the Harbor

Most girls would love to spend the weekend at a vineyard in Door County Wisconsin (one of the top stops for Wisconsin dwellers in the summer), sipping wine off the vine and sauntering down endless green woven rows hand-in-hand with a loved one while the sun rests on top of their heads. Romantic—to most girls. I’m not “most girls,” and I definitely don’t live in a world written by Nicholas Sparks. I’m a Wisconsinite.

Now, don’t get me mixed up with a gal that doesn’t like to be wined and dined. I enjoy a bit of romance like any other female, but when faced with the choice of wine and fishing, lately, fishing makes me take the bait.

Before Jon came to visit me from Canada this past weekend, I had a couple items on the agenda for his first Sheboygan outing, and one was definitely heading to Door County. It was our second on the “to do” list until he suggested stopping at Gander Mountain on the way.

That’s all it took—goodbye wine, sunset, and hand-holding. Well, one of the three. We replaced the first item with beer.

Over an hour in Gander and we came out with two poles, handfuls of lures, a breast cancer awareness themed tackle box, leaders, line, pliers, and hopeful, childish smiles. I know, I forgot to mention on more item—my camo, pink Browning hat that I’m not supposed to own according to my clothing fast. Honestly though, how would I catch a Moby Dick without one? I was glad Jon thought so too, so it became a gift.

“Did you want to wear the hat?” the clerk asked me as he checked us out.

He had read my mind or perhaps my eyes; he understood my excitement. He had mentioned that he had recently returned to fishing after a 10 year break.

The Pike put up a Good Fight but Jon Won

I wore that hat for two days straight even when we weren’t fishing. It would have probably been longer, but I had to return to the classroom on Monday. It wasn’t a lucky hat; I didn’t catch a thing, but it was mine, and it was filled with memories: It blocked the sun, so I can see Jon as he watched a sailboat pass through the harbor. It kept my shoulder-length, brown hair under wrap, so I could help Jon reel in his thick, unexpected pike from the dungeon-colored waters of Lake Michigan. And of course, it led Jon to say, “You look so cute in your hat.”

Let’s see a winery top that.