I met Maynard when he was 81 years old.  Sporting a thatch of hair as white as the splotch on a walleye’s tail, he was a spindly  5’ 6” tall and might’ve hit 120 lbs. in the few minutes immediately after shorelunch.  He pretended to be extremely hard of hearing. Quietly opinionated, a capable fisherman, and immensely likable, Maynard and his journeys to Lake of the Woods always represented a highlight to my guiding summer.  He was here not so much for the fishing, but for the adventure that fishing offered.  The days would pass quickly when he was aboard and the tone of the trip took on more of a day-off quality than a guide-for-hire situation.  Good fishing or bad, we were always in it together rather than on two ends of the employment spectrum.

He often brought friends with him on these fishing junkets; children, grandchildren, other couples from his Grand Rapids neighborhood.  He always brought his wife.  If Maynard was in my boat, so was Betty. They had pursued such outings together for more than a half-century and Maynard enjoyed them less without her company.

Maynard craved competition.  He actually devised games that ascribed certain point values for each fish caught.  A walleye over 15 inches, for example, would count for 3 points.  A smaller walleye, however, was only worth 2.  The first fish of the day was an added bonus of 2 points.  Larger fish released because of future egg-laying potential might get a 5-point bonus.   Perch were a point to the good while Rock Bass were a 1 point negative.  It was a complex system that changed on a day-to-day basis depending on the fishing, the weather, or who was ahead in the point totals. The updated tabulations would scroll by my head with dizzying speed even on the slower days.  Having fished with Maynard on 22 trips over our fourteen-year relationship, I can’t say that I ever quite understood his math.  He kept books for the Greyhound terminal in Grand Rapids, however, and prided himself on his accounting accuracy.  To question his system and its’ results was taboo.   The stakes were high.  A quarter a day per head plus the priceless quantity of pride that went with a loss.

Maynard loved to win, but I rarely saw him do so.  The casual observer might suggest that age had diminished his fishing skills.  Not true.  Like a Wayne Gretzky who has slowed a step or two in recent years but still maintains the magic, a 95 year-old Maynard possessed fishing technique that most of us will only dream about. What Maynard might have lost physically, he more than compensated for mentally.  I once made the immature mistake of musing about what Maynard’s fishing abilities would have been like in his prime.  Several years later I realized that every morning Maynard got out of bed, he was in his prime.

No, it took me a while to figure it out, but Maynard frequently lost at his own game because of his view of the bigger picture.  There was more at stake in the boat than his own competitive ego.  For instance, my competitive ego.  Or the self-esteem that victory offered one of his less talented fishing relatives.  Or the excitement that comes from watching a novice beat a veteran.  Maynard knew that there was more to get out of this fishing than a meal.

I vividly recall one such day when the combination of good fishing and questionable Math had left Maynard and his wife in a late afternoon draw- a real “Wide World of Sports” moment!   “Overtime” was declared.  I watched the tip of Maynard’s pole closely as it bounced his sinker across the gravel bottom.

“You’ve got a bite, Maynard”, I pointed out excitedly a minute or two later.

“What?” he deafly responded as he turned his head and body clumsily away from a certain victory.  The fish was gone.

We repeated the episode several minutes later with similar results.  A few minutes passed and Betty was crowned victor as she yanked a 16-inch Walleye over the gunwale.  Quarters and highfives were exchanged.  Maynard grumbled quietly in defeat all the way home, a bona-fide sore loser.   I realized that it would have been inappropriate to ever ask him why he so quietly shook off the two solid bites I’d seen him get in that last ten minutes.  He loved fishing and he loved winning, but there were obviously things he loved more.

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