Well now, pull up a stump and lend an ear, and I'll tell you a yarn from the days when the timber was thick and the fish in Superior were bigger than a homesteader's ambition. This here's a tale from the Munising country, 'bout a fella they called Big Gus, and a fish that was more legend than lunch.
Big Gus wasn't just a man, you see. He was more of a landmark. Folks used to say that when the fog rolled in off the lake, it was just Big Gus exhaling after a hearty breakfast. He stood a good six-foot-six in his socks, and his shoulders were so wide he had to turn sideways to walk through the door of the Munising town hall. His fishing boat, The Superior Spirit, was a stout vessel, but when Gus was aboard, it rode a good foot lower in the water.
Now, Gus was known for his fish tales, each one taller than the last. But this one, this one had the ring of truth to it, mostly because of the look in his eyes when he told it.
It was a crisp autumn morning, the kind where the air is so clean it stings your lungs and the trees along the Pictured Rocks are ablaze in reds and golds. Gus had rowed The Superior Spirit out to the deep water off the eastern coast of Grand Island, a place where the cliffs drop straight down into the icy blackness. He was after a particular lake trout, a behemoth the local Ojibwe called "Mishipeshu's Grandson," but that the lumberjacks and fishermen just called the "Moss-Backed Monarch of Grand Island."
They said this trout was so old its back was covered in a thick carpet of green moss, and that it had been stealing lures and breaking lines since before the first white man ever saw the big lake. Some claimed it was the size of a canoe, with eyes like dinner plates and a mouth that could swallow a whole deer.
Gus, he'd been after this fish for years. He'd lost more gear to that monster than a cheap watch has seconds. But on this day, he had a secret weapon. He'd spent the better part of the winter forging a hook from the leaf spring of a Ford Model T and had braided a line from the finest copper wire and the hair of a particularly stubborn mule. For bait, he was using a whole smoked ham.
He hadn't been fishing more than an hour when the strike came. It wasn't a nibble or a tug. The line went taut with a sound like a pistol shot, and The Superior Spirit lurched so hard that Gus's thermos of coffee flew overboard. The reel screamed like a banshee in a blizzard as the line spooled out.
For the next four hours, it was a battle of wills. Gus, with his immense strength, would gain a few feet of line, and then the great fish would surge, pulling the boat and Gus with it. They said he was dragged clear 'cross the bay and back, past Miners Castle and toward the Chapel Rock, the tourists on the tour boats thinking it was some kind of newfangled water sport.
Finally, as the sun began to dip low, the fish started to tire. Gus, with sweat beading on his brow and his muscles burning, gave one last mighty heave. The head of the Moss-Backed Monarch broke the surface.
It was bigger than he could have ever imagined. The stories hadn't done it justice. Its head was as wide as a washtub, and its eyes, dull and ancient, regarded him with a weary intelligence. The moss on its back was so thick that a small family of chipmunks had apparently taken up residence and were chittering at him indignantly.
Gus knew he could never haul such a creature into his boat. It would have swamped them both. So, with a sigh that stirred the waves, he did the only thing a man of his character could do.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a waterproof match, and lit a cigar. Then, he leaned over the side of the boat and held the flame to the cigar.
"Well, old fella," Gus said to the fish, "you've given me the fight of my life. It's only fair I give you a proper send-off."
He stuck the lit cigar in the corner of the great trout's mouth. The fish, seemingly in understanding, gave a slow blink of its massive eye. Then, with a flick of its tail that sent a wave crashing over the bow of The Superior Spirit, the Moss-Backed Monarch of Grand Island sank back into the cold, dark depths of Lake Superior, a thin plume of cigar smoke rising from the water to mark its departure.
Gus rowed back to Munising, empty-handed but for his story. And though some of the boys at the tavern would laugh and call it another one of Big Gus's tall tales, the old-timers, the ones who knew the lake and its secrets, would just nod and say, "Sounds about right." After all, in the waters of Superior, anything is possible. And for a fisherman like Big Gus, a good story was always worth more than the catch of the day.
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