Palouse Outdoors: Grandma's Legacy

A satisfying aroma rode the heat waves from the grill where six smallmouth bass filets dredged in flour, egg, and panko sizzled in a quarter-inch of shimmering olive oil. The cast-iron pan rested on the grill's side burner where oil pops could fly freely without a belabored subsequent cleaning.

Bass is an underrated food fish, in my humble opinion, which I formed at about eight years old. Grandpa Roy and I had walked through the cow pasture behind his house to Good's Pond on a warm, cloudy summer afternoon. My fishing skills were slowly maturing, so Grandpa handed me a spinning rod with a "Texas-rigged" rubber worm or "soft plastic" in today's lure lingo.

A chop on the water had stirred up the sediment along the shoreline, so I cast as far as I could along the edge of the turbid waters. My deep dive into the outdoor wisdom and lore provided in Field and Stream magazine suggested I let the worm sink to the bottom before beginning a twitching retrieve, but it seemed that the pond could not possibly be so deep. The line never stopped moving and appeared to be gaining speed as it coiled from the reel.

Closing the bail and setting the hook on the running bass – about a 14-inch fish – was triumphant. However, it was biting into the crispy, flaky, savory white filet at the dinner table with my grandparents that evening that solidified my personal reverence for bass as a food fish.

Grandma Mary was a connoisseur of all things catching, preparing, and eating fish. Trout was her favorite, but a fresh largemouth bass or mess of crappie or bluegill was always welcomed. Her favorite pan was an antiquated free-standing electric fryer. Although bulky and oddly square, it heated evenly and accommodated copious oil to achieve that crisp finish with less splatter. My last vivid childhood memory of Grandma frying fish in that pan atop her pea-green Formica kitchen counter involved that 14-inch largemouth.

Grandma appreciated fishing as much as eating the catch. She knew her way around a fishing rod and would "whoop" when the fish jumped, as rainbow trout do. Buckhorn Ponds in Fort Seybert, West Virginia, was where I landed my first rainbow. The fish were fat and acrobatic, and Grandma loved our trips to load up on dinner. But Grandma's fishing fancy did not stop at the trout farm. Family trips to the beach included catching spot, sharks, and rays at night as the surf crashed at our feet and the warm currents of the southern Atlantic washed over our toes.

We took a trip to Chincoteague Island in my early twenties, and I chartered a croaker fishing trip in the Chesapeake Bay. Grandma stood in a red and white striped tank top and red shorts, peering over the bow beneath the brim of a straw hat with a green plastic sun visor over her face. She cranked on the heavy saltwater reel, grunting and clutching the rod, and exclaiming, "Wheeeeew!" as a two-pound croaker ran hard and fast with our baits for the Maryland border. She did her part to haul in the croakers, but her best work was done at the cleaning station, where she adeptly stripped the delicious filets from our bountiful catch.

Grandma and Grandpa lived with my parents and me beginning in about 1997, and it was a blessing to have them so close. Grandma was a night owl who watched Lawrence Welk while reading the daily news and eating ice cream. She knew just about everyone in Rockingham County and the paper was a source of conversation. Many nights we conversed over meaningless happenings between dripping spoons of ice cream. Our conversations continued via phone and hand-written letters once I moved to Waitsburg.

Unfortunately, time allows little grace for those of us wielding the double-edged sword of longevity. Grandma was a strong, healthy woman, born during the Great Depression, suffered the loss of siblings and grandchildren, and shrugged off COVID-19 twice between the ages of 93 and 96 while living at a nursing home. Her heart was determined, but dementia ultimately sapped her life like a parasite. During our final phone call a few weeks before her death, lucidity eluded her but for a fleeting 90 seconds.

The call informing me of Grandma's passing came one idle May Wednesday evening. How to honor my fishing, Lawrence Welk-watching buddy and a woman who loved me like a son seemed obvious. I slipped off with the fly rod to catch a few fish for a meal reminiscent of many fish fries in Grandma's kitchen. It was June 3, and the sunfish would surely be on their spawning beds in the Snake River backwaters.

Aggressive fish chased down my little pheasant-feather streamer for hours on end, including several sizeable smallmouth bass that met the creel. In my mind, I could hear Grandma whooping when the bigger bass made dashing strikes and hard runs, and later remarking over the firm white filets as they peeled away with the knife.

I soaked the filets in milk to temper any fishiness before breading and frying them in a cast iron pan. Sides included mashed potatoes, sweet corn, and fresh broccoli spears seasoned with lemon pepper. I browned the fish a bit longer than Grandma would have, but the filets were still flakey and moist. A heap of "cookies and cream" ice cream and a healthy reminiscence about our time together capped the meal. I think Grandma would have approved.

Two days later, Mom sent me the following journal entry that Grandma had scribbled down at some point during her days in the nursing home.

"If I could give my grandsons something, I would give them what I have loved and enjoyed most, a gift that nobody can buy. I would give them clear skies, clean water, wilderness, wonderful mountain lakes, beautiful rugged mountains with fog and clouds and rain and snow, solitude, and silence you can hear. I would want each to be able to enjoy the [outdoors] as I have."

It seems Grandma made good on her wish. Her appreciation for all things wild and wonderful manifests in my own passions and led me to a career in conservation, both professional and volunteer, to ensure the public continues to enjoy their lands and natural resources as I have. Grandma may have passed, but her legacy lives on.