A child loves their parent, a teen pushes them away, and an adult… well, I can look back on it all. Sometimes I wonder what my Dad was thinking and sometimes I look back, smile and think, “Wow! He taught me that.” Story telling and jokes are some of the areas where my dad excelled. He has a way of bringing his stories to life, especially the ones about animals.
One of the stories my dad told us growing up was about a man who got his toe bitten off by a musky while fishing in Wisconsin. It’s partially a true story, although his toe didn’t get bitten off completely. It was good enough to scare my sister and I. We swam in a musky fishing lake daily in the summer, living only a block away from Pewaukee Lake in Wisconsin. Sometimes when I would swim, I would wonder about the big fish with teeth swimming around in the lake next to, or below me. In reality, they were scared of me, but the story was always in the back of my mind. This print is based on that story and the beautiful sunsets we would see that seemed to turn the lake and the sky completely orange.
The muskellunge is very large compared to the small fishing boat. It reminds me of going fishing and wondering if I’d catch that huge fish this time.
Thank you, Dad, for your story telling, exaggerating, and teaching me about the great outdoors!
To buy a print of this hunter orange musky fishing art illustration, please visit my shop.
