The meaning of Bellyboyhood
While you'll find details of the Bellyboys philosophy sprinkled throughout these pages, some of it couched in literary yet fairly accurate terms so as not offend the sensibilities of women and children, Dogbert pretty much sums it up in this cartoon.
The autumn of the bluegill
Fall, 2005: Also known as the trip of the panfish. The boys look happy here, and why not? While the promise of the Wisconsin DNR was not fulfilled (catch record walleye, have Doug Nelson buy you a drink), the Bellyboys caught lots of panfish in October of 2005. The joy of the group pictured above (look at the sunburns) was fueled by fishing fun rather than beer...the beer burn came later. The boys are seen enjoying lunch on Friday at The Other Place: From left, Jim Masek, John "Doak" Lux, Bob "Dirk" Jones, Gary Van Moffaert, Chris "Spartan" Rauser, Don Frost, Jim "The Polish Prince" Olsztynski and Paul Bauer. Chris Rauser had an especially entertaining outing, as evidenced by the picture above at left. While Gary Van Moffaert, taking a break from the action, lounges in his boat in the background, Chris is about to catch yet another fat bluegill. At right, Chris and Jim Masek show off the fruit of their labors in the cleaning house.
Here's the biggest bluegill Chris caught during the trip, and, in the center, the smallest catfish a local boy caught that weekend. We were all heartened to realize that the boy was doomed to a life in the Fox Valley underclass, chronically underemployed, having a loving family but beyond that having only a car, a boat,a motorcycle and a loose girlfriend. So sad. The photo at right shows who hardly had time to fish: Paul Bauer, who sweated out the whole weekend (except for a cocktail hour or two) adding up the tremendous costs of the Belly Boy outings, and figuring out who owed what.
More boys than fish in spring of 2005
The spring, 2005, trip to the Wolf River saw the biggest turnout of boys in a while -- even though one of the chief boys decided to drive home blind on the second day. Bob "Dirk" Jones was not blind drunk, but suffering from spotty vision that turned out to be caused by a detached retina. In the tradition of men, fishermen especially, he caught fish all day Thursday and insisted on driving himself home on Friday morning. He's probably glad he wasn't present for poker on Friday and Saturday, the way his luck was running.
The fish must have missed Dirk, for hardly a white bass was landed on Friday and Saturday. Absent from the photo at right besides Dirk is Jim Masek, one of the BB founders who took the picture. Seated left to right are first-timer Augie Pilati, Chris Rauser, Tom Cosgrove, Don Frost, John Lux and Jim Olsztynski. Standing are Gary Van Moffaert, Bob Rowley and Paul Bauer.
The number of fisherman was so great that Gary and Augie had to stay in an Oshkosh motel and drive to the Pinecrest section of the Wolf River resort to fish, go out to eat and play poker. The plethora of piscators contributed to the story related next by Don Frost.
By DON FROST
"So we’ll have dinner at Haas’s,” John said.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to change my shirt.”
I hurried to Cabin No. 5, of which I was, for the moment, the sole occupant. I changed my shirt and looked out the window to see where my fellow Bellyboys were gathering for the trip to the restaurant, the location of which I was uncertain.
That’s odd, I thought. There’s no sign of them. I walked to Cabin No. 4 and tried the door. Locked. I knocked. No response. I looked to the parking area beside the cabin. Cars were gone.
It hit me like a body blow: I’ve been ditched.
My shoulders slumped as I trudged back to my lonely cabin. What to do, what to do. My options were few. I considered packing my car and returning home. But no, I decided, that would be unmanly. No, I will simply hie myself to the Parkside Inn on the west side of Winneconne, get carryout, and come back to my dreary, empty cabin, watch TV, and eat my solitary meal while my so-called friends enjoyed a fine meal and companionship without me, most pointedly without me.
As I gnawed on cold French fries, I fantasized about how I would spend the Sturgeon Fund. Ha! When they decided to ditch me they forgot that I had the fund. I’d show them. But no. My innate goodness wouldn’t let me take the money.
I was to learn later that my absence was noted only after they’d requested a table for six at the restaurant, and someone noticed the empty chair. They’d gone in two cars, and each driver assumed I was in the other car.
At least that’s their story.
They dispatched a two-man task force to find me at Pinecrest.
At least that’s their story.
But they failed to tell them what cabin I was in and the task force failed to ask. They checked every cabin but No. 5.
At least that’s their story.
They returned to the restaurant, reported their failure, and the boys returned to Pinecrest.
“Shallow Hal” was nearing its denouement when I heard their approach. Quickly brushing aside a tear, I prepared myself.
“Oh, we’re so sorry . . .” Ya-da, ya-da, ya-da.
So we all went to the Fin ‘n’ Feather where they sought to salve their consciences by buying me dessert. I thought my ordeal was over, but after the waitress had taken our orders all the boys, except me, rose and began walking away. A cold, hard knot formed in the pit of my stomach. It was deja vu! They were trying to ditch me again.
“Wait, guys!” I cried out. “Don’t leave me!”
“We’re just going to the salad bar,” someone tossed over his retreating shoulder.
At least that’s their story.
As forgiving as Don is, he couldn't help sending these pictures to be posted on a public Web site, which when googled shares really strange company. Do they indicate that the wholesome and active boys wearied themselves with healthful outdoor exercise, or that we're getting too damned old to stay up after 8 o'clock? You'll all recognize the dozer at right; the corpse-like sleeper next to the poker table is Bob Rowley.
Love is all around us: A fisherman's epiphany
Bob Rowley (right) and Tom Cosgrove (left) write about their transcendent experience fishing together on the Sunday morning of the spring trip. Caution: Men who have not undergone sensitivity training should not read further. As Bob Jones told the boys after reading this, "Get a room!"
By BOB ROWLEY
We just missed you guys at the Fin and Feather Sunday, for which I too apologize. John said you left breakfast at about 9:55 am and we rolled in at about 10:05, having been delayed in the channels by a procession of fish and favor that put an end to the skunkdom of the boys. It also ended a five-trip losing streak in my association with the BellyBoys during which I had caught only two walleyes and have been consistently skunked and humiliated at angling. It was a dark record worthy of the Cubs. Yet Tom's exquisite recounting of Sunday's events [below] was as accurate a fish story as I've ever read.
I caught two REAL fish: a 14-inch largemouth bass and an 18-inch northern pike. We threw them both back after recording the deeds with Tom's expertise. No pictures I'm afraid, failed to bring my camera this time. In fact, had Tom not been there, I wouldn't have caught anything at all because it was his spinnerbait that attracted them. And had Tom not been there I would probably not have properly identified the catch nor known how to haul them in and hold them and send them back to the wild for our fall trip pleasure. He was as gracious and patient a teacher as one could ask for, including his instruction that I should be less concerned about holding the largemouth by the teeth and more careful with the pike whose dental work was clearly nasty.
The day was great, and the only thing missing was you all. Tom and I enjoyed those moments when you realize you have found true peace, the day was mild and the sun warm and the frogs were chirping their mating tones at each other incessantly, and we were casting and watching the orioles swoop over the channel, and the turtles crowding up on logs to sit in the sun and one persnickety gar that seemed to be thrashing about in the shallows by the bank and occasionally cruising right by our bait with a languid, disinterested air. We even had a great discussion of myth and literature from Harry Potter to C.S. Lewis over a hearty breakfast. You guys would have been proud.
So my thanks to all for putting up with me all these years, fishless and angler-challenged throughout, and sending your poker winnings my way. And special thanks to my tutor, who is an excellent teacher, the Dumbledore of spinnerbaits.
Tom takes up the tale, with footnotes
By TOM COSGROVE
Bob and I extend our apologies for not hooking up with the Sunday morning breakfast bunch at the agreed-upon time. We became quite distracted by all the piscine activity we encountered in the big cove just beyond the headbanger bridge. Indeed, Bob latched onto a quite chunky, quite angry largemouth. He also tangled with a nice "snake," -- a hard-fighting, youthful northern that was almost arm's-length. Bob hooked and landed these beauties with pro-caliber cool and aplomb, revealing his relative lack of angling experience only by his initial indifference toward the northern's dental work after expressing some apprehension over my suggestion that we boat his largemouth using the "liphold" technique.
All-in-all, a glorious day in a little pocket of the big water that at times evoked one of those idyllic deep-South backwaters where some monstrous "hawg" is moments away from exploding onto the scene.
I'm guessing that Bob will show up at the next outing with an actual tackle box, an extravagant assortment of spinner baits, possibly a second rod, and an eagerness to regale all present with the accounting of a seminal angling exploit in which the details (owing to Bob's long and honorable toil in the vineyards of journalistic integrity) will be only moderately exaggerated.
After reading Bob's reflections on our Sunday morning fishing jaunt, I was overwhelmed by the realization that few things bring more grace and worth to life than the discovery of a good fishing partner. I look forward to more outings with Bob, indeed, as I do with all the esteemed and honorable Bellyboys. I cherish the camaraderie of each and every one, while also appreciating that there are a couple of special qualities that burnish the bond I feel is forming between Bob and me. That he heaps praise upon me is of no consequence since I long ago transcended the constraints and illusions of ego. [1] No, what distinguishes him and me is more ineffable; perhaps it lurks in the domain of the aesthetic. Any attempt to define it would come off as crude and course, but let me try. I suppose it is that Bob and I, alone among the Bellyboys, are truly handsome men, and that we both emanate the glow of, oh, how would I define it... "masculine virility" comes to mind. "Poker studs" darted through my mind, but that seems limiting. Should I appropriate the lexicon of our teenagers and pronounce us both Bad-Ass Mo-Fukkers? Probably not. I guess I should just deem our magical time together as par for the course. After all it was a Bellyboy outing.
I must say, however, that Bob's brandishing of evocative imagery and taut prose in response to my evocative and tautly written recounting of our magical time together suggests that he is wont to play poetic hardball. Okay, then, Mr. Bob Fakespeare, try this on for size!
We drifted in a Twainian state of dreamy languor and quasi-Oneness with the tea-stained current whilst Northern orioles [2] traced languid arabesques in the sky overhead. Somehow Bob and I connected to the natural rhythm of the place, evident in the easy, modestly sinuous cadence of our casts as we choreographed our crankbaits [3] toward the dark, sacred undercuts and sunken debris along the bank. Shooo-eee-uhhh splash. [4 Shooo-eee-uhhh splash. Shooo-eee-uhhh thonk. [5]
We delighted in the chorus of the frogs -- leopard and bullfrogs providing the sonorous bass notes, and cricket frogs -- or some kind of tree frog, gray tree frog, maybe? -- providing the unsonorous high notes. Brummp, Bluhbbluh, teweeee-aarghup. Brummp, Bluhbbluh,
teweeee-aarghup.
At that moment we both felt the enveloping presence of the ancient riverine U.S. Army Corp of Engineers Impoundment gods. We were merging into the mystic, becoming one with the Winnebago. The stresses and rigors of all that was constricting, impacting, and discomforting suddenly evaporated as if the karmic forces holding sway over us had just taken a good dump. [6]
I offered one of my spinnerbaits to the holy waters. Four casts later I offered another. Bob offered the holy waters an intricately designed depiction of a clogged artery constructed entirely of monofiliment.
"Good day," we both said, but not at the same time. It was all that needed to be said. Given the complex nature of our lives and the masculine manner in which we earn style points in a highly equivocal, amoral world, the simple but carefully chosen words, "good day," actually resonated with the equivalent of two pages of descriptive prose, or maybe three-fourths of a page of good descriptive prose.
This state of Oneness in which time dissolved and we entered the timelessness of that which is beyond the beyond lasted about 10 minutes by my watch, interrupted finally by the startling spectacle of Teri Gar, who still looks quite good for her age, thrashing about in the shallows by the bank. As my thoughts turned to those esteemed Bellyboys who could not be with us, I pulled my pocket Bible from my tackle box and came upon this passage in John (ch XXI, v. 3): "And Simon Peter saith unto them, 'I go a fishing.' They say unto him, 'We also go with thee.' They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that day they caught nothing." [7]
Tom's footnotes:
Flush with fish, at least on the first day
The fall trip of 2004 began auspiciously. Chris Rauser and Bob Jones (left and right in the lefthand photo) and John Lux (right photo) came up to Winneconne on Thursday, Oct. 7, 2004, a day earlier than the rest of the boys. Turns out Thursday was the best day to catch fish. Two dozen healthy specimens were brought to the charnel house that afternoon.
The three intrepid white bass warriors got onto the water at about 11 o'clock in the morning. Their departure was delayed a bit by the fact that Bob Jones stopped -- or, more properly, was stopped -- unexpectedly when he had almost made it to Winneconne. Rather than exert his legal right to penal servitude, he decided to contribute nearly $200 to the county coffers for the sin of speeding. That made each fish he caught in subsequent days worth more than Neptune's Cove would dare charge.
The picture of the sunset from Pinecrest, taken by Jim Masek on Friday, shows that the weather was lovely...if not especially conducive to catching fish. But Jim Masek shows off a nice one (center) and Ski shows off what looks something like a fish, so it certainly didn't equal past trips in skunkiness. You'll have to change the setting on your browsers to actually see Ski's fish, of course. Looking at the wound on the poor thing you'll realize what a fight it must have put up.
Poker, as it often is, was the highlight of Friday and Saturday nights. Don Frost (left) is down to a few chips, while Paul Bauer has been driven to drink by his desperation to win. At right, Jeff Wilson seems to have been put to sleep by the cards Jim Masek has dealt him. But his stack indicates he's been paying attention.
As for the overall victors, Ski reports, "I was in a bourbon-induced haze first night and ended the big
loser. Second night I stayed sober and was the big winner.
Another testament to the power of clean living. If I ever get born again, you guys might never win another hand."
But the single hand that will be remembered was a mano a mano between Chris Rauser and Jim Masek. Let Chris tell the story:
"It was seven-card stud, one winner. As the hand progressed, Rauser kept pulling up diamonds, specifically the 5, then the 6, then the 2 and on the fourth card up, the 3. Meanwhile, Masek was confident in his pair of jacks on the first three cards up and on the fourth card up hitting his third jack.
"Certainly he must have a full house, everyone murmured; certainly Rauser must have the flush. Masek, feeling frisky, kept bumping the pot, knowing that the pair he
had hidden gave him a full house to Rauser's measly flush. But alas and alack, Masek's full boat, the sure winner that it seemed, fell mightily when Rauser turned the 4 of diamonds from his down cards: A straight flush.
"Roars went up from the crowd of disbelieving Bellyboys; Masek, stunned, had little to say. Rauser, meanwhile, was too busy raking in the mound of chips to talk."
Jim Masek takes up the story:
"That hurt plenty, but I still walked away from the table that night with a profit of $31, later corrected to $34 because of my beer-and-bourbon-induced inability to count. "Nevertheless, the cards were with me that night, and I believe I was the biggest winner. For example, I drew two cards in a five-card draw game, and got a flush. We'll never know if my luck could have held up against Ski's the next night, since I went home sick."
The first Bellyboys
The inaugural Bellyboy trip was a weekend on Lake Erie in June of 1987. Participants were Ski, Jim, John, Bill Beaver (Jim's stepfather-in-law) and one of Bill's sons, plus a friend of Bill's. It was that friend, who worked with Bill at the Whiting refinery, who actually organized the trip. Because he knew something about fishing, after spending one weekend with us we never heard from him again and his name is lost to history. The destination was Port Clinton, Ohio, for walleye fishing. We stayed in one big motel room, arriving at suppertime on Friday and fishing Saturday morning and Sunday morning. We limited out both times . . . a piece of luck that has yet to be repeated in 17 years of trips elsewhere. At left, a young Ski fishes for white perch from shore on Saturday afternoon. At right, Jim Masek shows off a couple of 'eyes from Sunday morning. The Bellyboys got their name later that year from Ellen Peele, Jim Masek's mother-in-law, who christened us as we were preparing to leave for Eagle Ridge and the almost-ill-fated pontoon boat trip.
Don't have a life? Visit a selection of links sure to appeal to the sort of person who enjoys this page.
To learn how to punctuate e-mail like a real Bellyboy, visit the Assicon guide.
A loose confederation of the congenitally loose, the Bellyboys have been stumbling around some of America's second- and third-best fishing waters (plus soda and branch water) for the better part of 25 years. While the cast of characters changes, characters they remain.
The Webmaster retired from employment at the Chicago Tribune in May of 2005, and has thus not had free time to update this site. There have been two or three outings a year since then, but until the Webmaster gets another job to goof off on, this narrative will have to begin with the story of the outing to Winneconne, Wis., in the fall of 2005.
North Shore types can scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the French version.
Bellyboy senior staff writer
Bellyboy staff writer
Bellyboy staff writer
1. For a discounted fee of $9.99, which I charge only because I know that people still trapped in the ego world primarily perceive value in terms of financial worth, I will send any of the Bellyboys a CD of my inspirational memoir, "Once Misunderstood, Underemployed and Highly Unappreciated, Daunting and Instructional Ascent Into The Realms of Oceanic Wisdom With Background Music The Man Composed Himself Using Fruity Loops version 2.0 Professional Sound Studio."
2. Once known as "Baltimore" Orioles. Renamed "Northern"
orioles in 1983 by the American Ornithologists Union.
3. Poetic license here. Needed a word that was like "spinnerbait." but that started with a "c."
4. The sound made by a spinnerbait whizzing through the air.
5. The sound made by a spinnerbait whizzing through the air and hitting a tree limb.
6. Notice the bold poetic juxtaposition of the sacred with a bowel movement.
7. This is for real. Look it up!
Winneconne trip, autumn 2004
For stories of earlier adventures in Winneconne, turn to the Winneconne page.
And don't neglect the tales of ice fishing and other fun on the Other Page.
Brilliant suggestions? Other kinds of suggestions? 
Write to John
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