Fishing and bloodlines: Jakiels share passed-on passion and earn Fish of the Week on whitefish outing

John Jakiel and his son Jeremy built on their bloodline of fishing with a good outing on Sturgeon Bay for whitefish. | Provided

The whitefish from Sturgeon Bay were just the bonus.

“It was a great experience to finally be able to take my dad [John] out after the countless years of him taking me fishing,” Jeremy Jakiel messaged.

They went out with Capt. Jimmy Doering of Cast N Catch Charters. Doering is a former Niles guy, now an EMT on Washington Island.

“The satisfaction I got out of repaying [my dad] for all the countless river walleye trips up to our cabin, whether it was the Wisconsin river or the wolf river: I finally got a chance to take him fishing,” Jakiel messaged. “It’s a weird feeling seeing the roles begin to reverse as I get older and he gets older. I find myself tugging on the shanty a little more and rigging up his rods. Crazy to think that. I can only imagine how much headache it was for him to rig all mine up. Fishing for me is a bloodline, a passed down passion, something that will never leave me.”

John Jakiel ice fishing on Sturgeon Bay on an outing with his son Jeremy.

FOTW, the celebration of big fish and their stories (the stories matter, as this one shows) around Chicago fishing, runs Wednesdays in the paper Sun-Times. The online posting here at https://chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors goes up at varied days of the week, depending on what is going on the wide world of the outdoors.

To make submissions, email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com) or contact me on Facebook (Dale Bowman), Twitter (@BowmanOutside) or Instagram (@BowmanOutside).