Dennis Anderson: Fisherman never knew a bad day

The year was 1975 and Bobby Collette, a natural-born fisherman, was in his first full year of confinement to a wheelchair. Bobby was 22 and Tim, one of his four brothers, was 13. Being so much younger, Tim didn't know his brother well -- not before the accident.

But there they were, day after summer day, bobbing atop Mille Lacs, Bobby running the boat, leading his clients to walleyes, and Tim baiting hooks.

"Some days we had two trips, and we'd run back to Marv Koep's shop in Nisswa to pick up our afternoon clients," said Tim, now a DNR conservation officer. "But Bobby's stamina wasn't too good that first year, and he'd get tired. So he'd pull over.

"That's how I learned to drive, at age 13."

Bobby Collette's funeral is at 1 p.m. today at Trinity Lutheran Church in Brainerd. He was 54 when he died Saturday in Texas due to an aneurism.

Good with a stick -- baitcasting or spincasting -- Bobby was only 16 or 17 when he first guided for Keop at his legendary shop, now closed, between Brainerd and Nisswa.

"He'd sit on the motor when he trolled or cast; he was agile, comfortable in a boat," Koep said. "He liked to fish bass. But walleyes are king in Minnesota, and he knew like the other guides knew if he wanted to guide here, he needed to catch walleyes."

Even as a teenager, that's the fishing company Bobby kept. The Lindners, Jeff Zernov, Royal Karels, Harry Van Dorn, Gary Roach.

The Big Boys.

Then one evening, Bobby dived into a swimming pool that wasn't a swimming pool. It was a wading pool.

Everything suddenly was different.

"He was in the University of Minnesota hospital for about six months," another brother, Steve Collette, said. "The staff said he was pretty optimistic, but that inevitably he would go through a 'down' period. He never did. I never really knew Bobby to have a bad day."

Sometimes kid brother Tim helped. "I'd go to the landing with Bobby and his clients, get everyone in the boat, then stay on shore until they came back," he said. "When I was bored, I'd practice backing up the trailer."

Other times, Koep assigned clients to Bobby who were willing to help.

Either way, Bobby did what he was supposed to do: He found fish.

In 1994, he was back in the hospital, again in the Twin Cities. He was losing circulation to his extremities, and eventually would lose his fingers and feet.

Recovery took longer this time. But recover Bobby did. Soon enough, he was not only fishing, but hunting -- using the small bone growth that remained where his right thumb once was to reel in walleyes and bass, and to pull the trigger of a shotgun or rifle.

His brothers were worried. Bobby wasn't.

"His attitude always was, you do with what you've got," Tim Collette said.

Ten years ago, Bobby was married, and he and his wife, Sonja, would later move to Texas during winter. The cold increasingly bothered Bobby and the warmer climate provided relief.

Texas might never have seen anyone quite like Bobby Collette. He and Sonja and her two children, a son, Alex, now 14 and a daughter, Samantha, soon to be 16 -- both of whom Bobby adopted -- lived on a reservoir in Hemphill, Texas, and Bobby set up his boat and dock so, if need be, he could fish alone.

Earlier this month, he killed the last deer he would kill, in Texas, hunting with his son and daughter.

He will be buried in Lake Edward Cemetery, not far from Brainerd, not far from Nisswa, among the lakes that made him the fisherman he was.

"Bobby always said, 'Life is about stories,'" Tim Collette said. "You hunt and fish, and make memories. And tell stories."