I guess I had considered getting a cat, but not yet. Never in my adult life had I owned a pet—any kind of pet. And with no wife and no kids, I’ve lived a pretty carefree bachelor existence.
At some point I had started to like cats. I admired their intelligence. Their sassiness. And their constant antics. It was fun to play with other peoples’ pets. But I wasn’t looking for anything to tie me down.
But that’s when my girlfriend, Tashina, messed everything up. Tashina, who is just one cat short of being a crazy cat lady, learned that her co-worker was having kittens. The two of them hatched a plan that maybe Joe should be a little less feral and a little more domestic. Being a responsible cat dad was the answer.
I was the last to find out about their devious plan. But by the time I did, it was already too late. They had named him Harbor, since he would be moving to Two Harbors. And the videos they sent of him crawling around the haybales in the barn were too cute to resist. By the time he was old enough to go home with me, I was already starting to worry that he would be trampled by a horse or eaten by a marauding raccoon before I got a chance to adopt him.
If those women thought they were going to domesticate me, the joke was on them. I wasn’t letting a cat slow me down. In fact, just one week after I got Harbor, I took him fishing in conditions so windy it was hard for me to launch and load the boat solo, especially with a tiny kitten mewling in his cat carrier.
But once we got out of the wind, it wasn’t so bad. I made a few casts to scratch my fishing itch, then got brave and let my 6-week-old kitten out of his kennel. As kittens do, Harbor immediately began exploring every square inch of the boat, often stumbling over his oversized paws as he tried to walk around. As great as the temptation was to fish, I knew I couldn’t take my eyes off him for a second, lest he go overboard. So, I watched hawklike as he explored. His curiosity was insatiable. He was obsessed with the 5-inch hole where my cup holder used to be and was constantly climbing in and out of it. And I found that there are “the zoomies” and then there are the “boat zoomies.” After being somewhat docile for a while, he would suddenly take off and parkour off the side of my tackle box.
I finally caught a perch and let him pounce on and play with our dinner. The fish was almost as big as he was. That night, we slept cuddled up in my two-person tent, complete with litter box, food, and water. Although I was afraid I might roll over and crush my tiny 1.25-pound buddy, we had bonded instantly. By the second day, when the fishing was much better, he marched around the boat like a seasoned pro.
Since that first outing, I have brought Harbor on a lot of my adventures. He’s gotten his picture taken at Split Rock Lighthouse. He’s camped in the Apostle Islands. He was even on my back in his backpack when I shot a couple grouse this fall (which he loves to attack and then eat after Dad cooks them).
Rather than domesticating me, Tashina has realized that she now has two feral cats. Harbor is constantly at the door any time I go in or out of the house and regularly rushes outside, even though I’m ready for his sudden sprint. Harbor was with me one morning when I limited out on salmon this summer. (It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to bring him, and I didn’t bring his litter box—a decision I would later regret. But the fish were biting, and I had him in his backpack the moment nature called, so at least cleanup was easy.)
In fact, the only real disaster we had the whole first summer was the day a friend and I were fishing from my canoe. We got to shore at the end of our fishing and bottomed out in mud. I needed to walk to the bow, jump out onto hard ground and pull us up farther. But Harbor saw “ground” and jumped out. The mud was so soupy he literally had to swim through it. The poor bedraggled kitten looked absolutely miserable, but Michael and I couldn’t stop laughing!
Other than that, he’s had a perfect track record, even though he likes to stand on the nose of the canoe and sometimes tries to look over the gunwale of my motorboat. Some people, upon realizing there’s a cat out in a canoe, have even asked to take his picture, which immediately goes to this little ham’s head.
This winter I was impatiently waiting for the lakes to freeze so I could take Harbor ice fishing. On our first trip, we were in shallow water watching bluegills down the hole. Although I flopped a blanket on the ice for him, he spent most of his time standing on the ice. (He’s fiercely independent and if you want him to do something like stand on a blanket, you need to make him think it was his idea.) At one point, I was shooting a video of him chewing on my fishing line when a bluegill bit just three feet below. But I couldn’t set the hook because the fishing line was in Harbor’s mouth! A few days later, he cost Tashina a walleye when her rod bowed but he was sitting on her lap, in the way of her hookset.
I have put together some YouTube videos on my channel (Joe Shead Outdoors) of Harbor fishing and the response has been nothing but positive. I was worried people might not condone taking a cat fishing, but on the contrary, some people are even vowing to take their own cats out on the ice.
Harbor and I have formed a very special bond. He’s not a lap cat—he’s an adventure buddy. What’s next for Harbor the Outdoor Cat? Well, we hope to do a lot of ice fishing together this winter (and eat a lot of fish). But I’m definitely thinking about taking him in the Boundary Waters when the weather warms.
When you’re adventuring up the North Shore, you might do a double take when you spot a tabby cat with a white-tipped walleye tail hanging out at the Brimson Farmer’s Market or watching pink salmon spawn in a stream. You’re in the presence of Harbor the Outdoor Cat. Don’t make a big deal out of it. All the attention goes to his head.
