IN NORTH CENTRAL MINNESOTA — The question of whether a statute of limitations applies to information passed from angler to angler arose here Wednesday.

Societal order can't be maintained if those who are party to the secret whereabouts of fish sing like stool pigeons whenever a beer is slid across a bar or a pretty woman winks. Everyone knows that.

John Locke might even have written about it. Or perhaps it was some other guy.

But do such trysts of confidence extend indefinitely? Or is there a time, some years down the line, when a fisherman is free to spill the beans, regardless of pledges once made?

On one hand, a promise should be a promise. Forever. On the other, it's reasonable to believe that confessions of this kind are OK to package with, say, other death-bed surprises — the kind that for generations have been passed from kin to kin in Minnesota.

When better, after all, to fess up that the big crappies you've brought home all these years from "Gull" Lake actually came from "Eagle" Lake?

To which — attempting to soften the blow from that bombshell — you might add (if pertinent), "By the way. Yer Ma weren't really yer Ma."

The issue of fishing secrets arose because the wind blew hard here Wednesday and a lot of the big lakes weren't navigable. Nevertheless, I had my younger son, Cole, 11, with me and we were twitching for some action. The boy had a new bait-casting reel and he was looking to sling some hardware alongside a weed line.

"I suppose if we're truly desperate I could bring you to Ground Zero for bass," I said.

"Have I fished the lake before?"

"If you had, you'd know it."

I had first been taken there some 20 years ago by Al and Ron Lindner, of television fishing fame.

It had long been a favorite largemouth bass lake of theirs, a place where the Lindners filmed the kinds of fishing shows that made the viewer believe video skullduggery was afoot.

That many bass in one day? That many big bass in one day? In Florida, maybe. Or Texas. Not in Minnesota.

Said Cole, "So let's go there, Ground Zero for Bass."

"But I promised I would never tell anyone the name of the lake," I said. "It's too small and could be fished out too easily."

"You also promised Mom we'd be home for dinner," Cole said. "Breakfast comes tomorrow, and we still won't be home."

Perhaps, I thought, all ethics are situational; all morals relative. At least those regarding fishing. It's not, after all, a sport of saints. And if it were — judging by the chewing tobacco and beer commercials that target bass anglers — they would be fishing other species.

Trout, maybe.

I angled the truck down one back road, then another and another, ending our quest for fish on a gravel two-track road, dust gathering astern of the boat trailing behind.

The day long ago when Ron, Al and I fished the lake, we cast Texas-rigged plastics and jigged them home.

Neither before nor since have I seen wrists faster than Al's when he sets the hook on a bucketmouth — quickness big-leaguers looking to smack fastballs hurled in the ninth, bases loaded and two out, will never know.

Cole and I launched our boat.

On my first cast, I boated a fish, a bass just under 2 pounds. Cole caught the next. Both were taken on spinner baits

Then, wanting top-water action, we switched to Scum Frogs thrown into the shallows, among lily pads.

Minutes later, Mama Bigmouth rose from the slop, mouth yawning — and munched my bait. It was a 3-pounder.

When we pulled the boat from the lake, darkness was soon upon us. We hadn't kept a fish. But we had caught plenty.

Down the road, we ate a late dinner, then headed for home. Cole fell asleep, having never asked the actual name of the lake.