Fishing Fever season is here ~ July 12, 2006

David Heiller

A friend of mine has been telling me about his kids and fishing lately.

“They’re crazy about it,” he said at the Redwood (café) the other noon. “All they want to do is fish.”

“So you’ve got to take them;” I said.

Malika and Noah after a fishing trip in Brownsville. 
Their daddy made sure they got 
LOTS of opportunities to fish. (1989-ish)

“Yeah;” he replied. He didn’t sound too upset about that. He had been 12 once too. Sometimes his wife will take them to a spot and leave them all day. The kids are in heaven, and their parents are too, I would wager.

Most of us adults have been there. In fact, some of us have never left. Fishing Fever. It’s like a mini-season in Minnesota, and we are in the midst of it right now.

Looking forward to a trip to the river, checking the sky for rain clouds, sloshing on the mosquito repellent. Those are the happy symptoms. Then getting to the water. Soaking in the quiet. Finding that favorite spot and it’s empty as usual, because you are the sole owner of that little square of earth and water.

My brother Danny and I had a spot like that for a year in the Reno Bottoms. It took quite a ritual to go there, which made it even more special. We usually did chores or played around Brownsville during the day that Fishing Fever Summer of 1966.

Then around 5 p.m. or so our thoughts would turn to that spot in Reno. We would make sure we had a few worms or night-crawlers. That wasn’t always easy to do, especially during dry spells when the ground was like concrete. Supper was always at 5:30, but we’d gobble it down and Danny would drive the Chevy to Reno. He had his license by then.

We always took Grandma’s kerosene lantern with us. The bullheads wouldn’t start to bite until it started getting dark, and we needed that flickering light to find our way out.

The path to the hot spot went through the bottomland below the spillway on the west side. There was a main path, then another path to the right, then another path to the left. That was our spur. It was hard to see. It took us to a little clearing on Running Slough.

It wasn’t an easy walk, and that was part of the fun, in a perverse way. You had to walk with your arms raised high, because every plant that grows in the bottoms is itch weed or poison ivy.

The bullheads at that spot were legendary. You don’t see a lot of bullheads these days. I’m not sure why. And a lot of people don’t get excited about them. But they were king to us back then. We thought they tasted good, and they put up a good fight, both on the line and in your hand. One or two would always inflict a puncture wound on us as we took out the hooks and put them on the stringer.

I still remember the biggest one we caught, 13-3/4 inches. It doesn’t sound that big, but for a bullhead it is. Danny caught it. I caught several that were 13-5/8 inches, but after careful measurement we both confirmed that they didn’t reach Danny’s record. He still reminds me of that.

Fishing Fever and kids. (1987-ish)

The walk back out of the bottoms was always a little scary. Like I said, the kerosene lantern didn’t throw a lot of light, and we had to keep our arms high, and carry the rods and tackle box and stringer of fish, which was like carrying a stringer of knives because of the bullhead spikes. And don’t forget the mosquitoes. The “Off” would wear off about that time, and the skeeters would roar down on us like fighter jets. The entire bottoms would be filled with their drones.

It was tricky following the right paths back to the spillway too. “Do we go right here?” You don’t want to get turned around in the bottoms. Occasionally we would forget to fill the lantern with kerosene. Then it would go black on the walk out, and we’d have to slow down, talking back and forth so we didn’t get separated. We would look up and try to find the opening in the trees above that would signal the pathway. It was always a relief to leave the bottoms and come out onto the spillway and see the big wide river.

When we’d get home with the fish, Mom and Grandma would make a fuss. Then it was into the basement, lay a board on top of the wash tubs, skin the bullheads, scale the pan fish. Not a fun job, but somehow fulfilling.

That hot spot disappeared for us late that summer when we arrived only to find an entire family of Bunges from Eitzen firmly fishing there. All good things come to an end. That’s another little fishing lesson. You move on, find a new spot. Grow up, get married, have kids, go fishing with them. It’s a great life cycle!

It’s fun to hear my friend talk about his kids and their fishing adventures. Some things will never change, and that makes me glad.