Fishing at the Creek

Almost every day in the summer, my neighbor and best friend, Steve and I would meet at the bridge over the Long Lake Creek on Fox Street to fish for sunfish. The creek, or as we pronounced it, "crick", ran between Long Lake and Lake Minnetonka with a stop over in what was then called "Mud Lake"...now Tanager Lake...its' name changed after a resident felt the previous name was somewhat inelegant.

The creek actually crossed under Fox Street and then made a 90 degree turn and went under the other bridge on Brown Road. North of the Fox Street bridge, it wound behind homes along Brown Road. One of those homes belonged to a gentleman who ran a garbage dump. He dumped the garbage in his back yard...pushing the creek farther to the west each year. I wonder if the powers that be knew this little fact and cleaned it up. We chose to fish on the Fox Street bridge because there was little to no traffic and it was a wooden bridge with a wide board on the top rail on which we sat as we fished. We never had fishing licenses...I don't even know that they were required for young kids...but we constantly talked about how we would evade the game warden should he come to catch us. He never did.

Our fishing equipment consisted of a cane pole with a length of 30 lb. test braided black cotton line...certainly strong enough for the small sunfish we caught... tied to a leader and small hook with a bobber attached. One or two split shot sinkers were attached just above the leader, fixed in place by biting them with our eye teeth. (We also removed them in the same manner...the memory of which makes me wince today). Measurement of the line and leader was critical because it had to hook into the concave bottom of the pole with just a little bit of tension when it was being carried over our shoulders. The empty can of Folgers contained lots of worms with enough dirt to keep them happy prior to their eventual demise.

Cane poles usually lasted 2 years before they got broken. Mostly they got broken because we would use them for something a cane pole was not intended for. Dad would drive me up to Naab's hardware store in Crystal Bay, (on the right side in this old photo), to buy a new one when the time came. All the cane poles were leaned against the front of the store and the buyer could pick out just the right one. Some were too long and heavy for a 7 year old boy...and some were too stiff to flex much with a small sunfish on. The pole that I picked cost between 10 and 20 cents...the price depending on the mood of Mr. Naab. Between Steve and I, we had enough 30 lb. test line to last until we were 12.

More times than not, I'd simply walk down the hill to the bridge to fish...a bike would merely get in the way for it would have to be laid on its' side in the ditch on the side of the road. I'd yell for Steve across his family's garden, a very large vegetable garden that filled the northwest corner of Brown Road and Fox Street and was bordered on the west by the creek. It seems funny today that we yelled across relatively long distances to each other. In the evening when it was time for us to go to our respective homes, our mothers would call us in by yelling our names in the direction which we were last seen. We would yell back that we were coming. If something interesting was going on, this might last through two or three calls. Humorously, Mrs. Helms, who lived between Steve and I would occasionally chime in...passing the message along in case she thought we hadn't heard. Of course, there was really no background noise other than the birds, especially red-winged blackbirds around the creek, and the wind, so it was actually quite effective.

Occasionally, Steve would say he couldn't come until he finished weeding the garden or some other chore. I'd leave my pole and cut across the garden to help get the job done quicker. Steve would help me if the situation was reversed. It made sense to get the work done in half the time so the fun stuff could start.

Steve and I would sit at that old bridge all afternoon...catching sunfish...putting them on a stringer which we sometimes made from the pussywillows growing on the side of the road. The conversation covered all we knew...or imagined we knew...about fishing, cars, school, and all the amazing and wonderful adventures we would someday have. If we got hungry, we'd cut over to Steve's garden and snatch a tomato...or a green apple, and munch it. Usually, one or both of us had a salt shaker...seems funny now...in our back pocket. We both used salt on the tomatoes...Steve used salt on his green apples...a taste I never developed. If it was a hot day, we'd climb up into the old apple tree outside his house, prop ourselves into a comfortable crotch, and relish the shade and any breeze. Occasionally, Steve's older brothers would join us at the bridge.

The only time we fished from the other bridge, the steel bridge on Brown Road, was when we got together with Steve's brothers in the evening after supper, and fished with nightcrawlers for bullheads. There seemed to be more of them on the east side of Brown Road than at the other bridge. This was a special treat for both Steve and I because we were quite young to stay up so late...the sun not setting until 8:30 or 9 during the summer months. Sometimes we'd start a small fire next to the bridge...more for fun than for warmth. Steve's brothers would clean the bullheads by nailing their heads to a stump and pulling off the skin...with a pair of pliers...accompanied by the bones, cartilage, and insides...leaving only white meat. Steve's Mom would fry them and they were delicious.

When I'd get home from fishing in the evening, Dad would clean my fish and Mom would dip them in egg and milk, then flour, and fry them for supper. Little sunfish from the creek, fresh vegetables from the garden...I was 7 years old. I was contributing, and I was very proud.

...A 1949 Summer Morning...

My bedroom window had been left open just a crack last night. It was May and although the nights still got quite cool, we'd had a run of very warm weather this spring and everything was coming alive again. I heard the jingle jingle first...then...as they came closer...the clop clop of the huge Belgians' hooves on the gravel road became louder. I rushed to wash my face, brush my teeth, pull on my jeans and get outside to talk with Mr. Redpath.

We lived in a small bungalow on the top of the hill on Fox Street. The house is still there though it's green now rather than white. In high school at St. Thomas I wrote a poem about the little house which, to my absolute surprise, won a prize in a national contest. Across the street was a field of tall grasses, golden rod and milkweed that belonged to the Weber family. Today it's called Weber Hills...an appropriate name, I guess. There were no houses there in 1949...in fact...there were very few houses in the area at all.

Our house was on 10 acres. All the land was open grassland...surrounded by a three-strand barbed wire fence with wooden fence posts that were old even then. There had been beef cattle in the fields when we moved in. One day...trucks came and took them all away. The livestock evidently controlled what grew in the fields due to their grazing... for today...those grassy fields where, as a child on a sunny and warm day, I would lie on my back with my dog and watch the cottony clouds cruise by...have been replaced by fully grown groves of huge trees.

The house sat toward the front of the lot...set back perhaps 75 to 100 feet from the gravel road that Fox Street was then. A long gravel driveway curved around the west side of the house to the back yard where the garage sat. It had a tall sliding door and a wooden plank floor and sat above what had been a small barn for milk cows. Four or five old stanchions were still down there and straw covered the floor. Next to the garage was a very old chicken coop.

Mother had a clothesline toward the back of the yard...it seemed to me to be always full. I can still remember the delicious smell of the clean sheets dried in the sun and almost constant breeze that we enjoyed on top of the hill. My Dad had dug a garden, by hand with a shovel, not far away where we grew our vegetables. It was my job to cultivate it, pull whichever weeds escaped the hoe, and keep it watered. A side benefit of the garden was that it produced a great crop of earthworms, easily found and collected in a coffee can for fishing bait.

Mr. Redpath was a large man, red-faced from working in the sun and wind, with thick, strong hands. It seems to me now that he must have always worn his bib overalls...not the solid blue ones...but the ones with the white pinstripes...like a railroad engineer. His land abutted ours and he was here this morning to plow. His plow was powered by Bob and Jake, two enormous Belgian draft horses...one white...one grey. In fact, all of his farm implements were powered by Bob and Jake.

By the time I got outside, he had already made his first trip down the field...cutting and rolling the sod under the fresh-smelling spring earth...and was on his way back toward Fox Street. As he got closer he waived at me and wished me a good morning! He had a strong, loud voice.

Hi, Mr. Redpath, I said as I walked to the side of the plow that he was riding on...Bob and Jake turned and looked at me for just a second then focused their attention on the field ahead. Hop on, he said and I jumped up beside where he sat...standing on a bar that ran across the rig. He always let me ride along. Could their be anything better in the world!

I looked at his huge hands holding the thick leather reins...two in each hand...and followed them with my eyes up along the horses to their bits. One hand held the right rein of each horse...one hand held the left. He could turn them by pulling on one hand or the other...though the truth be told...they knew when to turn by themselves and he just more or less encouraged them by saying their names. He didn't ever yell that I can remember...and he never got mad at his two powerful helpers.

It was delightful to ride along beside him as we went up and down the fields...the only noise was the jingle of the harness, the sound of the plow tearing the ground, and an occasional grunt from one of the horses. Seldom did a car come down Fox Street in those days...and when one did...the sound of the rocks and gravel bouncing off it gave it away long before it came into sight. Both Mr. Redpath and I would look up...trying to see if we recognized the car. He usually did...there was really no reason for anyone who didn't live around the area to use the road.

Around noon, Mom came over to the side of the field and called me in for lunch. She asked Mr. Redpath if he'd like a sandwich too...but he said that he was almost finished and would go home for lunch but thank you. I hopped off and told him thanks alot for the ride...he smiled and said he'd see me soon.