A View from the Lake

A View From The Lake

by Mike Yurk

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: 1-800-839-8640

© 2010 Mike Yurk. All r ights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 5/18/2010

ISBN: 978-1-4490-9494-2 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4490-9493-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4490-9494-2 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Dedicated to

My sisters

Mona, Catherine, and Jean

My brother

David

And

In Memory of

My Grandfather

Alex Batthauer

who taught me how to fish

Contents

Farewell to the Mitchell 300

My Canadian Safari

Garlic Island

A Moment in Time

The Ultimate Wish Book

Dreaming of Tarpon

Woods Creek

Flashes from the Past

A Muskie Story

Ghosts of the Flats

Fishing Across the Generations

The Meat Camp

Ode to Drakes Hideaway

How About Those Panfish

New Innovations in Muskie Baits

When It Rains

It Is All in the Cap

To Get a Fish Fry

The Run

You Are Nuts

Lawn Is a Four Letter Word

Net Fishing

The Big Woods

Going Fishing

Grandpas and Grandsons

Christmas Vacation

Me and the Boys

Farewell to the Mitchell 300

A PART OF THE FISHING world has died and it left us without anyone noticing. There were no eulogies or memorials at the time but today it is gone and the fishing world may be a little worse for its departure.

The Mitchell 300, which has been around before many of us were born, is no longer here today. The actual death of the Mitchell 300 occurred about three years ago when the last ones were made and hit the sport store shelves. No one knew then, that there were going to be no more Mitchell 300s.

Its passing was not noted and now it is almost impossible to find a new Mitchell 300. It came as a shock to me this last summer. When I heard the news it felt like an old friend had died and I had belatedly read the obituary in an old discarded newspaper.

The Mitchell 300 was born in France in 1948. It was the product of two years of research and testing at a French watch making company. Marice Jacquenim, a young watchmaker at that company, is credited with being the father of the Mitchell 300. He had wanted a reel that could cast great distances with accuracy and retrieve the line without tangling. He got that from the Mitchell 300 and a lot more. It took the fishing world by storm and made it a mainstay of fishing for over the next 50 years.

However, the heyday of the Mitchell 300 was the 1950s and 60s. In those days, if you wanted a spinning reel it was the only choice for the serious fisherman. There was nothing on the market that could compare.

I well remember paging through the outdoor magazines when I was a kid and seeing the advertising for a Mitchell 300 reel with a top of the line fiberglass rod for about $30. It was a full page ad from this sporting goods mail order company in Chicago. They always were selling rods and reels and military surplus guns. Yes, they actually sold guns through the mail in those days. Although, I was interested in all the stuff on the ad; it was the Mitchell 300 that I truly was lusting after. I was starting to grow out of the spin casting rod and reel that my father had given me years earlier and I was getting a powerful itch to have a real spinning reel. I felt if I could get a Mitchell 300 I would really be somebody.

But $30 was an awful lot of money for a kid who was only making a couple of bucks a lawn while cutting grass during the summer. Then, I fell into a windfall. I got confirmed. All my aunts and uncles showed up and they ate lots of bratwurst and drank lots of beer in celebration of my getting confirmed, and gave me money. My father reluctantly allowed me to take some of that money, along with my grass cutting money to buy a Mitchell 300.

In those days there weren’t any fishing tournaments like we have now but if there had been I would have been ready for the tournament trail the day I got that Mitchell 300. There are parents who bring home new born babies that weren’t any prouder than I was when I brought home that reel. I was some kind of fisherman then.

The reel came, in those days, with two spools. One was a shallow spool for lighter line and the other was deeper for heavier line. I put six pound monofilament on one and ten pound on the other. I could now catch any fish in my boyhood fishing waters on Lake Winnebago in central Wisconsin.

Over the years I dragged that reel all over with me and I caught a bunch of fish with it. One of my most memorable boyhood thrills was one spring catching a big catfish with it. It was one of the biggest fish I had ever caught up until that time. I caught my first trout on the Mitchell 300 with something other than a worm. When that rainbow trout hit that little spinner it vaulted into the air. It was the biggest trout of the trip. I caught my first largemouth bass with it one steamy Alabama evening.

Unfortunately I lost that rod and reel. Some fifteen years after I had first bought that reel someone stole from me. I felt like I had lost a member of the family. As the years went on I bought a bunch more rods and reels and even a couple more Mitchell 300s. But other reels had significantly improved over time and I found myself using the Mitchell 300 less and less. Other reels seemed better machined and were tighter with less slop, and my fishing arsenal took on a decidedly different look.

Once again, however, I found myself coming back to the Mitchell 300. I began taking them to Canada with me. I used them in Canada because they were such a rugged reel. It seemed impossible to destroy one. This was especially true when I was on a fly in trip and I needed a reel that I could always depend on because I could not afford to have it break down. My choice was the Mitchell 300. My son has a Mitchell 300 that had been his grandfather’s. That reel is over forty years old but still works better than ever. It will probably be working for another forty years and who knows, he might one day give it to his grandson. I think that could happen.

I also found the perfect application for the Mitchell 300. It is the ultimate trolling reel. Throughout the summer I troll crank baits on the Mississippi River for walleyes. It is the perfect reel for that. It has a large line capacity and can easily stand the strain of trolling with the shock of either setting the hook into a fish or snagging up on the river bottom.

This last summer I decided that I needed to get a couple more Mitchell 300s for my trolling rods and I was shocked that I could not find any. One of the sport shops that I had always seen them at were sold out and the owner told me that they no longer made the Mitchell 300. I would take everyone that I could get because they were the best reel that ever was made, he told me. But I can’t get them anymore.

I felt like I had just seen an era pass before me when he told me that. I searched all over for them. I could not find them anywhere. I then looked for used ones. I could not find them at the second hand shops or the flea markets where I had seen them before. I was getting depressed. Like so many things in life, I had not realized how much I missed them until they were gone.

I finally found them on EBay. They are now becoming collector items and people are treating them like antiques. I got another one after furious bidding on EBay. But it wasn’t going to be an antique to me. The Mitchell 300 deserved better. I put it on an old fiberglass rod and next summer it is going to Canada with me.

There is a new reel that is replacing the Mitchell 300. It came out a couple of years ago and it is called the 300X. It is a completely different reel than the old Mitchell 300. I have looked at it and I will admit that it is a very good reel. In fact, it is probably a better reel than the old 300 and someday I will probably buy one. It might last another half a century like the old one. Fifty years from now another writer will probably be writing about the old 300X. For right now I will cherish my Mitchell 300s and I plan on catching a big fish with one next summer when I am in Canada.

My Canadian Safari

AS A BOY, LIVING IN Central Wisconsin, when the temperatures dropped below zero and stayed there for a month or more and the wind whistled around the corners of the house, the woods out back cracked from the cold and it was too cold to go hunting rabbits and even too cold to go ice fishing; I escaped it all by going to Africa.

Now I really did not go to Africa. I went there through my more than active imagination fueled by the books that I read those long winter nights as the house creaked and groaned from the cold. My two favorite writers in those days were Ernest Hemingway and Robert Ruark. They had both been to Africa, shot lions and all sorts of other things and wrote beautifully about that experience.

It made me want to go on a safari. As the years have gone on I have now reached a point in my life that I could actually go on a safari if I wanted to badly enough. For a lot of reasons I no longer want to go on an African safari. I don’t hunt much anymore and I have no desire to shoot a lion and I now think that possibly the adventure was probably better in the books.

Instead my safari has become my summer fishing trips to Canada. I take at least one a year and in some years two trips to fish in Canada.

What I once saw in my adolescent desires for an African safari I now see in my fishing trips to Canada. Granted, I won’t shoot any lions but I will have escaped to where the land has not changed in millions of years and the land with its animals and fish are still wild. I can fish all day without seeing another person. I will only occasionally be annoyed by the sound of an airplane or any other reminder of the technology of our life. There are no telephones. I seldom even look at a watch. Time seems to stand still while I am there. It is the adventure that I enjoy. I am getting away from civilization. It is a safari.

I am obviously fishing rather than hunting as a normal safari would be. And the fishing is great. I will catch fish by the hundreds. Most of them will be released except for a handful that we eat every day. I remember Ruark writing about having to shoot enough game every day to keep the camp fed. We have to keep enough fish to keep the camp fed.

The trophies are there as well. We fish walleyes for food and hunt northern for the thrill and excitement of catching a big fish. On this last summer’s safari I caught my biggest northern. We were far from camp and it was getting close to the end of the day. The wind had dropped and a coolness was creeping across the water with the disappearing sun. The fish just bumped the bait and I waited a few seconds and then pulled back. I could feel the fish and I set the hook.

I knew it was a big fish and it turned and tore off, diving under the boat and doubling the heavy casting rod. Pulling up the trolling motor, I worked the rod around the front of the boat so that I was on the same side of the boat as the fish. The drag on the casting reel let line out as the fish raced off. I would gain line and then the fish would race off, peeling more line off the reel. I realized that I did not have a net in the boat but I had a pair of neoprene gloves under the deck. So my fishing buddy slipped them on my hand one hand at a time as I held the casting rod with the other. Then finally the fish was along side the boat and I slipped my hands under the gills and pulled the fish into the boat.

After the hooks were pulled out and photos were taken, I slipped the fish back into the water. I had to work the fish back and forth for a moment but then I felt its energy return and I let it go and watched it slowly swim a way. By the time we got back to the cabin it was almost dark with only a thin line of orange above the trees. The lights from the cabin looked good in the darkness as we raced back across the last of the lake. The rest of our party was getting worried and glad to see us as we pulled up to the dock. They said that the only valid excuse to being that late was a big fish.

Now when the temperatures nose dive below zero and stays there and when the snow piles up on my front lawn and the wind tears at the corners of the house I begin to plan my safari. There are calls to outfitters, calendars to consult, and fishing buddies to talk to. Dates are chosen.

Since I am normally the camp cook I start making out menus and developing the grocery shopping list. There is equipment to check out. Much thought goes into the rods and reels, line, and baits that will be used as there is in selecting the guns that will be taken on a safari.

Then there is the packing, selecting the right clothes and other equipment. Contingencies are thought of and extra equipment is planned for. As on any safari there is little room for error in not bringing the right gear or forgetting the things that you will need.

Finally after months of planning and telephone calls and lists, we leave. There is as much excitement in me as I cross the Canadian boarder as there is in any hunter finally arriving in Africa. The adventure has begun.

We are there, the smell of the cabin and woods and the freshness of the wind off the water. The smell and sound of fresh fish fillets bubbling in oil, the sound of the wind through the pines around the cabin and the wash of the waves on the rocky shoreline. The sight of a bald eagle gliding effortlessly high in the sky, moose splashing through the shallows back to shore and the mid day sunlight dancing across the rippling water. There is also the quiet stillness of dusk and the sky and water turning orange and purple and pink from the setting sun.

Sitting in the cabin at night, the distant rumbling of a storm faraway in the darkness and drinking bourbon mixed with lukewarm water out of a coffee cup. Then there is the taste of fresh fish and fried potatoes, the steaming cup of instant coffee in the morning and the talking with friends, laughter and jokes.

As there is more to an African safari than just the hunting, there is more to my Canadian safari than just fishing. It is the journey to get there, the planning and dreaming and just the adventure of being there. As I am planning for next summer’s safari there is always the memories of the last one to get me through the cold winter nights.

Garlic Island

IN EVERY BOY’S LIFE THERE should be some place like Garlic Island. I was very lucky. I had the real thing. Garlic Island is a ten acre or so chunk of land that sits in Lake Winnebago north of Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

It has a bit of romance and mystery about itself and it is reported that an Indian maiden is buried there. She was the daughter of an Indian chief and her death was a byproduct of a Romeo and Juliet type of love affair. One does not think of Indians having love affairs, especially like Romeo and Juliet but that is how the story goes. It is historically documented that a group of British soldiers camped there one winter during the War of 1812.

During the 1920s and 30s there was a dance pavilion there and boats would leave Oshkosh and other cities along the lake to drop off young men and women for nights of dancing and romancing. It was called Island Park.

The dance pavilion was long gone by the time I knew the island in my boyhood of the 1960s. Although still officially identified even today as Island Park it was better known to all of us who lived in the area as Garlic Island.

The only thing on the island then was a couple of buildings that served as a hunting camp. There was one building that was the camp house that had two rooms. One had beds and was the sleeping room and the other had a table and a couple of old sofas and stove. It always smelled of wood smoke and bacon. The other building was a storage shed where decoys and boat motors and oars and anchors and other hunting and fishing stuff were stored. And then of course, there was the outhouse. The outhouse was an experience of its own. There was always a pile of Playboy magazines there which was always of great interest to a young teen.

As a boy I lived only about a mile from Lake Winnebago and so Garlic Island seemed special to me as a place of great adventure. I was fortunate in the adventures and misadventures of boyhood that I found a kindred spirit in my buddy Gary. We were misplaced voyagers from a different world that ended up together in the modern day. There were times that this seemed like such an inconvenience to us. His parents lived on the lake, right across from Garlic Island and they knew the owner so we had an in.

I met there, one of the great characters of my boyhood, an old man named Rudy. He was the uncle or something of the owner and during the summer he would go over to the island to do some work on the cabin and I suppose to just get away from everything. During the fall he would be there with his battered old Browning Auto 5. He seemed to like Gary and I and would occasionally hunt with us. He accepted us as kind of equals which was a great esteem boost for a couple of young kids.

We could call him Rudy without the strict formality of having to call him Mister Something. In fact, I never knew his last name. He was only known as Rudy. I can still picture him today. He was a short skinny man that smoked unfiltered Camels, like my own grandfather. His