While some memories come and go, others stay with you for a lifetime.
One of my earliest fishing memories is of fishing on the Yahara River in the heart of Madison, Wisconsin. The river in this location was a channel that went from the Lake Mendota Locks, through the heart of the city, and a mile later emptied into Lake Monona. It was urban fishing at its finest, and as 12-year-olds we would look forward to fishing it often.
The day would start the night before, with a flashlight in hand my brothers and I would go into the backyard after dark and hunt for nightcrawlers. They always came out at night, and if one was stealthy, it would be possible to reach down and, pulling from the hole, ease out a plump crawler that was sure to be breakfast for one of the many species in the river. But pull too hard, and you ended up with half a crawler, which we would not keep as somewhere in our childhood brains we knew that putting in a broken crawler into the bait box would cause the other crawlers to die. I have no idea where we got that urban myth, but in any case, it caused us to be careful pulling those crawlers up.
The next morning we’d hop on our bikes and ride the three miles through Madison to reach our destination, and with any luck, our favorite spot was empty. This location had a small creek flowing from some ponds in the park into the Yahara River. The creek flowing into the larger river made for some good holding water.
Our rig of choice was simplicity itself. A hook and a couple of split shots 18 inches up, with a nightcrawler threaded onto the hook, and cast out into the river, along a seam from the inflowing creek. Let the bait hit bottom, tighten up the line, and watch for those first telltale jerks on the rod. Pickup said rod and set the hook. The tried-and-true Zebco 202 reel would squeak and moan at the weight of the fish on the end of the line. Sometimes a bass, walleye, or bluegill, but most often we would reel in a brown bullhead. On rare occasions, the excitement of a snapping or spiny softshell turtle would break up the morning’s procession of fish. These were always a joy for a twelve-year-old boy to catch.
Fast forward 50+ years, my son Matt and I were heading to his father-in-law’s ranch on a spring turkey hunt. Years ago, Bill mentioned that the Musselshell River, which flows through his land, held catfish. After doing a little research I learned that indeed, the river in this area was well known to hold nice cats. The Musselshell flows from the small town of Melstone another fifty miles or so and empties into the Missouri River at the point where the river widens to form Fort Peck Reservoir. This stretch of water is known as the “warm water zone”. Catfish work their way up the Musselshell for spring spawning and live in the many deep holes the river has as it twists and bends through beautiful prairie and wooded hillside. Bill told me that cats in the 10-15 pound range can be caught, but 4-6 pounders were more common. Stopping their upriver passage is the Davis Diversion Dam, downstream for the town of Roundup, which we would be fishing below.
After a leisurely drive from Great Falls through ever-changing prairie land and wooded hillsides, I arrived at Bill’s ranch. Grabbing a quick dinner, I followed Bill as he drove along a gravel road to a prime spot on his land. Deer darted away from us, and turkey leisurely ate their dinners in the recently plowed fields. I had to resist the worry of someone being in “our spot”. The land is private property, so unless one of his neighbors were fishing there it would be devoid of other anglers. After living in Washington for thirty years I’m still getting used to the concept of being able to fish with no one around me!
We arrived at an irrigation dam that had a beautiful hole below it and a clean river falling over the top of the spillway. As Bill drove off, I pulled out my seven-foot medium-weight spinning rod/reel combo and, like the days of my youth, tied on a large bass wide-gap hook. Two feet above the hook and tied a barrel swivel, and above that a sliding 3/8 ounce weight. For dinner, I was offering the fish down there a large, juicy nightcrawler.
My first cast landed two-thirds of the way across the river. I reeled in the slack line and found a broken branch to prop my rod up against. Within minutes the rod tipped started to twitch, and then took a wild bend that started to pull the rod towards the river. I grabbed my rod and felt a solid fish on the other end of the line. The fish made several strong runs in the current and then settled down to a battle of tug of war with me. Working him ever closer to the shoreline, I saw that my first Musselshell fish was indeed a beautiful catfish! I found a sandy area of shoreline and dragged the fish onto land. What a beauty!
I re-baited my hook and cast it out to the middle of the river again. After a few minutes of waiting my rod again doubled over from the pull of a large fish. Setting the hook, this time I noted a different fight, and sure, enough, had a beautiful smallmouth bass on my line. Bringing in the fish I admired him, looking to be a solid 4 pounds. I released Mr. Smallmouth back to the river. With the sun beginning to set I decided to call it an evening and get back to the ranch before dark.
Arriving at Bill’s ranch my son Matt was there, having driven from Helena. “How’d you do”? they asked me. Pulling out the catfish from my cooler, Bill looked at it and said, “That’s a nice one, I’d say about ten pounds”. Matt’s eyes got wide and he asked, “When do we go?”
The next day’s sunrise was a classic Big Sky Painting, with red and yellow hues breaking over the trees. We had been shadowing a group of about thirty turkeys, trying to keep below a ridge that separated us from the turkeys between the field and the river. Finding an opportunity for an ambush location, we set up and started calling the mix of hens and gobblers toward us. Donn Morse of Old Goat Lures is also an avid turkey hunter and had given me a couple of the 3D pot calls that he makes and sells. The pots have great tone and soon several turkeys started our way. And then stopped. Dismayed, we watched the birds turn and head for the river, flying across to safety.
Returning to the ranch Bill had prepared for us a breakfast fit for a, well, a rancher. We made plans for the day, deciding to visit some friends and hitting the river after dinner for an evening bite.
I was excited to be fishing old school with Matt. Our lifetime fishing experiences had generally been from a boat, and I couldn’t recall bank fishing with him before. It gave me pause to think how sometimes possessions and technology can rob us of something so simple by making it complex. All the tools we use for fishing from a boat are certainly important, but there is just something about sitting on a bank and soaking a worm, waiting for a bobber to get pulled underwater, or seeing a rod tip twitch, knowing that on the other end, some kind of fishing is preparing to make your bait his meal.
After dinner we headed over to our fishing hole, passing groups of turkeys teasing us in the fields. They would have to wait for another day, we were Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, our fishing rods and a box of worms in hand, looking for the perfect piece of forked tree branch to serve as a rod holder.
Matt baited up and cast out, and in a matter of minutes announced that he had a bite. Tightening down on the line, he set the hook and reeled in his first Musselshell catch, a nice smallmouth bass.
And so, the evening went on. Matt and I were kept busy with a steady evening bite. The smallmouth were most active, and we caught around a dozen ranging from dinks to nice 2-3 pounders. Thrown in the mix were plenty of yellow eye, which is a Montana version of a giant herring, around 12” in length and very spunky to catch. Sadly, the catfish bite was dead. No worries, though, with the Missouri River as our backyard there will be plenty of new places to explore the next time we decide to go “Old School” fishing.
