Old fishing memories that make you nostalgic

I often think back to the good ol’ days fishing out of 12 and 14 ft resort rowboats. Sometimes rowing them if we didn’t bring a motor or we did, and it konked out again. The anchor was either a cinderblock or a milk jug filled with concrete. The rope a braided yellow cheap plastic. Most of the time no seats. Just the bare metal that was hot to the touch in the sun.

When we used motors, the smell and sound of those two-strokes when you finally got them started. How I loved that smell in the morning as boats idled at the docks while people piled in.

When we had our own boat, even launching it was fun. Always roller trailers, never drove the boat on. Just the sound of the winch cranking the boat up is something that triggers me even today.

To keep the fish, we’d use either a nylon stringer or metal one with clips. Only later did we graduate to a floating wire basket.

Minnows were kept in the yellow and white troll behind bucket where 10 minutes into fishing half of them were dead from the warm surface water.

Cane poles, closed spool reels, beat up daredevil spoons, clip-on bobbers. My favorite fish finder to this was was our first Eagle brand that showed the fish as actual fish shapes of different sizes. When that lit up, I knew were in a school and it was right.

Obviously, I love the luxury of today’s fishing, but there are some things I miss about the past. A lot of this also is tied up in how we also caught more fish back then! Back then you could go to a weedline of any lake up north and catch a nice mess of panfish. Today, not so much. So here I am today with all of this equipment and it seems like I have to work a lot harder sometimes to get them. Bass and walleye and pike are easy today, but not the simple bluegill.

Since I have a camper trailer now, I am thinking about getting a 12-14 rowboat to put on a truck rack to get me out on the water during these trips where I can’t bring the big boat. Just the thought of it is getting me excited. Get back to my roots and bring back some of these memories. Which is another thing you used to see all over — boats up on top of cars and trucks.

What do you wax nostalgic about with our sport?

Keep on thinking about more. Tackle box — Simple box with a single tray. It was always a mess of broken reels, tangle pieces of line, rusted out hooks. And somehow you always made do with what you had.

Wood strip boat on a small lake southwest of Mille Lacs. Grandpa smoking his pipe, nursing the old two stroke motor while bailing with a coffee can. Myself, dad & Grandpa with 3 cane poles & Daredevils. You had a choice of Red / White or Black / White. There is only one of us left now but the memory is very clear over 50 years later.

In the 70’s, 3′ rollers on Mille Lacs opening day at midnight in a 14′ aluminum boat from Holiday with a 6 horse Evinrude.
Man! that was heaven.
If you wanted to fish Garrison reef you had to line up the drive in movie screen until it was a sliver, then throw on the heaviest daredevel you had in your box and lowered your speed until you would start dragging bottom.

Dutchboy wrote:

Myself, dad & Grandpa with 3 cane poles & Daredevils. You had a choice of Red / White or Black / White.

I never really did this myself but as a kid I can recall some relatives doing it. They called it “Dutch Fishing” for northern pike. They used long wooden cane poles with Dacron fishing line and just trolled with spoons, primarily the daredevils in colors you mentioned.

Fond memories of trolling daredevils or little Joe spinners with dad and grandpa while mostly reeling in weeds but an occasional fish.

Eelpoutguy wrote:

In the 70’s, 3′ rollers on Mille Lacs opening day at midnight in a 14′ aluminum boat from Holiday with a 6 horse Evinrude.
Man! that was heaven.
If you wanted to fish Garrison reef you had to line up the drive in movie screen until it was a sliver, then throw on the heaviest daredevel you had in your box and lowered your speed until you would start dragging bottom.

For those interested in Mille Lacs history, I highly recommend Joe Fellegy’s (Steve Fellegy’s dad) book (https://www.amazon.com/Mille-Lacs-Memoirs-Secrets-Walleye/dp/0962690708) about growing up at his parents’ resort on the lake. The entire thing is a fascinating read, but you highlighted two things that stood out from his book. First, how small many of the boats were that they went out on. Today people are afraid to go out in their 18 ft boat, but they were out in 14 ft rowboats with small motors.

The second thing is how they used triangulation with land-based landmarks in order to figure out where they were. And here we are today worried about getting 5 feet off target with our graphs.

Back in the early 80s we would fish with grandpa. Cane poles mostly. When you got a big one on throw it out and follow it around until fish was tired out. Another great memory with grandpa get on a school of crappies. First one got a safety pin threw the mouth with a chunk of line on and a bobber just follow the bobber to follow the school when only needed 1 more grab bobber and pull it in limit complete.

gim wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Dutchboy wrote:</div>
Myself, dad & Grandpa with 3 cane poles & Daredevils. You had a choice of Red / White or Black / White.

I never really did this myself but as a kid I can recall some relatives doing it. They called it “Dutch Fishing” for northern pike. They used long wooden cane poles with Dacron fishing line and just trolled with spoons, primarily the daredevils in colors you mentioned.
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You related to the Ruis’s down by Pease?

Many memories fishing just off the dock. Spent hours and hours learning there. Wasn’t some time until mom or dad let me take the rowboat out. Getting crisp burnt, splashing water on the dock when I got piping hot, using life jackets for shade, taking a break when you caught all the fish around, and came right back to see if there was any new ones willing to bite.

Riding my bike to Lake Harriet. wade and fish from shore, still remember catching my first fish on a artificial lure, a bass on a hula popper.

I can still hear the sound that 1963 Mercury 9.8 made back there on the transom of a 1973 Alumacraft 14. And the wonderful smell of spent 2-stroke fuel drifting on the breeze.

I remember trolling and pulling crankbaits–which BTW were never called crankbaits, but rather “plugs”–for hours and hours on the river. I can still hear the way the water brushed against the hull and I remember as a child many times lying on the carpet scrap at the bottom of the boat and falling asleep.

When we lived in west-central Minnesota, my grandparents lived in Morris. Grandma was a keen fisher in her own right and she was absolutely convinced that my dad knew at all times what was biting and where, but he simply would not tell her because he wanted to keep the fish all to himself. When we DID manage to get Grandma and Grandpa onto the fish, I can still hear grandma say, “That just proved that I was right and Michael could have told us about this spot last week!”

I can still hear the pitched roar of the Mercury 9.8 running together with the Evenrude 9.9 taking us all the miles back upriver to camp in Canada. Watching for moose and racing the setting sun to get back and get the fire going and the fish cleaned.

I remember the pet whisky jacks at camp. I know it’s unlikely, but in my mind those birds were the same ones every year. Jake was the boldest one, he would sit on the edge of the table and he had his own plate that he would eat from. He would wait to be fed and then off he’d go to his tree across the river. It was always entertaining to see how many trips he would make before he called it a night.

I can still see KWP disappearing around the point at Kamp Kitchee in the Canadian tundra. Heading upriver for the evening bite. The smoke from the 25 Merc on the back of the Wetliner hung in the air like incense in a great cathedral and the sunset was cast as if through stained glass.

Sitting on the dock at the cabin with Grandpa in the morning catching little channel cats, and then helping Grandma clean them for breakfast. It was good substitute for their favorite, bullheads.

I also used to make the long ride down to the Vermillion river on my bike with my rod, a container of worms, and a lunch my mom would pack for me. I would spend all day down there fishing and playing around in the woods. More often then not I’d loose track of time and have to peddle as fast as I could to be back by dark, or else my parents wouldn’t let me go the next day. I’ll never forget on one of those outings I caught a dog fish which I had never seen before. I thought I had caught a straight up sea monster! I was so proud I loaded that thing up in my backpack, and showed it off all over the neighborhood. I can only imagine what people were thinking when a kid rode up on his bike and pulled that smelly thing out of his backpack. Ha, the good old days!

Riding up to places in like Winnie or Mille Lacs in my Grandpa’s old Winnebago along with my dad and cousin. Then we’d fish with four of us in a 12 ft cheap fiberglass boat with an old Johnson 20HP motor. I remember cutting through the swells and watching the floor pulsate as we hit each wave. I complain about the size of our 14ft cabin boat with 2 people in it. I’m not sure how we ever pulled it off without going overboard but we caught fish. Mostly trolling daredevils and rapalas. Hard to cast when its 4 people in a 12′ boat.

To this day the smell of 2 stroke boat exhaust reminds me of our trips to canada as a kid fishing in a 14ft boat with a 9.9 johnson running all day. It was a simpler time!

My best memories were boating all the way across the lake, about 3/4 mile, to the resort to get a dozen minnows (which Dan counted out exact) and getting a little brown bag of candy also for the day long trip. Growing up on a lake was pretty special, now that I look back… always had a dock and boats at my disposal. Many many memories, but the days in the 14 foot Mirrocraft with the 3hp Johnson are many… always had the oars cause I would run out the tank !!! Mom would always cook up the catch… we had fresh fish often. Man times were simpler.

My grandpa’s boat, which was also my dad’s boat, and the first boat I ever fished in. It was a 1970-something Lund Mr. Pike in Lund Red, with a single console. I believe it was 17 ft long. It had a 70 horse Johnson hanging on the back.

If I could find it I would immediately make a cash offer to the owner. I don’t even know where I would begin looking, my dad doesn’t have any info from the guy who bought it from him probably 15 years ago. I think he was in Roseville.

I hope someone else grew up in this boat and loves it as much as I did.

I instantly go back to sitting on a dock with my grandpa at a small family cabin in Western WI chucking out corks for Crappies. He’d sit there in his overalls with nothing more than a brown bag lunch and a big thermos of water. At the time the lake was relatively clear, and a “big” boat was something longer than 12′ with anything above a 9.9hp outboard. When we timed it right, we would catch fish one after the other. We also had days where we caught maybe a dozen at best. They could take every fish out of that lake and I’d still have wanted to go sit next to him and stare at a bobber floating.

The lessons he taught me were countless. Patience, grit, conservation, commitment, and humility were all at the forefront. He also shared so many stories about my late grandma that he rarely discussed at large family gatherings. My grandma passed away at the age of 46 after a long bout with cancer after having 11 kids. I obviously never met her. My grandpa never once cried reflecting about it, expressed loneliness or a desire to seek company from someone else, but you could hear the sadness in his voice for his kids growing up with only him and the farm. As a farmer raising 9 kids (I think my oldest uncle was 19 when my grandma passed all the way down to kids in diapers), he didn’t get to fish a ton. As he got older and his children didn’t rely on him, he snuck out fishing a bit more. A small wooden dock was the closest thing he had to a vacation for the better part of 30 years. I always begged him to come pick me up to go with. He never once complained about my bobbers in the same tree countless times, me yelling when I’d get a bite, or my nagging him with constant questions. We could’ve caught a million fish, and he swore by never taking more than “a couple” to pan fry whole. It was just him in those days left in the giant farmhouse, and he was the furthest thing from wasteful.

I still remember taking my turn sitting with him as he was about to pass with my mom, her siblings, and a few cousins. He gave me his small old tackle box and was sure to remind me that he loved every minute of taking me fishing no matter how annoying I was. He left this world with a subtle smile and a tear in his eye saying how he couldn’t wait to see his wife again. Days on the dock with mediocre catching were still some of the best fishing experiences I will ever have.

Dutchboy wrote:

Myself, dad & Grandpa with 3 cane poles & Daredevils. You had a choice of Red / White or Black / White.

We were still doing that on Platte Lake well into the 90’s. Also, a Red Eye/Devil was always clipped on the end of one line. Taking the Puddle Jumper (14′ tin boat) with a 9.9 Johnson on the back, looking for the Bull. A mythic northern of epic proportions that Grandpa had tangled with many times in his 40+ years on Platte, but never got his hands on. It was a pretty big step up one year when my uncle showed up with collapsible cane poles from Cabela’s, and we were able to retire the old bamboo ones. My brother, cousins and I would run the Puddle Jumper all day, trolling or tubing or skiing/kneeboarding (which is in fact possible behind that HP), and then after a few Pete Hagens Grandpa would come out for a few runs after dinner. We’d always plan ahead to throw the cane pole in when we finally hooked up to the bull, but usually just a few hammer handles that would be Sunday breakfast or lunch. One time we really got into them, when someone was looking at the neighbors cabin for sale, and as a naive kid told them they were just jumping in the boat. My uncle gave me a stern lesson in fishing reports after that . Great memories!

In the summers when I was young, I would go spend time at my grandparents house. Me and my grandpa would wake up early in the morning and head out to our hunting land where there was a private lake. Always the only people on the lake. A little 14ft aluminum boat with a 6 horse Johnson 2 stroke (I still have the motor and the boat is still at the lake). The only electronic device in the boat was my grandpas old flip phone (he used to keep them in his shirt pocket, occasionally when he would go down to net a fish, it would slide out and splash into the water never to be seen again… Grandma loved that that happened every couple of years).

It was so peaceful and so quiet. We would go out and catch the most and biggest bluegills I’ve ever seen to date. Once we had our limit of bluegills, we would pull up the anchor and fire up the Johnson and start trolling dare devils to catch pike. 2 rods, one for panfish, and a bait caster for trolling. My grandpa passed away last fall, but I still go out there fishing in that boat. The lake is still quiet and the fish are still plentiful.

I miss those days. I love what fishing has become for me, but I always think back and wish for one more day like that.

Fast forward to a year and a half ago, I’d bring my grandpa out fishing in my Warrior. He loved it. I’d put us over a school of perch big enough to keep and he’d always have the biggest smile.

BigWerm wrote:

My brother, cousins and I would run the Puddle Jumper all day, trolling or tubing or skiing/kneeboarding (which is in fact possible behind that HP)

@bigwerm

This is a 15, but my kids both learned to ski behind it and still enjoy skiing behind it.

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One of the things I like about going to small lakes up north is taking me back to some of this. Walk down to the docks of a resort and look through the old boats people are still running. The old boats still tied up to the docks of cabins. The old school pontoons with the plastic lawn chairs on the deck. Minnow buckets tied off to all of them. Motors smoking away.

It’s all a lot more interesting than what you see on the big lakes and all of the fancy rigs.

big_g wrote:

My best memories were boating all the way across the lake, about 3/4 mile, to the resort to get a dozen minnows (which Dan counted out exact) and getting a little brown bag of candy also for the day long trip. Growing up on a lake was pretty special, now that I look back… always had a dock and boats at my disposal. Many many memories, but the days in the 14 foot Mirrocraft with the 3hp Johnson are many… always had the oars cause I would run out the tank !!! Mom would always cook up the catch… we had fresh fish often. Man times were simpler.

I am so glad bait shops went away from the dozen minnows portions and move instead to giving you a scoop. A dozen crappie minnows lasted us all of 15 minutes — especially as kids with strong casts. So grateful today to be able to reach down into a big mess of flopping minnows and know I don’t have to ration.

When. See any pictures of trips with my mother, I’m immediately taken back. She was my biggest cheerleader and always encouraged me to do and try anything outside the box. Her patience when I was little was amazing. Yet she was the only person I could hop in a boat with and just relax. Many great memories

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Geez, somebody cutting onions?! A lot of great stories, gentlemen.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

I can still hear the sound that 1963 Mercury 9.8 made back there on the transom of a 1973 Alumacraft 14. And the wonderful smell of spent 2-stroke fuel drifting on the breeze.

This is my earliest memory. We had virtually the same setup, maybe different years. Spending hours fishing with dad, mostly napping in the front using a life jacket as a pillow. Hopping on the bike with the old Zebco and one of my dads small metal tackle boxes and biking to the “dam” on Cokato lake. Casting daredevils and mister twisters for anything that bit. Digging worms for fishing is a big one. It’s been a long time since I’ve done that and need to again. Catching frogs with the old man to go soak in the Crow River. Ice fishing with my nephews (who were the same age as me) in their 6×8 homemade shack with the wood stove going for hours. No electronics needed.

Bigwerm do you remember the channel inn? Good old days me and my brother,we worked at the boathouse selling bait cleaning boats, putting the 9.9 resort motors on and off for rentals I got a great memory the day Al lindner took us out walleye fishing

As a kid during summer break, I would pour over the Cabela’s and Bass Pro catalogs daily. Go through the Sybil Smith and Ron Schara books about the local Twin Cities lakes and dream about trying that next lake. I brought my change to the school when they had a book sale in order to buy subscriptions to as many fishing magazines as they offered. Just pour over them day after day.

Built a spoon out of a pop can top. Put on a casting plug and casted out on the yard all summer. Rig up a rod holding on my bike to make it easier to head to Twin Lake in Robbinsdale.

When I think about it now, I was so obsessed. I suppose you can relate this to the obsession kids today have with video games.

Joe Jarl wrote:

Geez, somebody cutting onions?! A lot of great stories, gentlemen.

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>TheFamousGrouse wrote:</div>
I can still hear the sound that 1963 Mercury 9.8 made back there on the transom of a 1973 Alumacraft 14. And the wonderful smell of spent 2-stroke fuel drifting on the breeze.

This is my earliest memory. We had virtually the same setup, maybe different years. Spending hours fishing with dad, mostly napping in the front using a life jacket as a pillow. Hopping on the bike with the old Zebco and one of my dads small metal tackle boxes and biking to the “dam” on Cokato lake. Casting daredevils and mister twisters for anything that bit. Digging worms for fishing is a big one. It’s been a long time since I’ve done that and need to again. Catching frogs with the old man to go soak in the Crow River. Ice fishing with my nephews (who were the same age as me) in their 6×8 homemade shack with the wood stove going for hours. No electronics needed.

Know any Hammer’s on the Eastside of cokato lake, family cabin for many years just north of where the current public launch is. Lots of stories about that lake. Pretty nasty back then with the algae from stories I heard.

Deuces wrote:

Know any Hammer’s on the Eastside of cokato lake, family cabin for many years just north of where the current public launch is. Lots of stories about that lake. Pretty nasty back then with the algae from stories I heard.

That name doesn’t ring a bell. One of my cousins lives on the lake and it’s possible he knows of them. He’s pretty involved with the lake association. He’s talked about the algae as well. I believe a lot of the sewage from town used to dump into Sucker creek which flows into the south end of Cokato lake. That was corrected in the 80’s or 90’s. He says when they used to take the boat across the lake to fish, they could follow their trail back through the algae hours later. It’s a pretty clean lake nowadays, other than farm runoff.

The SCRATCHER wrote:

Bigwerm do you remember the channel inn? Good old days me and my brother,we worked at the boathouse selling bait cleaning boats, putting the 9.9 resort motors on and off for rentals I got a great memory the day Al lindner took us out <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>walleye fishing

Absolutely! I’m sure you crossed paths with my Grandpa, and probably me a few times depending on how long you worked there. My Grandpa Charlie Brandl bought the cabin in the mid-50’s I think, and then lived there from the 70’s to late 90’s. Him and the neighbor, Morey DeLong, are responsible for most of the rock bank around the lake shoreline. And my family spent most of the summer there in the 80’s and 90’s.