06-24 REELLIFE digital - Flipbook - Page 19
fishing
old school catfishing
mike carey
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-andtrue 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
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