An Outdoorsman’s Journal: River of change

Hello friends, Six months after I graduated from high school, I was a deckhand on board the Universal Trader on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. In 1987, I tried canoeing up the Mississippi. I put 988 miles behind me before succumbing to an injury. This past hunting season was 52 falls since my first duck camp on “Old Man River.” To say the least, I am addicted to anything on the Mississippi.

Six years ago I started doing a trip where I use my ATV and travel to a dam while pulling a trailer with gear, where I fish, watch and listen. I did two trips by myself and had positive success on walleye and perch. The next couple of years, Michelle Chiaro, a beautiful lady who passed away 21 months ago, went with me and those trips were classics. Last March I went with my daughter Selina who was enjoying her last spring break from UW-Stevens Point and we hammered the perch, and as always Selina loved her time with Dad and the pups.

This year I was with Ruby and Red and planned on doing the 3-mile journey to the dam and was well aware that harsh weather would be a part of my adventure. Harsh weather meaning 20-plus mile-per-hour winds and lows in the high teens, but still no cares; it’s my job.

Tuesday, March 19 – High 48, low 22 If there is one place where I can say strangers are friends to me, it is in the Buffalo City area, where this morning at a public landing as I was rigging my ATV and trailer, I had four separate people come up to me and tell me they read this column in the Buffalo County Journal and Cashton Record. Today’s plan changed when Craig Bucholz gave me the first information that perhaps I might want to fish a spot much closer than the dam. Craig is 85 and was a lineman for Buffalo Electric back in the day. Craig walks many miles in this area, we have spoken before and I consider him a friend.

With Red, who I am thinking is about 20 days into her pregnancy, and Ruby, her “Ma,” we took off on our adventure. Soon we arrived at paradise. It was a small hole on some backwaters and it had two fishermen working it. For the most part I relaxed, spoke with them and watched as they caught some very nice perch. I was in no rush because, I was in no rush. Soon what would be a trip “bummer,” a very solid northwest wind, began and it affected every part of the rest of this adventure. My new friends left and I made the decision to put out a couple of poles, one with a minnow and the other with a red worm, both fishing off the bottom. My plan was to set up camp while fishing. My camp would be my Eskimo FatFish pop-up ice shack. A big “oops” came as I realized that I had not brought stakes along, so I delayed camp building until the wind let up at dark. Fishing, I loved it, even though I really, really sucked. A few fishermen came and went, and we all talked, most blamed the wind and I met one who went to the other side of the waterway we were fishing and was like a professional athlete as he fished perch on a high bank, in current with plenty of deadfalls. That fishermen was Monty Fernholz of Cashton and we had a couple of good talks. Monty was a middle school science teacher at Cashton and now is retired and very good at harvesting dinner.

So I fish somewhat hard, the wind keeps getting stronger the water in my minnow bucket is becoming ice, day is becoming night and I have to build camp. That was somewhat easy, and when I had it all laid out, the pups naturally took over my sleeping bag. By the way, Red is due May 1 and three pups are spoken for. I have a 40-year history of creating tough golden retrievers and the stud is a well-trained upland bird dog; get ahold of me if you are interested.

Anyways, I retreat to my cabin and it seems like it wants to blow away. The only thing that I can hear is the wind. My cabin is not staked to Mother Earth, but I know it will be a good cabin and not go anywhere in the middle of the night.

Sleep is not my friend. I have a propane light on a 10-pound tank attached to my ceiling and all night long my cabin keeps telling me it wants to fly south. About 4 a.m. my cabin lifts straight up in the air and starts flying towards the water. It is dark; my lantern is running but I cannot see the light, as it is in my upside-down cabin that was stopped just before immersing itself in a very unretrievable piece of water.

My cabin rescue was in the dark. I folded it up, both dogs got inside of my sleeping bag which was on the ground, and we laid there until first light. I fished for the next four hours, had one bite which was my biggest perch of the trip and headed home. I was so tired I could hardly drive.

Sunset

Mark Walters