Fishing Michigan

Walking ditches, seeing the weeds move against the current and taking off running.  Those were memories from walking Plum Creek as a kid.  Just a mile or so down the road from my parent’s house, it made for a nice bike ride, and before that just a good stretch of the legs.  With me went my spear.

I don’t know the make of the spear head, but it was a nice 6 tine model.  I had it attached to a 12 foot pole for spearing carp and suckers out of the crick.  We walked for miles on either side of the road studying the waters below the bank edge.  If we went too early it was not uncommon to see 30+ inch Northerns making their spawn run from Lake Erie.

In the prime time for the carp runs, we would spear as many as 10 or so in a day.  It got to be so much fun I would tie off the little red wagon we had as kids to the bike.  Yes,  it was a Radio Flyer, didn’t everyone have one back in the Sixties?  Much to Mom’s chagrin, we came back with that wagon loaded with carp for the garden.  Figured if it was good for the pilgrims, it was good enough for me.  Just don’t think they brought any cats on the Mayflower,  after one miscue,  we buried them a lot deeper.

One morning, the suckers were so thick under the bridge I skipped school.   My biology teacher didn’t mind so much, because I brought a few in for him to dissect.  My parent’s didnt mind too much either, because they didn’t know,  and I had learned how to forge mom’s signature pretty well by then.

In recent years, some of the creeks see more than just carp, suckers and pike.  Some of the kids over in Scofield (when I lived in Maybee) were spotting steelhead running in the creeks.  Its a big no no to spear them, as well as pike, but it is like anything else outdoors, just something to see.