SW Nebraska fishing stories from the 1880s

My first memory of going fishing was at the Medicine Creek lake when the water level wasn’t even close to full. Dad, who grew up fishing every creek and river in the area, loved fishing for catfish and though I’m not really sure why he took me along (it may be that mom wanted a break), off we went with worms, poles, bobbers and net. The chance of me actually casting a pole or reeling a fish in was pretty slim since my memory places this trip somewhere around 1954 after we had moved to Indianola and the fishing poles were probably twice as tall as I was then, but I do remember how excited I was to be going somewhere with just my daddy. I’m not sure that he shared that view, but he was generally a good sport that day. For some reason, the green rocks exposed along the east shoreline fascinated me more than fishing, and dad’s net looked like a good way to haul them back over to where he was standing. As I tugged that net made of cotton full of my prize rocks over the sharp shale ridges, my four-year-old self had no idea I was ripping holes in dad’s net along the way. He may have been angry but instead he looked at the rocks I had gathered. A child was more important than a fishing net.

There seems to be a resurgence in fishing, kayaking, boating, swimming and sunbathing at Hugh Butler Lake. That’s probably true everywhere as people search for ways to keep themselves and their children occupied. It’s a good thing and also a throw back to the old days when families made a fishing trip become a two-fold success, a break from the hard work of living in the 1800’s and a way to put food on the table. Here are a few articles from the McCook Tribune garnered from the website: www.chroniclingamerica.gov.

July 27, 1888: “Fishing in the clear and limpid (?) Beaver (creek) is now the order of the day and night. One has the satisfaction of knowing that, if the fish don’t bite, the mosquitoes and buffalo gnats will.”

June 13, 1890: “Will someone take mercy on a suffering public and tell a bigger fish story than the one now rehearsed by the boys who caught forty-one fish in two hours, on the Driftwood, a few days ago.”

June 12, 1891: “Felix Kennedy put in a couple of days at Culbertson, this week, catching fish and repairing a flouring mill boiler.”

June 28, 1895: “Sup. Campbell, Mayor Kelley, Agent Magner, Chief Knights and Sam Strasser indulged in a fishing expedition on the raging Medicine creek, last week, and the Cambridge Kaleidoscope takes a column of small type to describe the event, using prose and verse-some of it blank- with the utmost abandon.”

June 12, 1896: “Fishing parties are numerous. But a strict regard for the truth restrains us from making the same statement concerning the fish themselves.”

Lastly, though I shouldn’t really add this as an example of a family fishing trip, the story made me laugh. May 26, 1899: “A fishing party of six had a disastrous wind-up to their pleasure, last Sunday evening, while returning home from fishing on the Willow. The party was driving down Manchester avenue, when the horses attached to the carriage ran away, overturning the carriage and spilling out the occupants promiscuously. Louis Kolb, who was chaperoning the party, had his shoulder dislocated, and Mrs. Blair sustained a slight fracture of the shoulder. The three children in the party escaped without injury of any importance, as did also Mrs. Martha Blair, sister-in-law of the injured lady. It is asserted that some of the party were too highly insured against snake bite, otherwise the runaway might have been averted.” For those who don’t quite get the jab about “insured against snake bite” perhaps you will get that “a bit of the creature was taken”, creature being alcohol.

Packing up our library is quite a task! We aren’t even wanting to think about un-packing again, but the newly painted walls and clean carpets in our new location are making us eager to be on the move!