Angling traditions change and endure

By Mike Jackson

Daily Herald Outdoors Writer

Chicago is a city where traditions often drive the way residents live their lives.

Much of the metropolitan area used to be a blue-collar, working-class region, where city homes were relegated to postage stamp-sized lots, and cars and drivers had to duke it out for a street parking space during winter's cruel months.

Older residents will remember fishing Chicago's lakefront with super-long cane poles and cups of minnows, all hoping to snare some perch to take home.

Most of those treasured cane poles are gone now, traded up, as it were, for inexpensive spinning rigs and small tackle boxes. And yet the lakefront stands as an everlasting respite for the hardworking people who take their leisure time in small doses.

For years I have grumbled at how Wisconsin continues to lure Illinois residents to its woods and waters.

There's no secret to this process. Fathers with their own families were brought to Eagle River by their fathers to experience the embrace of the northwoods.

And once the visitors bring their duffel bags and suitcases into the cabin and take a deep breath of the crisp air, all their little worries seem to disappear.

Bill Muzinski is one of those traditionalists who, while still working, would spend his free time on the lakefront at Montrose and then switch off with trips to Deep Lake in Lake Villa.

“It was always a treat for the family to have plenty of perch and bluegills for dinner every week,” he noted. “And I now realize that not all things last forever because it's tougher to get a 15-fish limit of perch. It's almost impossible to bring home any smelt as well.”

For those two reasons alone, Bill takes his wife and one older child northward to Hayward, Wis., to enjoy a month of jumbo bluegill angling.

“There are lots of Chicagoans up there who can fish to their heart's content,” he added. “But my wife and I still miss those days we spent at Montrose and Navy Pier enjoying the cool breezes and fishing action.”

And yet there are fishing areas still around these days that provide exciting action for anyone wanting to partake.

The Fox Chain has seen a tremendous resurgence of big bluegill takes. Even the size of an average walleye is slowly climbing back to where it was 10 years ago. And, of course, the muskie population is growing by leaps and bounds.

One of my main regrets in Illinois is that we don't have any major trout streams, and that alone is reason enough for fly fishermen to pack their gear and head for the creeks and rivers in Wisconsin to feel the thrill of a big trout.

Like many other folks, outdoors-oriented people tend to hang on to traditions. It's been my experience anglers like things to be the way they were 30 and 40 years ago. They tend to return to familiar places they were introduced to as youngsters, like the supper clubs we were taken to after a wonderful day of walleye fishing on Trout Lake.

But now when we get there we are introduced to the sons and daughters running the lodges and supper clubs, because the old-timers are gone, and the offspring continue to try to hold on to the way it was when they, too, were kids.

Ÿ Do you have a favorite angling tradition? Share it with Mike Jackson by email at angler88@comcast.net. You can catch his radio show 6-7 a.m. Sundays on WSBC 1240-AM.