Wisconsin River

Shovel-nosed sturgeon.

The whole of the USA seems to drain into the Mississippi Basin. Literary folks hear of the "Big Muddy" and think of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn; musicians probably think of The Blues, but today most of us probably remember Hurricane Katrina and the dreadful floods down there in New Orleans and the Delta.

Wisconsin is a long way away from all that, but up here the river is still a big deal. The Mississippi runs all the way down the state's western boundary with Iowa. You cross it on high bridges, almost like flying over it. Steep eroded buttresses on both banks make it really hard to get down to the shore amd the level fluctuates so much that there are no paths or lanes along the water's edge; they all stick to the bluff.

The old song goes "It's a treat to beat your feet in the Mississippi Mud" but I have to admit I've never even cast a line into "Ole Man River". We must rectify that some-time because the range of fish species just waiting for us to catch them is mind boggling. What do you fancy? Paddlefish? Alligator Gar? Sturgeon?

I have explored tributaries such as the Fox River in Illinois, and the Wisconsin River near Galena. These are still big rivers, on a par with the Severn, the Wye or the Tay but a thousand miles from the sea. Above the navigable sections they become wide, braided rivers. In high summer you can paddle across them in sandals or float down them for miles in an old inner-tube, but even then you will keep running aground on sand bars. In winter they freeze and in spring you had better keep well away; but in August, this is Fishing Heaven.

As usual, I just blundered into Spring Green's K-Mart and bought a fishing licence. It was a surprisingly thick document, like a computer manual but all in one language. 'Thick because it has so many rules and regulations for each species and each section of river that, if the guys from the Fish and Wildlife Department come after you, you might as well just hold up your hands and let them arrest you. You are bound to have done something wrong, even if you think half the species you catch might possibly be new to science and aren't in the manual.

In Wisconsin they talk about sport-fish a lot: All the rest are pan-fish or bait-fish. Sport-fishes include trout of various kinds but top of the list is sturgeon. We are not just talking about swimming tree-trunks that you need a truck to carry, but also smaller fish like the shovel nosed sturgeon. Probably all of them are endangered but if you bait up with a worm, you might just hook one: I did.

Small-mouth bass.

The game fish staples are walleye, small-mouth bass, northern pike and muskellunge. The time-honoured redneck approach is to eat them all, so the regulations provide for slots or windows for each species. If it's too small you have to put it back, if it's too big the same applies, but if it's enormous, it's a trophy and you can keep it. This is a practical way to try and maintain breeding stocks but still allow fishing for the pot, but it seems almost un-enforceable to me. But what do I know?

In just one afternoon fishing a shallow, sandy, snagless pool with worms, my wife caught a muskie pike, a  bunch of catfish and a couple of shovel nosed sturgeon. I chucked a fly out and caught dozens of moon-eyes. They looked like a cross between dace and silver bream. This whetted our appetite for the place and we returned in force years later.

This time the river was higher. We caught none of the above but a lot of entirely different fish, especially wall-eyes which I think must have been stocked. My best fish was a small-mouth bass of about a pound and a half, caught on a Rappala and I bumped it on the head to join a bucket-full of walleyes and catfish. Then the white Ranger truck stopped on the bridge above us. The red lights began flashing and a big man in a short jacket, black shades and smokey-the-bear hat looked down on us with binoculars. He took photos. He undid the popper on his holster. He called his boss. He meant business.

You need to imagine what we looked like. My brother and I were out for the afternoon with our kids. I think we had two girls and two boys at this point, all under ten year old and all using cheap K-Mart gear. Perhaps the cheap gear and lack of boat or smart 4x4 made us "White Trash"?

"Hi Folks" he called, even before he approached us through the bankside cotton-woods. "Hello"! we cheerily responded. I think this ritual avoided a one-sided shoot out then and there, but it still allowed the Ranger the upper hand. As Minnesota's tallest comedian, Garrison Keillor, once wrote of a Lake Wobegon campsite owner, "Beneath that tough exterior beat the heart of a man who meant every word he said."



Sturgeon on Hanna's line. Spring Green, Wisconsin.

 "Whattyagot?" he asked after viewing our state permits. I showed him our catch and he laid his pistol down where he could grab it while measuring the fish with his government-issue tape measure, facing me the whole time in case I tried anything funny or set about "making his day". He spent a great deal of time on my bass and I started planning my escape. I reckoned I should lunge for the gun before running as a shot in the back can be quite painful. Pistol wounds take a long time to heal, but less time than shotgun wounds, I'm told.

He left eventually, but he didn't say "Have a nice day y'all" and neither did we. We hastily packed our stuff and headed for home.

You have to admire the way that the Americans enforce fishing regulations, or indeed, any regulations, but you have to admit that it surely takes the fun out of your holiday.