A few weeks ago I took a little drive and my first stop was at Beaver Lake, which I wrote about a couple of weeks back. I wrote about the lake, plus what it meant to me as a youth. After visiting Beaver Lake, I ventured on and ended up at St. Olaf Lake, which is also a lake that brings back some very good childhood memories of days gone by.
Growing up as a country kid a little bit north of Albert Lea, I pretty much lived outdoors year-round. With the exception of one weekend in the winter when there was an ice fishing contest on St. Olaf, I would get to that lake about two or three times a summer. I was too young to drive, so I was at the mercy of my mom and dad as far as when I would get to visit this lake. My dad always made it a point to get to St. Olaf at least a couple of times each summer and once in the winter for the big contest.
My dad, although he loved the outdoors, was never really into the fishing thing. He loved riding horses and had always owned one or two for as long as I can remember. Getting back to the lake: my dad would try and rent a pontoon boat, not only to take us kids out, but also my grandma (my dad’s mother), and my aunt and uncle.
We would make an afternoon of it and I always thought that this was great, except that as I got older it started to seem more like a floating picnic than a fishing expedition. I’ll never complain about the food. Mom made her potato salad, which was the best, and we had VanCamp’s pork and beans and cold meat sandwiches. My grandma and Aunt Alice would bring various goodies (sweets). Food always tastes great when you’re on a picnic or just eating while enjoying the great outdoors. There were a couple of upsides to our pontoon adventures, one was that we were spending time with family and the other was that we were on a lake that offered more than the usual bullheads and rubber tails.
One memory that has been with me all of these years was that of a gentleman who came and rented one of the fishing boats. He was wearing a red and black plaid flannel shirt and just to look at him you could tell that he was a real outdoors type. After he had put his gear in the boat, he took off from the dock with no motor to power the boat, just oars. I thought that just that alone made him seem like a real outdoors kind of guy. I actually felt kind of sorry for him until he came back to the dock with a nice stringer of largemouth bass. Back then, catch-and-release was not a common practice; if you caught it, you ate it.
In those days I read the comics in the local Tribune and Mark Trail, who was an outdoorsman, was sort of my hero. He was always solving problems that seemed to pop up pertaining to the outdoors. This guy who was fishing at St. Olaf kind of reminded me of him in a way. It was probably the flannel shirt or how the guy carried himself; either way, he knew how to fish and he impressed one young wannabe outdoorsman.
After I had returned from serving my country, I, along with a group of friends, decided to go to St. Olaf fishing for a day. It had been a few years since I had been there and although many things were the same, many things had also changed. Time has a way of changing things, but it’s part of life. We had rented a couple of boats and, began fishing along the lily pads I spotted many large bass swimming amongst the lily pads, but I never could coax any of them to bite one of my “sure fire” fishing lures.
After my wife and I were married and our two boys came along, we made plans to visit St. Olaf for a weekend of camping with our neighbors, Gene and Kathy and their girls. It rained during the first night and the next morning my boat was almost full of water. I was just glad it was still floating. We were tenting in those days and, even though we had experienced downpour during the night, we managed to stay dry in our new tent.
Yes, the memory of those days spent at St. Olaf Lake are precious memories that I will always cherish.
Until next time: remember that when you get permission to hunt someone’s land you not only need to respect the land owner, but also be respectful the land that you are hunting. Be safe, be good and enjoy the outdoors.
Please take a few moments also to honor those who have sacrificed so much for the freedoms that we enjoy today. Also take a little extra time to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice, those who have served and those troops that are serving today.